Why student feedback?
Standardized student surveys have been used successfully for many years to provide teachers with reliable feedback on their teaching and/or relationship work in classrooms. The great advantage of this approach is that teachers receive feedback from those who know their teaching and relationship work best. Many empirical studies, for example by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation3, show that survey feedback from students is particularly reliable and meaningful compared to other methods of teacher feedback, especially classroom observations. Certain statistical methods are used to prevent the results of student feedback from being biased due to particular student characteristics.
What distinguishes the Teacher-ProGRESS instruments?
Compared to other feedback instruments, Teacher-ProGRESS is distinguished by its group analyti and psychodynamic approach. Most survey instruments developed for teacher feedback are informed by behavioral theories. Their goal is to measure student and teacher behavior. Teacher-ProGRESS goes beyond this approach by focusing on the group dynamics behind the behavior. This provides teachers with feedback not only on their own behavior and that of students, but also with important information about what is latently influencing the behavior of everyone in the classroom.
3 See e.g. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2013/01/measures-of-effective-teaching-project-releases-final-research-report and https://usprogram.gatesfoundation.org/news-and-insights/articles/resource-on-the-met-project
How can I use the Teacher ProGRESS instruments?
If you would like to try the feedback instruments in one (or more) of your classrooms, please leave us your contact details. The development of the instruments is currently in the evaluation phase, during which we rely on the support of teachers who use the instruments in their classrooms. The next survey period will be the 2022-2023 school year, and the data collected during this time will be used to test and further develop the instruments. For your participation, you will receive the evaluation of your feedback results including an explanation of how to interpret your results free of charge.