We just finished our report cards for the first Report Period and, in anticipation of giving them formal feedback, I asked my students to do a self-reflection of their Learning Skills, and to provide me with some feedback. (If you’d like to know more about the Learning Skills we assess, the chart is on Page 11 in Growing Success).
I headed over to Microsoft Forms https://forms.office.com and copied the text from our Report Card so that they would read the same text they’ll get at the end of this week. They then had the ability to rank themselves just as I had to.
I also added two text boxes at the bottom of the Survey:
- What comments do you have to explain your ratings above? What evidence do you have that the highest or lowest rating is true & fair to you?
- What feedback do you have for me or for the course?
I always add the last comment on any survey I send out to anybody … it’s always important to give folks a chance to add on anything they haven’t had a chance to share in other venues.
The students filled them out Friday afternoon at the end of class. I’m always curious to see what the “Average time to complete” was … it’s helpful when talking about surveys with teachers. Don’t make them too long!
I found the students’ comments to be very illuminating and their ratings for the most part lined up with my own.
I will say (and when I speak to them in class tomorrow I’ll reiterate) that their evidence for why they gave their particular scores was well explicated; previous classes have clearly taught them what to look for when reflecting on their learning.
And as for feedback on me & the course, they vary from the laudatory (obsequious?) to the hesitant suggestion (and which I’ll address… maybe not agree or change, but will address). But again, many of them were surprisingly well-articulated. I will only share one because it struck me as capturing exactly what I had hoped was happening with any class (or educator) that I work with:
The flip side comment, of course, exists too. But I know why it exists — and honestly, I’m glad that it does. If they didn’t see that the expectations in this class are different, and different in a particular way, then I would have to change.
