Carl B. Hancock - AMEA President-Elect
New Conference Evaluation Portal a Huge Success! Conference attendees provide feedback directly to presenters.
Importance of Feedback Several years ago, Cornelia Yarbrough suggested that good teaching might be in sonata form1. Indeed, it seems that effective instruction tends to follow a basic three-part pattern, often referred to as a complete teaching cycle, comprised of 1) teacher presents a task, 2) students attempt to perform the task, and 3) teacher provides accurate corrective feedback along with approval or disapproval2. When conductors use complete teaching cycles they tend to profoundly affect their students’ sense of accomplishment, enjoyment of the subject mat ter, and percept ion of teacher competence over conductors who attend only to the first two parts of the cycle 3 . While this explanation of teaching cycles is grossly oversimplified, today the importance and influence of the third part of the cycle––accurate and immediate corrective feedback––is widely recognized as a fundamental tenet of good instruction.
Unsurprisingly, it is almost impossible to be a good teacher without giving feedback on a regular basis. A student plays a heartfelt solo and we smile in approval, another student identifies the correct diminished chord and we award five points while nodding our head in affirmation, still another helps a friend pick music up off the floor and we say thank you for thinking of others. While giving accurate feedback to students is important to effective teaching, effective teachers also seek out opportunities to get feedback from their peers. For example, secondary music teachers regularly have their students participate in music festivals, competitions, and assessments where professional adjudicators offer advice, commentary, and rate the performance using standardized measures. Many of us invite trusted colleagues to visit our schools, conduct our groups, and provide unmitigated advice in exchange for a cup of coffee or barbecue dinner.
Honest and useful feedback is important to our professional and personal growth. When feedback is positive, immediate, and accurate it affirms that things are on the
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right track and that others are pleased with our work. When feedback consists of constructive criticism or is negative we have an opportunity to improve, try a different approach, and determine whether we are headed in the right direction.
AMEA Conference Evaluation Portal In the last issue of the Ala Breve4, I shared that the Governing Board traditionally solicits feedback about the annual Alabama Music Educators Association In-Service Conference and that for the 2013 AMEA Conference the board voted to add an additional level of feedback––assessment of individual clinic sessions. The reason behind the addition was simple, clinicians spend many hours prepar ing thei r presentations and it seemed right to provide them with feedback directly from attendees. At the same time, we wanted to give AMEA members the opportunity to comment on the s e s s ions and e s t abl i sh a l ine of communication with the clinicians.
To accomplish this task, we developed the Conference Evaluation Portal, which allowed AMEA members to use their smartphones, tablets, or computers to select a c o n f e r e n c e session, evaluate it, and have the evaluation sent directly to the clinician by email. A l i n k t o t h e evaluation form was placed in the conference Guidebook App for attendees to use.
Did the Clinicians Like the Portal? After the conference, I emailed the clinicians to solicit their thoughts on the immediate feedback they received. In general, our clinicians were very appreciative of our evaluations. They especially liked how quickly they received feedback and praised the evaluation system. Here is a sample of their comments:
“First, let me say that I have been raving about the conference's feedback method to colleagues this weekend. Your conference is the very first that I have received near instantaneous feedback for something like
this. I think the concept is fantastic--it allows all those with smartphones to comment while it is on their mind, and the fact that it goes immediately to the presenter is very helpful.”
“The conference session feedback system was wonderful. We received feedback within minutes of the session wrapping up. I wish all conferences used this system! Thank you for being willing to experiment...I hope it is used from here on out”
At the same time, not everyone was comfortable with the immediacy of the feedback, one clinician, who received much praise and admiration from at tendees , of fered the fol lowing suggestions and thoughts:
“Regarding the feedback, it was a little disconcerting to get random emails about my session/performance....I think it would be better to somehow get all of the feedback in one message...I was sort of apprehensive about reading them as they arrived. Doing a session really is a lot of work, receiving ongoing critiques after the fact is a bit uncomfortable, and may be discouraging. I am wondering if just the planning committee needs to review these evaluations and then maybe keep the feedback in mind for future planning.”
Most clinicians shared that they really appreciated our comments and suggestions for improvement.
“The response to my session was o v e rwh e lmi n g l y p o s i t i v e a n d encouraging, and the quantity of it, I believe, was directly attributable to the ease of the
system....Please continue to use it, and thank you.”
They also gently encouraged conference attendees to provide more written comments...
“The short answer questions were particularly helpful when people completed them, but I know they take more time for the participants to fill out...”
con’t on page 45 February/March 2013
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