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5 Reasons You Should Seek Your OWN Student Feedback

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Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s easy to assume you already know what students think about your class, how well they’re handling the workload, what activities they like the most. Yes, it’s possible you know best. Still.

If you’ve never asked students for serious, honest feedback, you’re missing something. If you ask the right questions and give students the time and encouragement to supply quality answers, student feedback can benefit you in so many ways.

The Benefits

1. Increasing Student Engagement

By finding out what learning activities students like the most and least about your class, you’ll get better at designing lessons that really engage them. Of course, your job is not to entertain your students 24/7, but if some methods of delivery are better received than others, then they’re likely to result in greater learning gains as well.

2. Preventive Discipline

Learning more about each student’s experience in your class can go a long way toward improving the relationship you have with them. And that can go a long way toward improving classroom management.

3. Differentiation

Grades and test scores don’t tell the whole story. A student who is getting excellent grades might be accomplishing that only with tremendous effort and hours of work at home. Conversely, a student who consistently turns in mediocre work might actually want more of a challenge. By asking students how well the work fits their abilities, you can adjust your instruction to better meet their needs.

4. Bullying Prevention

When students are given an opportunity to share their feelings about your class, they might also include information about students who harass them, or each other. If a student says he hates coming to your class every day, the reason might have more to do with his peers than with anything you’re doing. Gathering student feedback is the first step toward discovering the things you don’t know about your own classroom.

5. Self-Preservation

Many school systems are implementing teacher evaluation programs that include student feedback. And at the college level, student evaluations can significantly impact a professor’s promotion and tenure. Instead of waiting for the “official” forms to be distributed to students, get ahead of the curve by asking for similar feedback early, while there’s still time to troubleshoot.

Gathering Student Feedback, Step-by-Step

Start by asking good questions.

Create a written survey you distribute to students. Even if you teach online, you can distribute forms electronically. Here are some questions that should be included:

That last question might seem like a throw-away, but it can elicit some of the most powerful and significant information you’ll get. Some students will use it to tell you about a problem they’re having with a classmate. Others will tell you that the handle on the class supply drawer is broken. You just never know what you’re going to get, so be sure to add an open-ended question like this to your survey.

Next, create optimal conditions for quality feedback.

Finally, ACT on the feedback.

Gathering information is useless if you do nothing with it. Here are some ways you can respond to student feedback:

A Tool You Can Use Right Now

If you’d like something ready-made for gathering student feedback, here’s a form you can use today: the “How’s It Going?” Form. You can use it any time of year to get a quick snapshot for how students are experiencing your class. The form comes in two versions: One for elementary students and the other for secondary and college-level students. With each, you’ll also get an editable form so you can add to or adjust the questions for your own needs, and a link to a Google Forms option if you want to conduct the survey digitally. Both forms are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store:

The “How’s It Going?” Form
Elementary Level

 

The “How’s It Going?” Form
Secondary/College Level


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17 Comments

  1. Dom Dalais says:

    We do this. It is an integral part of feedback. It is really important though to make sure students answer honestly and constructively. For them to do this they need to be fully prepared.

  2. Rachel says:

    I do this every Friday! We call it “Friday Feedback” (name and idea stolen from some teacher somewhere on the web). It is always the bell work and always completed online via Google Forms. It is INVALUABLE!

    • Diana says:

      Would you be willing to share sample Feedback Friday questions with me?? I could really use the help and ideas .

      Diana 😊

    • Virna Romualdo says:

      At what stages do you seek feedback?

      • You can seek feedback any time. There’s no particular time or stage you need to follow. In the comments section, you’ll see that a lot of teachers give feedback surveys on a regular basis. Others might give a survey on an as-needed basis, like if there’s something particular that they noticed. So…be observant of what’s going on within your classroom, among students, during lessons, etc. Just make sure that whatever it is you’re asking, you’re genuinely interested in using the feedback to meet student needs and for self-reflection. Also make sure you have time to act on whatever feedback you get (see last section of the post). Hope this helps!

  3. I want to be a teacher one day, so I can see why getting feedback from students would be important to improving your teaching. I like that you suggest starting by asking if the class is too easy or hard for the student. I think school should be challenging, but students shouldn’t feel overwhelmed either, so gauging this would be a smart move.

  4. Tim Riley says:

    Jennifer thank you. I enjoyed asking Ss for feedback last semester, but you’ve given better direction with it.

  5. Hi Jenn,
    Thank you. You’ve made some real valid points about the advantages of surveys. We have semester end surveys at our school. Having read about all aspects of student surveys, good and not so good, from your blogpost, helps me see the overall positive side of this type of feedback which could be done more frequently. I’d love to have students identify themselves so I can restructure accordingly…

  6. Hayley says:

    I’m a second year teacher who’s been having some trouble with a particularly rowdy class at the end of the day. My mentor teacher suggested something similar about getting feedback from students during a “class meeting”. We all gathered in a circle, took time to compliment each other, then dove into the problems we were noticing that were preventing learning. Although some of the students made excuses, saying their excessive talking was because of me, I did walk away with some ideas for preventing misbehavior in the future- rearranging the desks, creating less clutter to allow space for thinking, adjusting the lighting, and integrating more movement. We’ll see tomorrow if these have helped our class community!

  7. Talitha Helms says:

    I think this is a great idea! It allows students to have some agency in the classroom so they are more invested in learning and assignments. I love the idea of “Friday Feedback” because it allows the idea of consistent feedback to welcomed. It seems like it could even encourage students to read feedback on their own assignments and make feedback something positive rather than negative! Additionally, by doing it every week student can be more comfortable sharing and gives them an opportunity to reflect on their past week. Thinking about what worked for them what didn’t and also what they took away from the week as a whole.

  8. Eboni McCray says:

    This post was very insightful and gave some great reasons why student feedback is valuable. I am already in the field, but I do still consider myself a newbie. I did associate all of the reasons given with importance of student feedback, but I had not considered self-preservation. Since I am not yet tenured, I can see why using student feedback could assist with self-preservation and the process of observation and tenure. I think I was so focused on the act of being observed by administrators that I didn’t consider that student feedback could be a wonderful tool to strengthen my teaching and improve my observations.

  9. Megan Saling says:

    Thank you for this article. I think a survey is a great way to receive student feedback. Although we might not like everything we here it is an opportunity to improve the classroom. 🙂

  10. Sandra Lamb says:

    Students will appreciate that you care what they are thinking. There will always be the students who are too immature to answer honestly but a lot of good information came be obtained from a survey.

  11. Marta De Paz says:

    I am learning to value my students feedback.
    Also, like the suggestion of asking if the class is too hard or too easy. I think that the students feedback is one of the best ways to understand what needs to be improved.

  12. FUMIE IMLAY says:

    Hello,
    I appreciate all the suggestions either for end of course surveys or prior to get a feel of what the students are thinking and to have time to adjust it.
    Thank You,
    Fumie

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