Teacher Development

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The written feedback mentors give to student

teachers

Margaret Spear , Norman D. Lock & Myra McCulloch

To cite this article: Margaret Spear , Norman D. Lock & Myra McCulloch (1997) The written
feedback mentors give to student teachers, Teacher Development, 1:2, 269-280, DOI:
10.1080/13664539700200019

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 WRITTEN FEEDBACK FROM MENTORS
Teacher Development, Volume 1, No. 2, 1997

The Written Feedback Mentors

Give to Student Teachers

MARGARET SPEAR
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
NORMAN D. LOCK & MYRA MCCULLOCH
University of Reading, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT This exploratory study investigates the form and substance of the written
feedback given by practising teachers acting as mentors to student teachers whilst they
are on block school experience. Mentors are becoming the major providers of feedback
to students with the introduction of partnership arrangements between higher education
institutions and schools. However, little is known about this extension to the
cooperating teacher’s role, especially the written feedback they provide. Examples of
written feedback (47 scripts) were supplied by second year BA(Ed) students after their
4-week school experience. The scripts were analysed to determine the features of
students’ lessons that mentors in primary schools write about, the style of writing that
mentors adopt, how mentors give their students advice, and whether mentors’
comments indicate that progress is being made by their students week by week. The
results suggest that mentors need to reflect upon the purpose of written feedback and
tailor the nature of their feedback accordingly.

Student teachers on block school experience expect, indeed request,

feedback about the lessons they teach, their planning and their classroom
management. Students recognise that this feedback informs them about their
development as teachers, and usually helps them to improve their teaching.
The provision of feedback is seen as a high priority by most students
(Christensen, 1988; Frecknall, 1994).
The introduction of partnership arrangements between higher
education institutions and participating schools in respect to Circulars 9/92
and 14/93, means that teachers, acting as mentors, are becoming the major
providers of feedback to students on school experience (Department for
Education [DfE], 1992, 1993). Although many host teachers have given
verbal feedback to students on teaching practice in the past, the presentation
of written feedback to students is a new task for the majority of mentors.
How do mentors cope with giving spoken and written feedback to their
students?

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MARGARET SPEAR ET AL

Little information is available about the feedback that mentors in

Britain give their students. Much of the information that has been reported is
of a rather anecdotal nature (Browne et al, 1993; Howard, 1994; Williams,
1994). Only a few studies have adopted a more rigorous approach by using
questionnaires to obtain data (Booth, 1993) or by analysing taped
conversations (Haggarty, 1995). Practically all the information that is
available relates to spoken feedback. This is also true of work conducted in
other countries (O’Neal, 1983; Ben-Peretz & Rumney, 1991;
Feiman-Nemser et al, 1993). Thus, our knowledge of the written feedback
mentors give to their students is exceedingly limited.
The present study is an exploratory attempt to gain insights into the
form and substance of the written feedback given by mentors in primary
schools to student teachers. The following questions were investigated:
1. What features of students’ lessons do mentors comment upon?
2. What style of writing do mentors adopt? Are their comments mainly
friendly in tone, or mainly formal? Are their comments mainly descriptive
or mainly evaluative?
3. How do mentors give their students advice? Are their suggestions mainly
of an authoritative nature, or mainly cooperative?
4. Do the mentors’ comments suggest that their students are making progress
week by week?

Background to the Study

The partnership arrangements that the University of Reading has developed
with its partnership primary schools in response to Circular 14/93 (DfE,
1993) have been underpinned by the central principle that students need to
become active critical learners who engage in reflective evaluation
(McCulloch & Lock, 1994). Both teachers and tutors are especially
important in helping students to reflect upon their teaching and in providing
access to a range of knowledge areas to assist students in their professional
development. However, each group in the partnership – teachers, tutors and
students – has a separate, distinctive and complementary role to play in the
process of Initial Teacher Education. The working relationship between the
groups should be a close one which embodies parity of esteem and values
the contributions of all the partners.
The mentor’s role was first considered by a group of teachers working
in schools as part of a pilot study with the University. They identified a set
of actions which would help students to gain access to their mentors’ craft
knowledge and thus learn from their expertise. The actions included: (a)
giving written comment each week on lessons they observed the student
teach; and (b) writing in the student’s file each week.
To acquaint mentors with the philosophy underlying the partnership
programme, the operational arrangements and the mentor’s role, a university
tutor visited each partnership school to run two twilight sessions with the
whole staff. A distinctive feature of the partnership programme is that a

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whole-school approach has been adopted. All teachers are potential mentors
and therefore the preparation programme involved whole staffs. During the
preparation programme, the tutor and the teachers worked together within
the agreed model towards defining and developing their individual roles.
However, so that students might gain an equivalent experience while in
school, a minimum entitlement for students had to be negotiated and agreed.
This minimum entitlement included the giving of written feedback to
students about their lessons and their files. To prepare mentors for this
aspect of their role, tutors offered general guidance about giving feedback to
students, including written feedback, but no sessions were specifically
devoted to this topic. However, since part of the tutor’s role was to offer
support to the mentors, as well as the students, the mentors could always
seek further guidance subsequently.
Each tutor is in contact with a small number of schools. Thus, any
particular school sees only one tutor. This encourages good working and
personal relationships to develop between the tutor and the staff of the
school. The tutor visits each school for half a day each week during school
experience to meet with the students and their mentors, to observe the
students teach, to provide feedback and to discuss each student’s progress
with the student and mentor. Most mentors are responsible for two students,
since students are placed in classrooms in pairs for their school experience
during the first 3 years of their course. Schools usually take four students at
a time.

Collection of Scripts
Examples of written feedback were provided by second year BA(Ed)
students at the end of their second school experience. This 4-week block
was their first major school experience, since they spent only 2 weeks in
school during the first year of the course. Moreover, this particular second
year school experience was the first time that the new partnership
arrangements between the university and participating primary schools were
piloted with a whole cohort of students.
In the course of monitoring and evaluating the introduction of the new
partnership arrangements, information about the feedback provided by
mentors was collected via questionnaires from both the mentors and their
students. In addition, the students were asked to supply actual examples of
the written feedback that they received from their mentors. The request was
entirely optional, and no pressure was placed on the students to comply.
Fourteen students provided a total of 47 scripts. Since eight of the
students had worked in pairs, the 47 scripts had been written by 10 mentors.
Their comments ranged in length from less than a page of writing (16
scripts) to more than one page (7 scripts). Just over half referred to a single
lesson, a quarter to a longer period of teaching (half a day to a week) and the
remainder to the contents of students’ school experience files. The single
lessons commented upon covered a range of subjects – English (6 lessons),

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physical education (PE) and games (6), mathematics (3), history (3), drama
(3), music (2), art and craft (2) and science (1).
The results presented in this article are based upon the scripts supplied
by the students. Counts were made of the scripts and these appear as
summary statements. To exemplify and clarify these statements, quotations
from the scripts are included. Each quotation is followed by the script
number from which it has been taken. A total of 21 scripts have been quoted
from.

Results
Features of Lessons Commented Upon
To determine the overall focus of the feedback that mentors write on
student-taught lessons, the 39 scripts relating to lessons taught were
classified as covering subject content and/or teaching skills. It was found
that 24 scripts focused upon the teaching skills displayed by the students
during their lessons and the outcomes of those lessons. No mention was
made of the subject matter delivered. Another 20 scripts referred to both
teaching skills and subject content. Only two focused solely upon the
subject content of the lessons taught by the students.
The scripts were also subjected to a more detailed analysis in order to
explore the range of topics touched upon by mentors in their feedback to
students after having observed them teach. The scripts were analysed on the
basis of the presence or absence of points relating to pedagogy, teaching
strategies, classroom management and the pupils. The points were not
pre-selected or pre-grouped, but listed as they were encountered in the
scripts (Henerson et al, 1978). Similar points were subsequently grouped
together to form very specific categories. Examples appear in Table I. These
categories were not collapsed any further as this would have obscured the
full range of points appearing within each category. Instead the categories
have been left in a relatively raw state. This approach highlights the specific
features contained within the mentors’ written feedback.
Table I shows the features of student-taught lessons that mentors most
frequently commented upon. The table contains features mentioned in at
least 15% of the scripts. The number of times students were praised,
criticised or offered suggestions to help them improve in a particular area
are set out separately. It can be seen that students tended to be praised for
lesson outcomes, for instance the pupils were interested, settled and
attentive. Areas requiring further development tended to cluster around the
issue of class control. The mentors made a number of suggestions to help
students improve their timing, their delivery of instructions and their
strategies for gaining and maintaining pupils’ attention, getting and keeping
a class quiet, keeping children on task and dealing with disruptive children.
Very few overtly critical comments were recorded by the mentors. Those
which were, tended to link with areas requiring further development, e.g.

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giving instructions, pacing a lesson, maintaining an acceptable level of noise
in the classroom.

Aspect No. of scripts aspect was

Praised Criticise Suggestions Mentioned
d offered
Children interested, enjoyed lesson 16 0 0 16
Class control, discipline, getting and 7 0 9 13
keeping class quiet
Giving positive comments and praise to 9 0 6 12
children
Instructions 5 4 5 12
Children settled, engrossed, keen, 11 2 0 12
attentive, listening, motivated,
concentrating, participating
Student’s voice 6 2 3 10
Childen worked well, understood and 9 0 1 10
learnt
Pace, timing, time management 0 4 5 9
Student confident, positive 7 0 1 8
Overall standard of lesson 8 0 0 8
Noise level in classroom 4 5 0 7
Explanations 5 0 2 7
Getting and maintaining attention 2 0 5 6
Planning learning objectives 3 1 2 6
Asking and using questions 1 2 3 6
Dealing with boisterous, disruptive 1 1 4 6
children
Children on/off task, keeping children on 2 1 3 6
task
Table I. Topics raised in comments written about lessons (n=39).

The overall importance given to the different points in Table I can best be
determined by comparing the number of scripts in which each individual
point appeared. Occasionally this figure is less than the sum of the scripts
containing positive, negative and advisory comments. This can happen if a
feature was mentioned in two different contexts in a single script. It can be
seen from Table I that the most frequently mentioned aspect of
student-taught lessons was the children’s interest in a lesson (16 of the 39
scripts), followed by their discipline during the lesson (13 of the scripts).

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MARGARET SPEAR ET AL
More generally, the children’s behaviour and response to a lesson comprised
four of the top seven points, each point having appeared in over a quarter of
the scripts.

Style of Writing
1. Friendly or formal. Very different styles of address were discernible
amongst the whole collection of 47 scripts. About two-thirds were clearly
supportive of the students:
Good end to the lesson. It was a shame that the children did not have
time to play the game. They will find it impossible to remember their
team for next week because they did not play the game. They will also
need a reminder about how to set up a rounders pitch. (19)
Nearly a fifth could be described as positively friendly:
I hope you have enjoyed the first two weeks working with us at B.H.
Your
group of children have been working quite well and you have managed
to keep
the difficult ones on task for most of the time. ... Good luck for the next
two weeks. (43)
A few merely provided a brief outline of a discussion held between the
mentor and student:
Preparation – It was acknowledged the level of preparation achieved.
Discussion focused upon what happens when prepared lessons are
completed before time and when unexpected events occur. It was agreed
that this was the nature of the job and certain strategies can be adopted
in those circumstances. (2)
A couple of comments were very formal in their tone:
There were four distinct confrontations with certain pupils. These
encounters generated negative comments which focused attention to
negative behaviour. These occasions produced assertiveness from Miss
G which gave clear signals to the pupils as to what was expected at that
moment. (1)
2. Descriptive or evaluative. Three-quarters of the scripts contained
evaluative comments about the students’ performance and/or the outcomes
of the lessons. These evaluative comments not only recorded features of the
lesson that deserved praise, but also pointed out aspects that required further
attention. In addition, many of these scripts offered helpful suggestions as
well:
A much better lesson than in week 1. Lots more praise of class and the
children had a much clearer understanding of what you were requiring
them to do. Perhaps when hand batting you could have picked out

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children who were doing it correctly so that it would help the others.
The children all enjoyed the lesson and their throwing and catching is
improving. Still need to show them how to stand when hitting the ball.
(19)
A fifth of the scripts were largely descriptive and almost totally approving.
This resulted in a catalogue of events, all of which were commended:
You started off the session with the children in a relaxed but assured
way which was nice. You developed a good relationship with the class.
You managed to orchestrate an interesting and lively discussion. (45)
The remaining scripts only provided a brief summary of a discussion which
had taken place previously. They contained insufficient detail to allow them
to be categorised as either descriptive or evaluative.

Making Suggestions
Four-fifths of all the scripts contained suggestions to help students improve
their teaching. These suggestions were put to students in various ways. In
nearly three-quarters of all the scripts students were just told how to effect
improvements:
Suggestions for strategies to improve ‘briefing’ sessions with the
children:
1. Instructions to the whole class.
2. Consider carefully the order in which you give the instructions, e.g.
tell story, explain maths task, set writing task.
3. Don’t give too many instructions at one time.
4. Jot down the order to help yourself think it through and as a reminder
– cue cards can be very useful. (24)
Two-fifths of the scripts conveyed suggestions to the students by prefacing
them with phrases such as: ‘Perhaps...’, ‘Maybe...’, ‘It’s a good idea...’,
‘Consider...’ or ‘You could try...’:
The children will need reminding which sheets to go on to. You could try
using different coloured paper for the different sheets and then writing
the order on the board. (5)

Instruments are very hard to keep control of, even for the experienced!
Perhaps you could decide on the ground rules (keep your instruments on
the ground until I tell you to pick them up, etc.) The children will enjoy
being involved in setting down the rules too. (47)

It would be a good idea to ask questions by saying ‘Put your hand up if

you can tell me’ rather than the sort that encourage everyone to shout
out their response. (18)

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MARGARET SPEAR ET AL

When children are passing the stamps around the class, there is the
potential for children to talk about them. It is natural for them to want to
discuss the stamps, so maybe it would be better to wait until the end to
pass the stamps round. (11)
In one-fifth of scripts suggestions were put to students in the form of
questions:
When some pupils are off task, can they be brought back on task by
using positive comments to those on task? Therefore ‘ignoring’ and
resisting focusing attention on unwanted responses. (1)

Do you think a timetable (on the wall) would help children? (38)

You can then spend more time on the finer detail of the lesson: how will
you introduce the activity, which words will you use, which resources
will you need to get out before the children arrive? etc. (25)

Your whole class control is good. So, what are you doing in maths that
you need to do in story? (41)

Charting Improvements
By reading the comments written week by week for an individual student, it
was sometimes possible to build up a picture of the mentor’s perceptions of
that student’s progress in specific areas. Although the context of the lessons
to which the comments referred varied, e.g. different subjects and different
times of the day, nevertheless the mentor had discerned a trend in the
student’s behaviour and recorded it in his/her comments. Two examples
follow.
Student A

Week 1 Remember to make sure they’re listening. Try different ways and
see what works well for you and the class. (30)

Week 2 It was better in that you waited for quiet, but then you let it slip
slightly and they got noisy! (31)

Week 3 You are doing work on the board but you do not have
everyone’s attention. Try and use some of the strategies we have
discussed on the sheet you have. (33)

Week 4 You were right to wait for quiet and they were quiet too. ... You
ask for quiet a lot but you must always follow it up if they are not quiet
immediately. ... Throughout the lesson you have to raise your voice. This

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has not worked. The waiting and calling names has been more effective.
(34)

Week 4 Control techniques – both of us seem to agree that the control

was better today, and that the variety of techniques you tried today were
more successful. (35)

Student B

Week 1 Now you need to work on praising and encouraging the

children. All children respond well to praise and ‘nagging’ tends to
encourage negative behaviour. It is always difficult because we all tend
to accept when the children do as we ask, and only make a comment
when somebody does something different. Try to praise the children as
much as possible and notice those children who are trying really hard.
(15)

Week 2 you are trying really hard to praise them and to encourage them
in their work. (16)

Week 3 A much better lesson than in Week 1. Lots more praise of class.
(19)

Week 4 Lots of praise – well done. (20)

Discussion
Analysis of examples of the written feedback provided to second year
BA(Ed) students by their mentors in school indicated that the written
comments gave a lot of encouragement and guidance to the students. The
feedback let the students know how their lessons went, drew attention to
points they may have missed, praised their accomplishments and positive
results, occasionally criticised their failings, and offered suggestions to help
them improve. Examples have also been recorded of mentors’ perceptions of
students’ progress as recorded week by week in their feedback.
The mentors focused predominantly upon the pupils’ response to a
lesson and upon their behaviour during the lesson. These aspects can be
compared with the topics that cooperating teachers are reported to focus on
in post-observation conference feedback. They include subject content and
teaching strategies (Ben-Peretz & Rumney, 1991), classroom events and
student teaching activities (O’Neal, 1993) and classroom organisation and
management (Feiman-Nemser et al, 1993). In a study of British primary
school cooperating teachers, Dunne & Dunne (1993) found that they
focused on classroom management and control. The findings from this last,
and most pertinent study are similar to those of the present study regarding
the emphasis on control and discipline, but dissimilar regarding classroom
management. This discrepancy could be due to the data having been

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supplied by a non-random sample in the present study, and/or the method of

analysis, which did not combine sharply defined groupings into broader
categories. The written feedback in the present study also differs from the
verbal feedback in other studies because of the dominance of statements
about pupils’ response to lessons. However, since nearly all the statements
were complimentary, they equate with the encouragement and praise
reported in verbal feedback (Ben-Peretz & Rumney, 1991; Dunne & Dunne,
1993; Feiman-Nemser et al, 1993). The predominance of complimentary
statements in the mentors’ written feedback and their emphasis on control
and discipline may be due to the recipients of the feedback being second
year students and only on their first major school experience. Probably the
mentors were anxious to encourage their students and ease their transfer into
the teacher’s role. Any tendency on the part of the mentors to write
encouraging feedback could have been exaggerated further if the students
displayed a propensity to offer examples of approving feedback for analysis.
The students who received written feedback were well satisfied with it
(Spear et al, in press). Some 92% judged their written comments to have
been either very useful or fairly useful to them (51% and 41% respectively).
However, some students indicated that their feedback could have been
improved further if it had contained more constructive criticism. Since
three-quarters of the scripts offered for detailed analysis do contain
evaluative comments, this suggests that the scripts analysed were probably
not a representative sample. They may well have been written by very
conscientious mentors with considerable experience and expertise in hosting
and supporting student teachers. Any non-representativeness of the scripts
investigated in this study is not surprising since the sample was self-selected
and therefore non-random. It is therefore inappropriate to generalise from
the results of this study. Despite this, the study still provides some helpful
illumination and pointers regarding the written feedback mentors provide to
their students. It thus achieves its objectives. In addition it also prompts
questions, which appear later, about the provision and content of mentors’
written feedback.
Details of the proportion of students who received written feedback
appear in Spear et al (in press). Only 28% of the whole cohort of second
year students reported that they received weekly written feedback about
their teaching, 31% received feedback less than once a week and 41%
received no such feedback during their whole school experience. Yet 68%
of the students’ mentors agreed that they should be giving weekly written
feedback on their students’ teaching (Lock et al, in press). This discrepancy
is no doubt related to the finding that one of the tasks that mentors least
enjoyed doing was giving written feedback on their students’ teaching.
The task of providing written feedback could probably be made easier
and more acceptable to mentors if they were given more guidance. They
need a better understanding of the nature and purpose of written feedback.
Results from the present study indicate that mentors may well need to
consider questions such as the following. The order of these questions does
not imply their importance or priority.

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1. What is the purpose of written feedback?

x To convey the mentor’s craft knowledge?
x To satisfy the student’s desire for written feedback?
x To emphasise important points that the student should focus on?
x To help the student engage in reflective evaluation?
x To provide a summary of a previous discussion?
x To provide a record of a student’s achievements and progress?
x To meet the student’s minimum entitlement of support?
x To fulfil an agreement made with the partnership higher education
institution?
2. What time span should written feedback refer to? A single lesson?
Several lessons? A week of teaching?
3. Should written feedback be largely descriptive and contain little criticism
or should it be largely evaluative?
4. Should written feedback focus on a few points or on many? Should the
focus be predetermined? If yes, who should decide the focus?
5. Should written feedback refer to subject content or to teaching strategies?
6. How should advice be given to students? In the form of statements,
suggestions or questions?
7. Should the content/focus of written feedback vary with the student’s
experience of teaching?
8. Should the content/focus of written feedback vary with the subject taught
by the student?
Questions such as these raise very fundamental queries about the aim and
purpose of written feedback. Not until these considerations have been
worked through and answered, can detailed questions about the nature of
feedback be decided. In addressing these issues of the purpose and nature of
written feedback, mentors will also be exploring their taken-for-granted
assumptions and hidden beliefs regarding the provision of feedback to
student teachers. As part of the ongoing development programme for
mentorship, mentors with students and university tutors need to think
through and resolve these issues in order to enhance the quality and value of
the written feedback that they give to their students.

Acknowledgement
This research was funded by the Research Endowment Trust Fund of the
University of Reading.

Correspondence
Norman Lock, Department of Science and Technology Education, Faculty
of Education and Community Studies, University of Reading, Bulmershe
Court, Earley, Reading RG6 1HY, United Kingdom.

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