Always Ask for Student Feedback!

We try and end every school year by asking our students for their feedback and reflections. Students love this as it is their turn to evaluate us for a change! We love modeling how asking for and receiving feedback is part of learning and growing, as well as demonstrating our commitment to lifelong reflection and learning. Also, I’m always surprised by what students remember, appreciated, and enjoyed. Sometimes, the things they complain about during the school year are the things they say they enjoyed the most at the end.

Some patterns we’ve noticed over the years are that students tend to especially appreciate amazing read alouds, the well stocked and curated classroom library (and personalized book recommendations from their teachers), experiences (for example field trips or guest speakers), games (and fun!), and their teachers (especially encouragement and support).

Here are the questions we asked and some of our students’ responses (in order for the evaluation to feel more exciting and grown up, we had our 3rd graders fill out a Google form. This way, they could choose to be anonymous - new vocabulary word! - or not. We worked up to having students independently use a Google form all year, so having handwritten feedback might be a more realistic/comfortable option earlier in the year). Student responses are in italics:

What is one of your highlights (something you enjoyed) in 3rd grade?

• I enjoyed playing games because I felt like we were all one family.
• woking on essays because it's a project and I like projects especially ones that take a long time and essays take long that's why I like essays. I also like social studies because we did things that involve interacting with each other
• The teachers

What was something that didn't feel good (or was a challenging moment) for you?

• Getting pushed and pushed and pushed (keep going -- I finished.. now keep going moooore! keep going!). I just wanted to be done sometimes! This was sort of a good thing too.
• Learning to type was challenging and frustrating because I was lagging behind. But eventually I got the hang of it. (-:
• Learning to be okay if you make a mistake

Is there anything you are still thinking about (from what we learned this year)?

• What my learning was like ( how much I learned).
• No, well not that I know of.
• What I learned is that you should never judge somebody by their skin color because that is wrong!
• How many essays we could write, how many more topics we could write with essays and how many more chances could we have had if we only did that in writing. I would like to make essays the whole year! no one wanted to do essays when you first said it, but then everyone wanted to do essays once we did it once or twice.

What could your teachers have done better to support and/or challenge you?

• Not a lot. Really nothing because I expanded my learning this year a lot.
• To support me, you could have worn very awesome shirts! (This is hilarious. Clearly, I need to go shopping for awesome shirts before the school year starts!)
• giving me more books.

What did your teachers do well (to support and/or challenge you)?

• They were always helping me and making me a better writer through their advice.
• well, they pushed us more to work harder and have more fun while we work not just ' oh work, blech!' it was fun learning too, not just learning school blech! It was fun, because our teachers are fun! yay.
• Gave us a lot of game time!!!!

If you could change something about 3rd grade, what would it be? Why?

• It would be using our computers more often because, using computers helps us type faster and better (more stamina). (They were only allowed to use computers during Technology class once a week and for “publishing” their writing).
• Something that I would change about 3rd grade is the amount that we have in writing and Social Studies because those are my two favorite subjects in Homeroom.
• I would change 3rd grade to allow a 3rd grade pet I would change it because I think it would be the little 3rd grade HERO and we would have a good laugh with it
• Maybe they could buy more books. (This is amazing because we went way over our budget because we bought so many books! But of course we can always buy more - there are so many wonderful books out there).

Any other thoughts or things you think we should know:

• 3rd grade was the BEST ever like if I could go on vacation I would go to 3rd grade
• I love your games. They make the world less depressed.
• NOPE (most students said no or just didn’t answer this question).
• That I love reading a lot and I have a big imagination.

While we loved hearing from our students, we reflected that asking 3rd graders about the entire school year on one survey might have been too much at once. This upcoming school year, I hope to find a way to get student feedback throughout the year. Some ideas I am considering are reflections after big projects or at the end of units or maybe something more open-ended. I will keep brainstorming and will hopefully have some more feedback to share this fall!

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End of Year Feedback from Students

Well into summer, I finally have some time to sit down and reflect on the school year! One piece I wanted to take a closer look at was the end of year evaluations from students (of us!). Gabby and I created a Google Form with seven required questions and an optional anything else you’d like to add (they are all listed or summarized below in bold font). We then asked our students to give us honest, thoughtful feedback as part of our reflection and planning for next year. We find that using a Google Form and having students respond on their computers often causes them to write more and feel more “anonymous” and empowered to be honest.

There are many reasons why we ask our students for feedback. Primarily, we do want to know what they are taking away, thinking, feeling, and reflecting and student evaluation of teachers is an important and often overlooked resource. We also want to give them an opportunity to practice using their voices and saying what works/doesn’t work for them. Also, we want to model being open to feedback and self-reflective! On top of all of these reasons, 5th graders are hilarious and we wanted to see what they would say.

Our first question was a highlight (something you enjoyed) from 5th grade.

Some trends among the answers were:

Storytelling:

“One of my highlights for fifth grade was the Storytelling unit. I LOVED doing it because A: I love hearing stories and B: because it was really fun to perform and learn about things I never knew about my dad (I interviewed him) and details about things that happened to me when I was little.”

Simulations:

“I enjoyed the simulations like the bead making food eating office working simulation because it showed us how it feels like to be less than or not to give up”

Social Studies/current events

“I loved reading and talking about current events because it was interesting to find out what was happening in the world. Though I didn't enjoy annotating, I think it will help me in middle school.”

Funny/Unexpected:

“Halloween”

“I enjoyed how understanding the teachers were. Like, one time I did all my homework but I forgot my homework folder, and I was so disappointed. Instead of getting mad at me, you guys just said I could borrow someone else's word study sheet since it was Friday and I needed to take the word study test. Even though I was sad, it didn't go as bad as I thought it would go, and that was a highlight of my year.”

“I really liked word study, even though I am not the best speller in the class word study has helped me a lot. Also I loved doing the quizzes at the end of the week and getting are grade back ( even though sometimes it wasn't the best grade. ) Overall word study was a fun part of homework in 5th grade that I enjoyed.”

I love that word study was something that at least one student enjoyed, as it is annoying for us (teachers) to put together and grade and most students complained about the word study homework incessantly.

Next, we asked what was something that didn't feel good (or was a challenging moment) for you?

Trends:

Too much HW

Writing by hand

Virginia Indian Case studies (but felt proud of getting through them)

My personal favorite response:

” I think that the puberty/health and wellness was challenging for me because I would laugh at everything you would say about it.”

I love this because this was how I usually feel when teaching Health & Wellness.

Next question: How did Social Studies feel for you? Was it too hard, too easy, or just right? Which parts? Why?

These are important questions for us to ask because sometimes we think our content is too challenging and intense and wonder if some of our content is more appropriate for middle school.

“Just right. I loved SS this year. It was fascinating [sic], and sometimes scary, but always the truth.”

Good to hear! Most students said just right, or if it was hard at times, they later expanded their understanding.

Is there anything you are still confused about from Social Studies? Is there anything you are still thinking about?

“I am still thinking about The Trail of Tears. This event made me wonder how much of history is covered up, and how much of history do we still have to find?”

“I left SS this year with some questions like "why does the world have to be so cruel\rude\angry when we can all just focus on the good things?" and "why blame other people for things they did not do? As [another teacher’s name] says, 'life is ment to build people up, not break them down.'" But those questions were things that I wanted to strive to answer (and maybe change) when and as I grow up.”

These are issues I continue to think about as well..

What could your teachers have done better to support and/or challenge you?

“call on me more randomly because i don't usually raise my hand”

I love this because at the time you know they resented us for calling on them when they didn’t raise their hands!

“During this school year I have learned that saying "no" and "i don't agree" -- not just exclamation points !!!! -- is totally OK (thanks Ms. Arca) but this time I really don't think there is anything I can add in this column, because this time, there really IS nothing to say!”

What did your teachers do well (to support and/or challenge you)?

“They were willing to help and had really good and helpful advice and if you didn't ask to meet with them they might ask or hover over your work to help and support you and I liked that.”

“The teachers did well in reminding us that if we need help, you need to ask. I liked this because it got us ready for sixth grade, and made us feel independent. It also made us feel supported to know that we have have help if we need it.”

“One out of the many things the teachers did well to support me this year is non-pushy random check ins because I know that I am the kind of person who doesn't come up to a teacher right away if something is bothering me -- though i probably should! -- and so those non-pushy random check ins are really helpfull for me.”

Nice to hear - obviously we will continue to check in with and push our students, but it’s good to know it is appreciated (eventually). I also find the awareness that learning to ask for help is a life skill impressive.

If you could change something about 5th grade, what would it be? Why?

General trend: more simulations, less homework, don’t change anything!

“I would make more simulations! I loved the simulations, they were so fun, and it was cool to be "in the shoes of" the thing/person/religion you guys are trying to teach us about. Also, it was great to learn things in a fun way.”

Any other thoughts or things you think we should know:

We always ask, just in case, but responses were along the lines of no, 5th grade was great, see my earlier answers.

It’s comforting to hear that students don’t feel confused or overwhelmed by the curriculum and appreciate the honesty and reality. We fully expected storytelling to be a highlight, because it is amazing, but also because it is the last literacy unit of the year and our Final Stage show is the culmination of our year together.

I also wasn’t surprised by the positivity around simulations, but the self-awareness and reflectiveness shown when students were able to say that they had moments of empathy or experiencing someone else’s perspective (although, of course, a simulation is NOT THE SAME as real life).

Asking students for feedback is always surprising, amusing, and gratifying. In this age of all kinds of evaluation systems for teachers, I find that I am the most motivated by my observations, student work or growth, and student feedback. It doesn’t have to be formal or written, but I hope to continue to incorporate student feedback and reflection into my teaching next year. How do you ask for and receive student feedback? How does it inform your teaching, learning, and planning? We'd love to hear!