Listening to Tim walk me back through the different sessions I delivered and providing feedback was a great experience, I listened quietly and intently so I could absorb as much of his rich knowledge and experience and possible. I wrote almost 5 pages of notes in our observation feedback and I am sure there were things that I missed even then.
I don’t think I’ve ever been very particularly good at taking on feedback – well at least this was what my A-Level Maths teacher told me when I got a D in sixth form and it’s stayed with me ever since. Up until that point I’d been a serial overachiever so this was my first real hurdle where I might have actually benefitted from asking for help and taking it on board.
I would say I am fiercely independent (think Merida from Brave if you’re looking for context there) but I hugely value the input of others and love collaborating. I finished my MA and went on to start up my own business, another situation I got myself into that didn’t involve much feedback and learning from others reflections of myself. It wasn’t until I started at UAL and worked closely with Roxanne that I started to see the value of feedback as she supported me in reflecting on my sessions. I then made it a fixed monthly date in my calendar where I would sit with Roxanne and look through some of the sessions and 121s that I had delivered that month to see what I did well and where I can improve.
At this point in my blog if you’ve not realised I like things in threes I’m not sure what you’ve been reading (aha), so here are the three main things I’m thinking about following Tim’s feedback:
1.TIME – from here forth I am putting myself on a ban on using the phrase ‘a couple of minutes’ because once Tim flagged it I realised I must say this 40+ times a session, from now on I’m going to focus on precision when it comes to my time communication.
2.EXPLAIN – I managed to explain my card game activity with clarity during the microteach, but things seemed to get a little cloudy whenever I’ve explained it since. I’ve thought about different ways I can speak and show the activity intro so I will work on implementing these soon.
3.REPETITION – repeating stuff is important (see blog 3 for how I learned the law at Plymouth) and Tim showed me how important it is in teaching so I will keep this in mind for my future sessions to make sure that students come away from their session with a clear idea of what they’re learned.
*bonus point – 4. ME – I’m generally a pretty confident person so I need to keep this up, it was great to hear about how my teacher persona was coming across in the recordings that Tim observed. So the moral of the story is keep being me and try to bring in a little bit of funny (I also tried in my blog so please laugh!).