Given all the research that’s widely disseminated about feedback in general and the nature of teacher expertise, I’m surprised by how resistant and antagonistic some folk can be to the idea that feedback to teachers should be co-constructed. There are plenty of people who are quite confident in their sense that giving feedback in a straightforward direct manner is a meaningful, legitimate and productive process. Meanwhile, co-construction can be characterised as a rather soft and woolly time-consuming process akin to the folly of discovery learning.

I have to take a deep breath. There are always bad faith takes to filter out but to me this type of response suggests that we’re either just not defining our terms remotely well enough to be having a meaningful exchange OR – some people really do believe that just telling teachers to do things can lead to sustained positive change in their teaching, and that asking teachers is somehow just letting them guess.

So, here I’ll try to explore what I think co-construction means.

First, some reference points for me:

Josh Goodrich on Responsive Coaching: The need to develop teachers’ situation assessment is paramount. Teachers are alone most of the time, so to me this suggests developing capacity to self-diagnose issues that arise is massively important, building capacity for longer, deeper change; arguably more important than fixing any one specific problem we happened to notice on a drop-in.

Paul Bambrick-Santoyo from Leverage Leadership: “Five Errors to Avoid, Error 3: Just tell them, they’ll get it. Top-tier truth: If they don’t do the thinking, they won’t internalise what they learn. Having teachers teachers think about their teaching improves their performance”. Co-construction embeds the all-important element of inviting a teacher to do the thinking they need to do.

Deans for Impact: The science of teacher expertise. Teachers need to formulate a mental model… this is an essential outcome of a feedback process. That needs to include a process where you generate thinking – linking cause and effect as they work towards a specific goal that they have in mind. It’s their goal, their model, their thinking – so the feedback has to generate and reinforce that.

Sarah Cottinghatt/Ausubel on Meaningful Learning: Meaning is made by each individual – building on their prior knowledge to make sense of new information. It’s the same for coaching and CPD. The meaning that matters – the only meaning that matters – is in the head of the teacher and you can’t just zap it in there. They have to form it themselves – even if…. no, especially if… you’re the one suggesting the idea to them. Co-construction embeds loops of checking for understanding – that you’re talking about the same thing when exchanging ideas; your sense of the technique is the same as theirs.

Dylan Wiliam and others on feedback: Feedback needs to change the learner – not the work. It needs to be more work for the receiver than the giver. For feedback to have value it has to land – it’s what the receiver receives that matters, not what the giver thinks they’ve given. So how do you know this without dialogue? Then we need to reduce feedback over time and avoid SATNAV syndrome otherwise we’re creating dependence, not fostering independence.

Jim Knight on Dialogical Coaching: “A dialogical approach balances advocacy with inquiry. Dialogical coaches do not withhold their expertise.” Co-construction embeds ‘co’ – meaning jointly or mutually. In practice this means weaving your expertise into an exchange of ideas – taking turns to speak. It doesn’t mean ‘sacrifice my authority and expertise to someone who knows less, thereby letting them work it all out by themselves‘. Obviously.

So, that to me is what co-construction is. It’s a dialogue in which ideas are shared such that a teacher’s mental model for the problem they’re solving and the action they’re planning to take are formulated and, to the greatest extent possible, they align with the coach or observer’s view of them; the teacher’s model and their planned action are informed by the discussion and the observer’s insights and expertise are fed in to the extent needed.

As a rule, given how infrequent these interactions are relative to the time teachers spend alone, it’s usually more efficient to stimulate the teacher’s thinking first. What do you think was happening here when you did X? Was that your intention? Are you explicitly trying to involve all students? Do you think that’s happening successfully? etc.

However, at times, we might need to seed this discussion with some very direct input; something quite specific and directed. From what I noticed, it seemed to me that some students can sit out the questioning because they’re not expecting to be asked – and I think you could be much more explicit in how you create the expectation that literally everyone is expected to think and be ready to answer. Just stick to the script: get everyone thinking first, then pause and scan, giving thinking time; then select someone by name.. But, even here, unless I then work with the teacher to co-construct meaning with them, I’m unlikely to secure positive change. My input isn’t the feedback – it’s the suggestion; it’s the opener, not the closer. I need to hear the teacher reflect that back to me. They need to process that and construct a version of their model for questioning where ‘pause’ has meaning.; ‘thinking time’ has meaning, where’ select someone’ has meaning in that class of actual students. There’s so much tacit unsaid content in any codified routine -and we need to flush all this out. We co-construct. We do it jointly.

Why? Because otherwise things don’t change. It’s as simple as that. Teachers up and down the land receive feedback week-in week-out that is very direct, sometimes given in the absence of dialogue, constructed by their observer and handed over – and it makes no lasting difference whatsoever. Those nuggets of feedback, a peashooter against a tank. To restate an analogy I’ve used before – if you want to get the tank-of-habits to change direction, you need to get up in the cab alongside the driver and help them change course. Because they’re at the wheel, not you and most of the time you are not even there.

So -that’s co-construction.

Does it take longer? No. A five minute exchange based on co-construction takes the same time as a five minute feedback session where the observer gives feedback. And because it works better you get further faster. So, longer term, you save time.

Does it help to have well-understood techniques to refer to and a shared understanding of learning informed by good CPD? Yes it really does.

Does it help to have a well-understood protocol for the coaching/feedback exchange (eg the 5Ps? ). Yes it really does.

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