Careful Whisper: Using eCoaching and a Feedback Taxonomy to Provide Practicum Feedback for Preservice Teachers

Many institutes for initial teacher education struggle to organise effective performance feedback within the context of student teaching practicum. As the cooperating teachers who provide this feedback bring their individualised ontologies, feedback practices have been characterised by inconsistencies in the amount and quality of performance feedback. In this small-scale study carried out in the Netherlands, we explored affordances of eCoaching using a standardised feedback taxonomy. With the help of Bluetooth technology and the Synchronous Online Feedback Taxonomy, four teacher educators provided eCoaching to eight preservice teachers over the course of three lessons. We interviewed teacher educators and preservice teachers about their experiences with eCoaching using the feedback taxonomy during secondary school practicum. Overall, both groups of participants were positive about eCoaching using the taxonomy. Teacher educators observed preservice teachers self-regulating when implementing prior feedback in their lessons. Preservice teachers indicated increased confidence following the lessons with eCoaching.