How to Give Professional Feedback

People get feedback all the time. When you serve a new dish at supper and your 5-year-old makes a face, that's feedback. When you ask a friend if the outfit you just tried on looks good and she says, "Yes, you should buy it!" that's feedback. When the little league team you coach wins a game and the team takes you to the ice cream store, that's feedback.

We're going to tackle professional feedback here, by which we don't mean a simple thumbs-up, thumbs-down review, but rather the kind of feedback that teaching colleagues, supervisors, or principals give fellow educators to improve instruction and student learning. Feedback of this sort should be done in the context of a collegial conversation and should support—indeed, help cause—professional growth.¹  Our focus is on collegial feedback to teachers in formative situations, meaning situations in which teachers are trying to learn and grow, not situations in which teachers are being evaluated to provide a score for a teacher evaluation system.

Learning—It's Supposed to Be Fun