Good Teaching = Good feedback

Malcolm Gladwell the popular author or the best-selling books "Outliers", "Blink", and "Tipping Point" has recently penned a new article for the New Yorker in which he touches on the skill sets of good teachers, quarterbacks, and financial advisors and the methods we use for identifying those who possess the prerequisite skills to succeed in these arenas.

Gladwell points out that recent research indicates the quality of teaching is directly linked to the quality of feedback teachers provide to students. In essence the culture created in the classroom enables a high quality data feed back loop. Here's an example the author quotes.

"Then there was the superstar—a young high-school math teacher, in jeans and a green polo shirt. “So let’s see,” he began, standing up at the blackboard. “Special right triangles. We’re going to do practice with this, just throwing out ideas.” He drew two triangles. “Label the length of the side, if you can. If you can’t, we’ll all do it.” He was talking and moving quickly, which Pianta said might be interpreted as a bad thing, because this was trigonometry. It wasn’t easy material. But his energy seemed to infect the class. And all the time he offered the promise of help. If you can’t, we’ll all do it. In a corner of the room was a student named Ben, who’d evidently missed a few classes. “See what you can remember, Ben,” the teacher said. Ben was lost. The teacher quickly went to his side: “I’m going to give you a way to get to it.” He made a quick suggestion: “How about that?” Ben went back to work. The teacher slipped over to the student next to Ben, and glanced at her work. “That’s all right!” He went to a third student, then a fourth. Two and a half minutes into the lesson—the length of time it took that subpar teacher to turn on the computer—he had already laid out the problem, checked in with nearly every student in the class, and was back at the blackboard, to take the lesson a step further.

“In a group like this, the standard m.o. would be: he’s at the board, broadcasting to the kids, and has no idea who knows what he’s doing and who doesn’t know,” Pianta said. “But he’s giving individualized feedback. He’s off the charts on feedback.” Pianta and his team watched in awe"

It's an interesting observation. If you get a few seconds check out the link below to the full article. It's worth a read.

link to article here: link to New Yorker