Qualities – Caitlin Broton

Feedback: Bitter or better?

Within the realms of education, I have come to realize that there are many different layers of feedback. There are state scores which provide feedback to the school districts on their performance, feedback from the principals on those excruciating observations, feedback from a colleague who you went to for advice, and the kind teachers seem to get the most of, feedback from students and their parents. All of these layers of feedback are equally important, but the way that the feedback is brought to the teachers determines how influential the feedback becomes.

When I think of valuable feedback, I instantly think of my past colleague who taught across the hall. I was fortunate enough to have her as a teacher myself in high school. She had since developed a reputation for being an amazing English teacher- the “ELA Queen”. Now that I had the opportunity to work beside her, I wanted to make sure that I not only made her proud, but I wanted to take after her. Because of this, I would often ask her for advice on various aspects of teaching.

One day, out of the blue, she mentioned how impressed she was with this years’ group of freshmen. The same freshmen that I had taught the previous year. She praised my methods of teaching, telling me that she could see a big jump in the students’ knowledge and their writing skills. She encouraged me to keep up the good work and she looked forward to having my students again next year. I could feel my pride swelling like a balloon inside my chest as she told me this.

Sure, I loved to hear the praise from my role model, but it wasn’t always puppies and sprinkles. She would give me constructive criticism when necessary. However, the way she went about it was part of what made her an excellent teacher. She didn’t just tell me to get better at something. She worded her feedback in a kind, encouraging way. Plus, she would then sit down and help me brainstorm ideas on what I needed to work on, what I could do differently- almost making it seem like it was our problem, not just mine. For example, one day I had made a lesson plan that well, to be frank, bombed. What teacher hasn’t been there…I was flabbergasted. It was supposed to be perfect! When I went to her for guidance, she told me what I had done wrong and what I needed to change. Then, she sat down and offered to help. Instead of looking at me and saying, “Well, no duh that didn’t work. That was stupid!” she took the time out of her afternoon, even though school was out and the rush to race out the door to the comfort of our homes was upon us. The fact that she not only gave me feedback, but then showed she cared enough to use her time to help me fix it, meant everything.

Sadly, there has also been feedback within my teaching career that to this day, I still don’t understand. At one point in my teaching career, I was given feedback about my teaching technique from a different colleague. This colleague told me what I did wrong and when I asked if he could explain further, he only spoke in circles. The more loops that our conversation ran, the more exhausted I became. Finally, I simply asked my colleague for advice on what I could do differently. My colleague’s response? “Talk to so and so. They can help you figure it out.”

This person gave me feedback stating that I needed to improve on something, yet when I wanted to discuss it and improve upon myself, they spoke in circles and then pushed me in the other direction. I may, or may not, be a bit of a perfectionist, so if there is an area to improve upon, I am going to try my hardest to do so. To say the least, this person’s reaction exasperated me. You took the time to tell me I am doing a poor job, but then won’t take the time to speak to me about it?

Looking back at the layers of feedback within the teaching profession and the different people whom I have received feedback from, I have learned that when giving my students feedback, it is important to be kind, it is important to be helpful, and it is important to show that you care. I think that by doing those three things, the students will realize how important learning is and how important they are. Obviously, the content of the lesson is valuable, but helping the students to feel comfortable with themselves and their learning will guide them even further.

Strengths

I must admit, I am one of those people that love to take personality tests and quizzes. When we were told that we would have to take the strengths finder test, I was kind of excited! This test sounded like it was legitimate (unlike many of the other quizzes online!), so I was very curious to see what my strengths were. I didn’t know what to expect for results, but I figured it would be something along the lines of linguistics and spatial. Those are common themes in the other quizzes that I have taken. Mmm, not quite…

My fifth strength was restorative. At first, I didn’t know what to think of this. Honestly, I think this is the one that I questioned the most. Restorative is referring to me enjoying solving problems. I must admit, when it comes to this, I often rely on my husband. Even though I’m an adult, I am sometimes awful at this “adulting” thing, so will refer to my husband to handle it. However, the more I thought, the more I realized that I do enjoy solving problems, just with topics that I am comfortable with. When it comes to things such as projects around the house or my pets, I want to get the problem solved as soon as possible and I enjoy doing so.

Consistency was my fourth strength. Now this one I fully agreed with right away. I am a consistent person. I strive to treat everyone equally, I enjoy creating a plan so that things can be consistent and followed easily. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are not treated equally, whether it be they get something everyone else doesn’t or are allowed certain privileges. My husband has often called me “a creature of habit” as I am even consistent with my behaviors and routine.

Responsibility was my third strength, which I was not surprised with. Growing up, it was stressed to me that responsibility is important. No matter my role as a student, a sister, or a daughter, I was expected to fulfill things that were asked of me and make good decisions. I have taken this to heart. In fact, when I was younger, people always thought I was older than I really am because I acted so mature for my age! Not exactly what I liked to hear, but looking back on it, it is a compliment. Sadly, because of this, I am a bit of a perfectionist. As the description for the strength says, if I make a mistake, apologies aren’t enough and I strive to do whatever I can to make it up. It also takes me an abnormally large amount of time to do simple things as I have to check, double check, and maybe even triple check. Even a Facebook status requires a few checks to make sure spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure are okay. Oh, the woes of an English teacher and perfectionist.

My second strength made me chuckle. Strategic? Really? Right away, this made me think of math, which has always been my number one enemy. In fact, my husband actually laughed when I told him strategic was my second strength! However, reading the description of strategic, it fits me to a “T”. I am always thinking of different scenarios and “what-ifs”. So much so, I sometimes drive my husband nuts- oops! What can I say, I like to be prepared and try to analyze what might go wrong to try to avoid any problems that might arise. I like to have a plan!

And finally, my number one strength. For this one, I tested as intellection. I completely agree with this one. First of all, my poor brain never stops working; I’m surprised it hasn’t overheated yet. My thoughts vary from simple things to more complex topics, but my brain is always going. I love learning and reading whenever possible. In fact, I’m such a nerd, that I don’t really watch much TV. The programs that I do watch are shows where I can learn something: veterinarian shows, documentaries on history, animals and mysteries, and even hunting programs every now and then with my husband. The only exception is The Big Bang Theory because c’mon, how can you not love that show. Sure, I love “The Game of Thrones”, but why watch the series when you can read them?!

Of all the quizzes I have taken, I would say this one was the most eye-opening and accurate. I didn’t understand some of the strengths at first, but after reading the description, it made me realize characteristics about myself that I didn’t realize I had. I enjoyed taking the quiz, and am curious as to how I can use the results to help me with my teaching and role at Michigan Virtual.

Persona

Again, I can’t help but compare my experience as an iEducator to my five years of face-to-face teaching. Obviously, there are a lot of similarities, but there are also some differences that threw me for a loop. One of the biggest ones being my persona in my online classroom.

The students face-to-face learned quite quickly that I was a touch sarcastic. After getting to know some of the students, we would often tease one another and play back and forth. I could teach in a manner that fit my personality and if I wanted to stop the teaching to tell a related side story, I’d go for it.

When a student walked into my face-to-face classroom, they saw a lot of posters, colors, and pictures. I was always trying to keep my room new, inviting, and colorful. I tried to personalize it as well, creating my own posters of some of my favorite quotes and putting up new pictures on my bulletin board that I had taken. I will always remember the last day at the school when my students came into my classroom and saw my posters removed, my pictures removed from the bulletin boards, and my colorful classroom decorations now in white paper boxes. My students slowed down, and looked around my room in awe. Finally, one turns and says, “Mrs. Broton, your classroom is so sad now.”

Online, this is all quite tricky. Everyone knows that it is hard to convey tone through writing, and how in the world are my students supposed to know when I’m being sarcastic?

At first, I was quite reserved in my messages and announcements. I tried to make my tone as obvious as possible, don’t put anything that even had a small chance of being misconstrued, and frankly, I was boring. This is not who I am, but I wanted to make sure that I remained professional.

As I have become more comfortable with my new teaching situation, I have found my persona coming out more and more. Every week, I post a little blurb about my life in on my weekly announcements to let the students know what is going on in my life. I also had a few pictures that I have taken over the last week to give them a glimpse into my ever-exciting life. And, of course, I use Bitmojis like crazy on my announcements! What online teacher doesn’t!?

I noticed just within the last few weeks that I have been using a bit more humor and sarcasm in announcements. The sarcasm isn’t directed towards my students, but the topic at hand. For example, “let’s face it, commas are evil little things.” This is more of my writing style and I think, gives the students a glimpse into what my personality is like.

I have also been making a solid effort to use memes more. Something that I never really thought I would do in education! There are so many out there that are funny, yet appropriate for school. I recently made a document about paragraph structure and put this at the end of it:

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So, there you have it. At this point, I am hoping you can relate to this meme:

But if you try writing in this format and find yourself relating to this meme more, please don’t hesitate to ask me for help:

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When I started this new adventure, I was sure that my five years of face-to-face teaching experience was going to help me; however, I almost feel like I am starting from scratch! As I am slowly adjusting and getting more comfortable, I think my teaching persona is becoming more apparent online. In the meantime, I will continue to keep working on it and picking up as many tips from my colleagues as I can!

Relationships

It’s funny how often we take things for granted. Whether it be clean water, a toothbrush, or even your favorite sweet (I think any dieter can relate to this one!), as soon as they are no longer available to you, you realize just how much it meant to have in your life. Something that I didn’t realize how much I took for granted was talking to my students every morning and during lunch.

I used to have kids come into my classroom to share their latest stories about hunting or farming, vent about their latest woes, or ask me for advice on what to do in one of their dramatic and awkward “growing up” stories. I often had students leave lunch early to come sit in my classroom and do the same thing all over again, or update me on the latest happenings with their problems from that morning. As much as I loved it, I couldn’t help but think, “Ugh, I have to go make copies” or “I really need to get this History lesson finished”. I will admit, there were times I listened halfheartedly to their stories in an attempt to get my work done.

When I got the call offering me the position of an iEducator I was ecstatic. As a matter of fact, I am embarrassed to admit, I still have that voicemail on my phone as I felt like this was a new door opening up for me- a new direction (What can I say, I am sentimental like that). I was ready for this exciting change and as terrible as it sounds, I was ready to put my face-to-face classroom time behind me and start this new journey!

That is, until my last day at the school. That morning, I had students bring me cards, flowers, candy, and more importantly, hugs. Students that I didn’t even think liked me or hardly spoke to me were hugging me after class saying how much they were going to miss me after having me for two years. That day, the tears just wouldn’t stop flowing. That is when I realized how many relationships and bonds I had formed with “my kids”.

“You will form new relationships with your online students,” my husband told me.

My first summer term as an iEducator has come and went and I am disappointed to admit that I didn’t form relationships with the kids like I had wanted. I tried to be upbeat, talk about their hobbies, and used little bitmojis, but something just wasn’t clicking. I wasn’t used to not seeing the students’ faces as I taught a lesson, being able to give them a side story in the middle of class, or have them pop around the edge of my classroom door to visit. While I loved my new job, it was hard for me to not have that face-to-face contact.

Then Collaboration of the Minds came around. I went into the conference with the goal of learning how to make relationships with my students online. To my surprise, the entire conference was about forming relationships.

I soaked in what the keynote speakers said and listened to what some of the other online instructors had to say. That’s when I had an epiphany. Just like in my face-to-face classroom, the online students want support. They want to know that if they need help, you are going to be there. The stories and the hugs came after they learned to trust me. Show them you care and that they can trust you to help them, and the rest will follow.

As I start my first busy term as an iEducator, I am sticking with this philosophy. I still share stories about my life, but on my weekly announcements and instead of talking with my usual sarcastic tone, I type in a playful manner using as many bitmjois as I can. But my main goal is to just support my students and get them to trust me. Hopefully the rest will all fall into place from there.