student surveys

I've talked a lot throughout the year about the importance of teacher reflection. What I haven't spent as much time on is the importance of having students reflect on their learning. I mentioned it in a post on student reflection on assessment, but here at the end of the school year is an excellent time for your students to do some reflecting for their own and for your sake.

Edutopia has a great post on how to design a survey that elicits student feedback. The site suggests creating a survey to get a sense of how much and what students liked about the class and/or school year, what topics they enjoyed learning about the most, activities that helped their learning the most, when they felt frustrated and when they felt successful and respected. You can ask students what advice they'd give to incoming students about the class/grade, and see how they think they've grown throughout the year. You certainly have some additional ideas for what you might be interested in knowing from your students. And if you give a survey to students, consider giving one to parents as well. I always found it very interesting to hear what parents' perspectives were on the classroom.

The information gathered from a student survey can really help you as you begin to refine what your plans are for the following year. Even if you are teaching at a different grade level or school, some of this information will be helpful for you in your general plans for your instruction, assessment, and classroom environment.

A student survey is a great use of time in the final days of the school year.