There was a time when I would visit a classroom as an administrator to conduct a short walkthrough. I would notice something amazing that the teacher did or want to share something that I noticed. I would walk out of the classroom with the best intention of sharing feedback with the teacher, but two hours later when I had the chance to share, I couldn’t remember exactly what I was supposed to share. I tried a simple solution: sharing a sticky note before I left the classroom, but again I had a hard time remembering what I was sharing from one observation to another.
I had to find something that would allow me to share feedback directly with the teacher, while also collecting the information and data. Eventually, I found a system that worked for me.
I started by creating a Google Form for each teacher with one question, a long answer text called feedback:
From there, I used an add-on called Email Notifications for Google Forms:
I created an email notification for the Google Form, and had it shared with the teacher’s email.
Next, I used Goqr.me to create a QR code of the google form and placed it outside each teacher’s classroom.
Each time, I visited the teacher’s classroom, I scanned the QR code with my phone, and quickly typed in the feedback I wanted to share. By submitting the form, the automatic email notification allowed the feedback to be sent immediately to the teacher’s email. The information was also recorded on a response sheet from the Google Form.
Once I had the Google Form created for one teacher, I duplicated it for each teacher, and updated the teacher’s email to set up for notification. I also added each response to the same existing Google Spreadsheet.
I then had all of the walkthrough information located on one Google spreadsheet.
While the system might not work for everyone, I found it to work for me, and especially help me to hold myself accountable for providing feedback. I also found that teachers appreciated getting direct feedback from each classroom visit.
When mentioning it on a Podcast PD episode a few weeks ago, I’ve had a few people ask about it. I hope it helps, and please ask any questions you may have about the process.
Rich