Listen, Evaluate, and Respond

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How do you want students to feel? If it's important for you to hear their voices, then you must ask and answer questions.

Listen with the intention to be present and forget any pre-meditated responses. In our personal and professional roles, we need reminders about the importance of now.

Anxiety derives from "what if" states. What if this happens? What if that had happened? It is an overconcern with the past and an obsession with a hypothetical future that produces anxious thoughts and behaviors.

Racial biases filtered through anxiety lenses can make someone confuse a lost teenager with an intruder. See this week's almost fatal shooting of Ralph Yarl for an example.

Running helps to clear the mind and process pain. When on the road or treadmill, you pay attention to the pace and how your body responds. In between the check-ins, your mind will wander.

You will find yourself thinking about real and imagined aspects of your life. When you get too far from the route, track, and your body's signals, you will stop. Not paying attention can lead to injuries and accidents.

Training your mind and body to concentrate is vital to survival.

Trust happens through compassion, competency, and consistency. We lay the foundation for solid relationships when we listen, offer meaningful responses, and show up.

The previous statements are easy to type but much more difficult to implement.

As a result, I have days when I struggle to stay present. Concern about what's next interferes with what's now.

In the instructional design world, you learn to make interactive and informative learning content in the present, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future. Evaluations guide you through these phases. If you’re teaching a class or leading a presentation, begin with evaluations in mind.

Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model includes four levels:

1. Reaction- This is the phase of creating evaluations that build on previous lessons. In schools, you want to consider previous responses from students. Remember, this blog post started with the suggestion of asking questions and listening with purpose.

2. Learning- The focus travels to the learner's acquisition of skills and knowledge at this level. You want to assess learning objectives, theories, and the transferrable abilities necessary for the student to walk away with. Plan for the outcome to ease anxiety.

3. Behavior- Shift to thinking about implementation. How will the student use their skills and knowledge? Talk is cheap; action is currency.

4. Results- The final stage of the Kirkpatrick model is about results. Whether we are speaking about corporate settings, schools, or non-profit organizations, you want to think about indicators of success.

Considering evaluations in four parts can help manage anxiety about teaching quality. It can help you create lesson plans from data. You can gain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum and your teaching skills.

Listen, evaluate, and respond.

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