What You Allow, You Teach: Applying Feedback in the Classroom

This week, I learned the importance of feedback, reflection, and instructional adjustment in my teaching practice. As I prepare to take over teaching duties full-time, I have had the opportunity to work with my mentor teacher to identify ways to improve my lesson delivery, presentations, and student interactions. These brief meetings at the end of each day have proven invaluable to my growth and development.

So, what have I learned this week?

Providing Clear Instructions During Transitions

During transitions, I provided instructions, but they were sometimes unclear, causing student confusion. My mentor teacher suggested that I clearly state exactly what I want students to do and then monitor groups to ensure they understand the expectations. To implement this feedback, I tried a few strategies. First, I added an “agenda” slide to my presentation so students can visualize where we are in the lesson. Second, I added a small graphic to my slides to provide a visual cue for when we would resume reading. This visual reminder, along with explicitly stating the page number and paragraph, helped students keep track of where to begin. Finally, I slowed down transitions and began providing more explicit instructions for both group and independent work. These changes have significantly improved my instructional delivery, and students are now able to transition more efficiently and remain focused on learning.

Being Clear on What is Acceptable/Unacceptable Classroom Behavior

During direct instruction, a student’s phone began playing a loud song. According to school and classroom rules, students should not have their phones out during class. Initially, I allowed the student to use their phone because the class was participating in a vocabulary game on Blooket, and the student did not have a laptop. However, I should have clearly communicated the expectation that the phone be returned to its designated pouch after the activity.

Because the student was already struggling to silence the phone and appeared both embarrassed and apologetic, I chose to ignore the interruption and continue with the lesson. Based on feedback from my mentor teacher, I learned that ignoring inappropriate behavior can unintentionally signal to students that the behavior is acceptable. Moving forward, I need to maintain consistency by ensuring that all students follow classroom expectations regarding electronic devices.

After class, while putting materials away in the office, I came across a quote that captured this lesson: “We teach our students how to behave by what we allow, what we stop, what we ignore, and what we reinforce.”