Sean Banville's Blog

‘Classroom Conversations’ feedback

This is the conclusion to a three-part series on how I use audio files to provide my students with feedback. As I said in the previous two posts, my students really like getting feedback orally for a variety of reasons. I like using audio because it provides me with an authentic  and pedagogically sound medium for both further listening  practice and communicating with my students on a more personal level (I hope my voice is warmer than my pencil).

The third use of oral feedback I would like to describe is that of conversing with students on a more fun and informal level. I call this ‘classroom conversations’. I suppose it could be sub-titled ‘The Teacher’s Weekly Journal Entry for his Students’.

All I do is press record and chatter away to myself at the end of the week about what I thought of the week and my classes. I then put the saved mp3 file on a shared folder for my students to access. I do an online version of this using the excellent collaborative timeline site OurStory.com. I thoroughly recommend this site for building up the story of your class throughout the semester.

For some reason, my students seem to like listening to me rambling on about nothing in particular. I think the real reason is that I try and mention each of the class by name and they want to get to “their bit”. This sometimes makes for a bit of fun conversation / banter at the start of class after the weekend. Some students want to know why I said what I said, while others want to know why they didn’t get a (bigger) mention. This is usually a good carrot to encourage students to work hard in class. Hard, diligent and studious workers always get lots of praise

This form of feedback really gives me a chance to tell students my side of things. The classroom can so often be an ‘us’ (teachers) verses ‘them’ (students) situation. It’s a good opportunity to show students that teachers are humans. And that we have feelings

Here are some of the things I have put in a ‘classroom conversation’ mp3 file that surprised my students and hopefully made me more approachable:

• My heart was beating overtime when Supervisor X was observing me last Tuesday.
• I didn’t sleep well on Monday night because I was so worried about students’ exam scores.
• I was so proud to be with my class on the recent field trip – They were all so responsible.
• I was very happy that class told me about Student Y’s problem. It meant I could change my lesson plan and do something more fun.
• Student Z told me she liked my lesson and that made me happy all day.
• I hate giving presentations so much I lose control of my lips and my voice goes up and down at will.
• I worry that when students waste time or don’t do their homework, they won’t get the job they want or go to the university of their choice.
• I was very sad at the mess the students left the class in on Thursday afternoon and had to spend 30 minutes tidying up their rubbish.

Some of the good things about using this kind of feedback are:

• It brings you closer to your students.
• Students like it.
• It practices students in authentic listening.
• You can introduce things that you might not have time for in class.
• You can reinforce things students might not have been prepared to listen to in class (especially good after a poor set of exam grades).
• Students will respond – either face to face, in writing or with their own mp3.
• It’s another avenue to address classroom management issues.
• It’s a good way to recognize quieter, less confident  students and show them they are valuable members of the class.
• It gets students taking more of an interest in their role in the class.
• It gets me thinking more about my class and how I can make or do things better.

Try it at the end of this week and let me know how it goes.