Mary Catherine Scheeler

Providing Performance Feedback to Teachers: A Review

Teacher preparation programs are under scrutiny for their role in the troubled American educational system. Thus, teacher educators must encourage teachers to use effective teaching practices. One technique for increasing use of effective practices is providing feedback to teachers on both newly acquired and ingrained teaching behaviors. To determine attributes of effective performance feedback, a systematic search for empirical literature was completed. Analysis of the ten identified studies indicates attributes of feedback that have been studied fall into categories of (a) nature of feedback, (b) temporal dimensions of feedback, and (c) who gives feedback. Through this review, attributes of feedback were classified as either promising or effective practice in changing specific teaching behaviors. Only immediate feedback was identified as an effective attribute. Promising practices for feedback to teachers included feedback that was specific, positive, and/or corrective. These findings, recommendations and directions for additional research in feedback and teacher preparation are discussed.

Effects of Corrective Feedback Delivered via Wireless Technology on Preservice Teacher Performance and Student Behavior.

In teacher preparation most supervisory feedback is deferred, allowing learners to perform skills incorrectly and delivery of on-site immediate feedback may interrupt instructional flow. This study used a multiple baseline design to examine effects of immediate, corrective feedback delivered via wireless technology on completion of three-term contingency trials. Participants were five preservice special education teachers working on academic skills with students with special needs in elementary and middle school classrooms. Corrective, immediate feedback was shown to be an effective way to increase completion of three-term contingency trials by teachers. During baseline, percentage of completion ranged from 30-92. With corrective, immediate feedback, all five teachers reached criterion level of 90% completion. Overall, mean percentage of correct student responses increased 3 to 17 percentage points over baseline results for four of the five teachers. All teachers rated the method as beneficial. Implications for practice are discussed.

Providing Immediate Feedback to Co-Teachers Through Bug-in-Ear Technology: An Effective Method of Peer Coaching in Inclusion Classrooms

More children with special needs are educated in general education classrooms than ever before. Ideally, special education and general education teachers work together in these settings as instructional teams, but a “one teaching, one assisting” model is often in place with the special education teacher assuming a subordinate role. As such, the authors conducted research to determine whether changes can be made in teacher instruction so that both teachers in a collaborative team are highly engaged in the instructional process during the lesson. The authors used a multiple-baseline, across-participants design to assess the effects of peer coaches’ giving immediate corrective feedback via bug-in-ear technology on a specific teaching behavior during instruction. Three dyads of co-teachers participated (five women, one man). Each teacher met criterion (three consecutive sessions at 90% or higher) in just three sessions, maintained the behavior at high levels postintervention, and generalized the behavior to a different setting without the peer coach present. Teachers rated the treatment as a beneficial technique that they would recommend to others. Implications for classroom use are discussed.

Using Technology to Deliver Immediate Corrective Feedback to Preservice Teachers

Teacher preparation programs are under scrutiny for their role in the troubled American educational system. If American education is to improve, teacher educators must identify and encourage teachers to use effective teaching practices. A promising technique for increasing use of teaching practices is providing feedback to teachers on newly acquired behaviors. The focus of this study was to examine the effects of immediate corrective feedback on one specific teaching behavior, use of three-term contingencies, to preservice teachers. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of immediate corrective feedback, delivered via a wireless FM listening system. Immediate corrective feedback (as compared with delayed feedback) was shown to be an effective way to increase preservice teacher completion of three-term contingency trials by all participants. These findings and other considerations for additional research using feedback are addressed.

Effects of Immediate Feedback Delivered via Webcam and Bug-in-Ear Technology on Preservice Teacher Performance

University faculty and supervisors dedicated to the preparation of future teachers are facing more challenges than ever before in doing more with less. This includes supervising more preservice teachers in more schools, spread out over a wide geographic area. Feedback is essential to learning, and recent research suggests that the most effective feedback is immediate rather than delayed. New advances in technology may make the job of supervision more efficient and when used to provide immediate feedback, more effective as well. Research was conducted to evaluate the effects of using webcams and Bluetooth™ technology to deliver immediate feedback to special education preservice teachers in practicum placements from remote locations. Results suggest that immediate feedback provided via this technology was effective in increasing the targeted technique in all five preservice teachers who participated in the study. Each participant rated the intervention as acceptable. Implications for classroom application are discussed.

Effects of Immediate Feedback Delivered by Peer Tutors on the Oral Presentation Skills of Adolescents With Learning Disabilities

High school graduation requirements are becoming increasingly demanding. In addition to meeting academic benchmarks, some school districts have added performance requirements such as oral presentations to their criteria for earning a high school diploma. This type of requirement may present an additional challenge for students with learning disabilities. Research was conducted to determine if a treatment package consisting of immediate feedback delivered via wireless technology by peer tutors was effective with improving oral presentation skills in four high school senior girls with learning disabilities. Results suggest that immediate feedback provided by peer tutors (compared with delayed feedback) was effective in decreasing undesirable target behaviors that interfered with performance, in all four participants. Each participant also rated the treatment as acceptable. Implications for practice are discussed.

Effects of Immediate Feedback Using Bug-in-Ear With Paraeducators Working With Students With Autism:

In today’s autistic-support classrooms, paraeducators are tasked with working with our neediest students yet report that they are unprepared for their roles despite attempts at training. The special education teachers who are tasked with coaching and supervising several paraeducators at a time in their classrooms report that they too are unprepared to work with paraeducators in this capacity. In this study, the authors examine the effects of the special education teacher providing immediate feedback via bug-in-ear to the paraeducator on increasing a specific teaching behavior, providing contingent specific praise. Two special education teachers and four paraeducators working in two separate autistic-support classrooms participated in the multiple-baseline across participants study. When immediate feedback from the teacher was introduced in the intervention condition, percentage of occurrences of contingent specific praise increased for all paraeducators and continued at high levels even when the intervention was faded. Rate of occurrences also increased. In addition, the special education teachers and paraeducators all rated the intervention as a beneficial technique they liked using and found motivating and helpful. Implications for classroom use are discussed.

Generalization Training in Special Education Teacher Preparation: Does It Exist?:

Enormous resources are committed by universities to prepare special educators to impact student outcomes of our most vulnerable and neediest learners. Generalizing teaching skills from university to K-12 classrooms must be a component of teacher preparation curriculum; otherwise, we continue to merely train our teacher candidates and hope they sustain and generalize their newly acquired skills. Through self-reported surveys and extant data analysis, we identify the extent to which our sample of special education teacher preparation programs are teaching their teacher candidates to generalize newly acquired teaching skills to in-service settings in K-12 classrooms. Results indicate ambiguity with familiarity of generalization techniques and fidelity of implementation. Programming for generalization is absent in reviewed course syllabi, and student teaching supervisors report a disconnect between university and classroom realities. We recommend a systematic approach to programming for generalization by increasing awareness of generalization techniques through professional development, including accountability measures in course syllabi, focusing on high-leverage practices to create more cohesive preparation programs, and improving communication between instructors and student teaching supervisors. Limitations and future research recommendations are discussed.