Wednesday, January 18, 2012
You've been Surveyed!
Obviously knowing students is important to all teachers. As I am anticipating my next practicum to be in a History class, my survey is interested in how students view History as a part of their lives. This is my attempt to understand students’ prior knowledge and my hinting at the fact that History shapes the very lives we all live. I also ask them to discuss their learning strengths and needs as a student overall or within History since strengths aren’t often restricted to certain subjects and since learning skills can be transferred into many subjects. I hear a mantra coming along: We don’t teach subjects, we are teaching people. Moving away from the academics, my survey is also interested in the student as a whole person so I asked about their interests and what they do for fun. Personally, athletics was integral in my continuation in education. To understand that ‘play’ and ‘work’ aren’t mutually exclusive is to understand how most people engage with the world around them and gear their ‘play’ into careers. Just think of all our beloved Youtube gurus who have parlayed their genuine interests or specialized expertise into lucrative partnerships with advertising agencies and sponsors. This is a brave new world!
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Great Survey!
ReplyDeleteAs it is a history class survey, I believe your question regarding where students get their information from about the world and events is a great question. I think that throughout the unites using and analyzing different forms of primary sources that they are familiar with would really engage the students.
When you ask students what their needs may be in this particular class, what kind of answers do you suspect you may see and how might you address some of those needs?
Thanks for the comments and questions Kim. I was trying to use the more 'inclusive' language of needs instead of weaknesses therefore I left it an open response paragraph where students would be free to divulge anything they wanted. But to my mind, I was thinking about things related to an IEP such as having notes ahead of time, needing more time for assignments or test, use of a laptop, etc. Of course, needs would even include sitting in a specific area of the class or preferences such as using more videos or audio files. Perhaps I will change my survey to include needs AND preferences to make the prompting more inclusive.
ReplyDeleteThis survey is very well done. I like how the survey doesn't solely focus on the academic aspect of the student's life but also looks at their interests outside of the classroom. Like you said, work and play are becoming more intertwined than ever before so it's a good thing that you are interested in creating a classroom dynamic that combines both of these things. This has the potential of teaching students to take history outside of the textbook, the classroom, and apply their learned skills into the real world. You asked an interesting question about bringing historical knowledge into the classroom; what were you hoping to achieve with this question?
ReplyDeleteHi Handful,
DeleteThanks so much for commenting. In terms of prior historical knowledge, I was hoping students would see that history impacts their lives everyday i.e. laws, heritage, culture, food etc. Everything and everybody has a history. I was also hoping to see how they value history in their lives and how if they are aware of its impact.
Ms. Truong,
ReplyDeleteYour survey questions were very well thought out. I especially like how you ask what knowledge students themselves bring to the History class! It is wonderful that you allow students to voice their area of expertise or interest right away. This lets them know that studying History is not a passive process, but it strongly influenced by what experience and knowledge you bring to the table. Overall I really liked the concepts that your questions addressed. However, I found the wording or focus of a few to be a little confusing. Do you think you would change the wording or content of these questions if you had students who struggled with reading, or ELLs? If so, what changes would you make, in either content on format?
Hi Ms. W.,
DeleteThanks for checking out my survey and commenting. In terms of changing the format to accommodate reluctant readers/writers or ELLs, I tried to keep them in mind by using open ended questions and not requiring them to answer all/any questions. This would hopefully allow students to answer to their ability in response to the prompting ‘stem’ question. Although I know that these open ended questions rely on the student to responsibly answer in a thoughtful and reflective way, these types of questions also allow students to take the answer anywhere they want to take it. To me, their responses, lack of responses and degree of responses speaks volume in themselves.
So if there are reluctant readers/ writers or ELLs, I can still use the same survey to learn about students who don’t voluntarily complete the survey. Non completion could indicate their learning style, access to technology, ease with technology, the length of their attention span, their potential investment in the class or even give a clue as to other extenuating circumstances to their learning such as being an English language learner.
Furthermore, I would only use this survey as a preliminary step in getting to know students. As a classroom, we would continue to get to know each other in person at the beginning of the year and throughout the year.
Great survey! You ask relevant questions that will help both you and your students make the classroom experience a positive one. I agree with the above comment in terms of the wording of some of the questions. I had to read over the one about "historical knowledge" & I would imagine a lot of students would ask about it. It just needs some clarification. I also like that you ask your students what anxieties they might have and how they deal with these. Perhaps if you added some examples, this could address some of the issues with wording and content and help those that struggle with reading.
ReplyDeleteHi Evelyn,
DeleteThanks for taking the time to look and comment on my blog. Given that you and someone else commented on this " historical knowledge" question, I added a further explanation of the question giving an example from my own life. I will also do the same for the anxieties question. Thanks for the suggestions!