SuperStar Teacher Sheila L. — Interview

This week’s SuperStar Teacher is Sheila L. Sheila L. is a retired classroom teacher who taught early childhood (kindergarten and 1st grade) for most of her career. The last seven years she worked with small groups of students who were struggling in reading and math. She also plays the piano, knits and quilts. Together with her husband, they have six grown children who live all over the United States. She shares 334 templates on the FeedbackPandaCloud which have been imported 4056 times. Amazing! Check out her interview below.

Tricks for staying alert: Coffee and a good nights sleep.

Favorite Lesson to teach: I don’t really have a favorite lesson. I am finding that I enjoy Levels 4 and 5 because of the opportunity for conversation with the students.

What do you do in between classes? I primarily prepare my feedback.

How do you use FeedbackPanda? When I am preparing for my classes, usually the night before, I go into FeedbackPanda and create my feedback as much as possible for the next day. After I have taught the lesson, I go in and make any changes that may be necessary. This is very easy with a regular student. If it is a new student and I am not as sure of how well the will do, it can take more updating after the lesson.

Describe your Feedback Style/Structure: I start with a greeting sentence. (I am so happy to meet ____./ I was happy to see ____ again./______ had a wonderful lesson again today.)

Then I talk about the different topics taught during the lesson, such as phonics/sight words/vocabulary words, etc.

Then, I suggest one or two things the student can practice or review from the lesson.

Finally, I close with a statement about how much I enjoy working with the student and that I am looking forward to our next lesson.

Good Feedback Must Contain…What the student is doing well and at least one thing that the student can work on. If the student has completed the lesson with no difficulties at all, I will still recommend that they continue to read and speak English as much as possible to help them continue to improve their fluency and pronunciation.

What do you like to see when checking the Teacher to Teacher Feedback?

I like to know if a student is struggling in any way so I can be alert to it and prepared to help.I also like to know if the student finds the lessons easy, so I can be prepared to extend the lesson.Sometimes it is nice to know if the student can be a behavior problem, but overall, I like to determine their behavior on my own.

Notes or comments to the teachers who import your templates? Thank you, I’m honored that you find my feedback helpful.