Study shows Immediate Feedback Helps Pre-Service Teachers, Students Thrive
Wireless technology is key to more effective teacher supervision

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2008

When students make mistakes in the classroom, teachers are instructed to correct them immediately. This type of feedback makes a strong impression and ensures the student won’t repeat the mistake again and again. As common sense as this sounds, the same teachers typically had to wait hours, or even days, to get feedback on their own teaching techniques.

Mary Catherine Scheeler, an assistant professor of special education at Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies, in Malvern, said things are done this way due to traditional thinking about keeping interruptions in class to a minimum. Student teaching supervisors typically wait until a lesson ends to give feedback to pre-service teachers so as not to disrupt the learning environment. While this has some merit, it’s not enough to overshadow the benefits of immediate feedback, she said.

“There are several studies suggesting that when pre-service teachers receive feedback during instruction rather than after the fact, they adjust their teaching behavior quickly and continue to use correct technique long after the feedback is removed. It is a very effective and efficient way to provide supervision. We know how to teach students, but we are not always using the same methods to teach teachers,” she said.
 
Scheeler spends a great deal of time evaluating pre-service teachers (those not yet certified), and she has been using “bug in the ear” wireless technology for years. This technology allows the teacher trainer to provide the pre-service teacher with immediate feedback by speaking into a wireless headset microphone. The student teacher can make instant corrections in his or her teaching methods, with minimal disruption.

“We know that if teachers or students continue to make the same mistakes, those mistakes will become permanent,” said Scheeler, of Marlton, NJ. “For example, even though teachers know that correction and praise are critical components to learning, they’re not always doing it. By being there in the classroom and drawing immediate attention to these situations, it makes a great impression on the pre-service teacher.”

Scheeler, who said that use of the technology is still spotty, at best, has empirical evidence to back her claims. She and three Penn State University colleagues conducted a study using immediate feedback with five student teachers who spent 14 weeks working with special education students.

In the study, titled “Effects of Corrective Feedback Delivered via Wireless Technology on Preservice Teacher Performance and Student Behavior,” published in Teacher Education and Special Education in 2006, the student teachers’ completion rate of various teaching methods ranged from 30 percent to 92 percent before immediate feedback was introduced. Once immediate feedback with wireless technology was used, all five teachers reached 90 percent criterion for all teaching methods measured. Correct responses of their students also increased and all five teachers found this method of receiving feedback to be beneficial.

The research was convincing enough that Scheeler, and co-authors James McAfee, Kathy Ruhl, and David Lee were named winner of the 2007 Publication Award by the Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children. The TED Publication Award recognizes the contribution of the authors of an article in teacher education and special education that is deemed to have lasting value to the field by virtue of its potential impact on research, policies, or practices in teacher education and special education. The Penn State faculty members will be presented with the award at the Council for Exceptional Children Annual Convention later this year in Boston.

Since this study was completed, several former students that Scheeler has taught during her 22 years at Penn State Great Valley have used this method of feedback in their own work with co-teachers and students in local schools.

“The bottom line is that providing immediate feedback to pre-service teachers with wireless technology works,” said Scheeler, who noted that the use of web cams in the classroom might be the next technology tool to help teacher educators interact more frequently with pre-service teachers. She hopes more university supervisors and school districts will use these technologies in the future.