What happens when you blend the energy of a poetry slam with the practical tools of professional learning? BASIS International School Guangzhou recently offered a new type of workshop during their professional development day—a one-hour PD Slam for primary, middle, and high school teachers. This workshop, packed with three short, hands-on sessions of choice, inspired teachers to explore practical strategies they could immediately apply in their classrooms. The PD Slam covered topics such as classroom management, incorporating speaking and listening protocols, station teaching, and effective use of technology, complementing a day-long agenda of learning.
Jordan King, Chair of ICT & Computer Science, shared about the PD Slam session he led, The Classroom Echo—Harnessing Student Feedback, and its impact on his peers.
What was the topic of your professional development session?
My 15-minute session covered two main points. First, I showed the importance of getting student feedback by sharing a letter written by a student, which noted how crucial it was to their learning to see their feedback put into practice. Then, after reading that, we moved on to explore effective strategies for establishing a culture of feedback in the classroom by sharing resources such as the reflect module in Microsoft Teams.
What does meaningful professional development look like to you?
Meaningful professional development to me means that I could take ideas away from the session that I can use practically or if it makes me think differently about how I approach my teaching and planning. When I come away from a session with more questions to quench my curiosity or excited to use a new tool I found, I know that it has been a valuable use of time.
How did your session address priorities or challenges at your school?
Whether it’s a show of hands, progress check, satisfaction survey, or end-of-year class evaluation, I have noticed around our school that we frequently collect a lot of data. This, however, isn’t the problem. The challenge we face is using the feedback we’ve received and trying to make it visible to the students so they can understand that it’s not just improving our teaching but also their own learning. Making the feedback of students visible allows them to see that their comments can shape the education of not just themselves but also their peers. I believe this gives the students a sense of ownership and pride, which will help them in their educational journey.
What strategies or approaches did you use to engage teachers during your PD session?
From the start, I shared the resources I had used in preparing the session, then quickly moved on to share a letter from a student that took us into the mind of a BASIS scholar and their thoughts on how impactful seeing their feedback put into practice was. Some tips on effective questions to ask (including examples) were distributed to the attendees before finally covering a few helpful strategies for getting feedback, which included a demonstration of setting up the Teams Reflect add-on.
What has shaped how you deliver professional learning sessions?
I believe spending time to really dive into the topic beforehand and see it used firsthand in the classroom helps to prepare for a productive forum. However, what I really believed helped to make this session powerful was that it was a short 15-minute session, which meant that I had to cut out the usual warm-up and warm-down and get straight to the resources and tools that would make the session worthwhile.
What was the most surprising or rewarding feedback you received from colleagues?
At the end of the session, teachers were curious about how the reflect tool in Teams worked and were already looking at ways they could use it in their classrooms. I also had a few teachers share with me after the session how inspirational the letter was from the BASIS student sharing their view on seeing their feedback put into practice. Both seemed like the most effective takeaways from the session.
How do you hope your colleagues will apply the ideas from your workshop?
If teachers left with a renewed understanding that feedback works just as well (if not better) coming from student-to-teacher rather than the usual teacher-to-student, then I believe the workshop has been a success. I hope the attendees also share their thoughts and resources with other coworkers and become ambassadors themselves in making learning visible through harnessing student feedback.
Jordan King
Chair of ICT & Computer Science
BASIS International School Guangzhou
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