Student feedback has improved all the courses I have taught.

This morning, though, I spoke to a teacher who felt responsible for changing his course in response to ALL student feedback.

So I want to talk about responding to feedback, specifically feedback on your work.

1/

Before I begin: I don't consider myself an expert teacher. There are people who have taught 25x as long as I have. My grandmother was one. My mother is, too.

However, I HAVE done more research and writing than most on professional feedback. And here is what I have to say.

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I have found it helpful to keep in mind that my goals, as a teacher (or a programmer, or whatever) might be orthogonal to my students (or colleagues, or whatever) goals.

And so I need to keep MY goals in mind when looking at feedback.

Some examples specific to teaching:

3/

1. I have a goal to make my class accessible to all styles of learners.

So when a student tells me "This lesson was only available in a writing and I learn better by listening," it is VERY aligned with my goals to make a change based on this feedback and record a video.

4/

2. I have a goal to make my class (and talks, btw) useful for the least seasoned programmer, but challenging for the most seasoned programmer.

(BTW this is hard AF)

But when a student says "I was bored during X," that tells me, this activity isn't there yet.

5/

Now, here's the thing.

I keep my videos and lecture materials publicly accessible because accessibility is a goal I have as a teacher.

I have several times had students say "I could have done this class on my own because all the materials were available for free."

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I do not change my class in response to that feedback.

It does not make my class more valuable to that student to prevent others from accessing my materials.

My students get in-class activities, office hours, and individual attention. To me, that's what they pay for. If...

7/

...they do not need these things and could learn the material on their own from YouTube, they're not my target audience. They're welcome in my class. But I don't teach for them.

I teach for people who need teachers. Because I was one of those people when I started out in CS.

8/

I know I will continue to get this feedback.

It's not aligned with my goals. So I don't worry about it.

Let's try another example.

9/

"We talked about ethics and this is a computer science class."

So, first of all, I don't bait-and-switch them into an ethics class. We do a lot of coding.

I get where this sentiment comes from, because tech chronically undervalues knowledge about social impact.

But...

10/

One of my goals as a teacher is to make tech better by sending better-informed technologists into the world.

To remove this from my class because 2 students objected to it would be antithetical to that goal.

So I leave it in, knowing a few students won't like it.

11/

To paraphrase the inimitable @DitaVonTeese, you can't please everyone. I try to remind myself (in everything, not just teaching):

"They hired you because they believed you know what to do. Trust them."

Def listen to feedback. But you don't have to cater to everyone.

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