The Importance of Getting Feedback FROM Students

Hola hola:

We give our students feedback on a daily basis in our classrooms with our opening activities, assessments, quizzes, classroom conversations, etc. They are so used to getting feedback from us, but how often do we elicit feedback from them? And I mean TRUE feedback.

At my last school, it was a requirement for teachers to give a course evaluation every year at the end of the year. However, it was basically a fill in the bubble thing for most of us with very little to no opportunities for students to write open-ended feedback.

I think that a lot of people do some type of feedback at the end of the year, but I think that the end of the year is too late. 

When I was doing an evaluation at the end of the year, school was already over! If we can improve on something, don't we want to know about it before the year has come to an end?

Feedback from students about teacher surveys:

At the end of every term (there are 3 at my school), I give my students a mostly open-ended feedback form for them to fill out about me on Google Forms. This way, it can be anonymous, and I can get real feedback. 

I worked with some of my 8th graders this year to help me perfect this form. Here were some of the things the students said about surveys they've taken about teachers in the past:

1. If it is not open ended, then we are not giving the feedback that we want. If the question is something like "Do you feel like your teachers respect you? 4     3     2    1," the students said it makes it really hard for them to answer. One student said, "one of my teachers doesn't respect us, but the rest do, so what do I put? A 4? A 3?" I think that this is a valid point. 

2. The other reason for having open-ended questions is so that students can bring up topics that we might not even be considering. They said that there are specific things a teacher might do like mumble but most questions aren't "Do I mumble too much?" so how are they going to give that feedback if there's nowhere for them to write it? 

My teacher evaluation form:

Here are some important elements that I think make a good feedback form for a teacher:

1. It has to be anonymous. If it is not, students will not be honest. They will be afraid to criticize their teacher knowing that they have months left in the class. 

2. It has to have a lot of open-ended questions (as mentioned above). 

3. It has to have a way for students to reflect on their own effort in the course as well. Students agreed with me that sometimes they don't learn a lot in a course but don't always blame the teacher because they don't always do what they are supposed to. 

4. You have to remind the students over and over that they need to be honest. Otherwise, the feedback is useless. 

5. The questions cannot all be about academics. Social emotional learning is just as important. 

Here is the feedback form for me as a teacher that I developed this year with the help of some 8th graders: 

Sample Teacher Feedback Form

Here is a quick overview of the questions:

1. How do you feel this year is going for you in Spanish class? 

2. What are your strengths in this class?

3. What are you struggling with in class (if anything)?

4. Is the pace of the class too slow, too fast, or just right?

5. Do you feel you are learning in this class?

6. Do you feel like I am clear of my expectations, assignments, and grading? 

7. Do you feel like we talk about real things in this class or do you feel like it's a lot of grammar practice?

8. Do you feel like I care about your education and want you to acquire as much Spanish as possible? 

9. Do you feel like I care about my students, their lives, and their progress? 

10. Do the proficiency levels (Novice High, Intermediate Low, etc.) help you know how to improve?

11. Is there anything that I should do more of? Less of? Why?

12. What can I do to be a better teacher? Please be honest. This truly is helpful and anonymous.

13. Do you feel comfortable expressing when you do not understand what something means? 

14. Then students rate themselves on effort, classroom behavior, organization, quality of work, and checking the online gradebook for assignments. 

15. Lastly, they make a goal for improvement. 

DISCLAIMER: These evaluations can be hard to read:

It is NEVER easy to read negative feedback about yourself, and it is hard to focus on the good--even if it wayyyyy outweighs the bad. However, this is way more important than our egos. If we are not trying to improve our teaching, then we are not doing the best job we can. 

Take the negative comments with a grain of salt; we all have students who don't love us or don't love the way/things we teach. That is SO normal. However, we have to look for patterns. If more than one student is saying the same thing, then it is a problem. There's a difference between, "I hate you. You suck" and "I think that you should work on getting grades back quicker." 

What I learned this year:

After reading my course evaluations, I learned a lot of great stuff about myself as a teacher! Here were some of the amazing comments: 

"i feel like you have a good mind set to help the class grow"

"I feel that I have learned a lot thus far in the year. I have also been able to use some of the Spanish used in class to communicate at home."

"I think you are a great teacher and that the way you teach the class has improved my Spanish speaking a lot."

"NOTHING I TOLD YOU, YOU WERE A PERFECT TEACHER!"

"I feel that I improved a lot from last year and learn a lot quicker in this class"

"I feel really good, I came into Spanish this year and I did not feel confident and was really scared since I was really bad but even in the last 2-3 months I feel like I have learned more than I have last year and feel like in have really grown as a Spanish speaker."

"We talk about lots of real things, and really never work on just grammar sheets. We have pages of cierto falso which help us repeat things we are learning in class by writing them and when someone has a grammar question you can answer it. Otherwise it is not too much grammar practice."

And here were some of the negative ones: 

"Be a bit more patient."

"I think you should be more patient with some kids."

"I feel that you could perhaps be more patient as you seem to get frustrated easily."

"I think you could be less strict when students do or get something wrong. Although you are usually not strict just when you are in a bad mood."

Final Thoughts: 

These are never easy to read, but I had to remind myself just how amazing the positive comments were, and 90% of them were all positive. But, I noticed a pattern. Clearly, a lot of my students were feeling that I was not being patient enough. THIS IS A PROBLEM, and if I did not learn this when I did, the whole year probably would have remained the same. So, I did research on how to keep my patience and have been working hard to make sure that I don't sweat the small stuff anymore.  I told my students that this was a pattern and I promised them to be better about it. Students have said that things have gotten so much better since first term, and that makes me feel a lot better. I cannot wait to see what they say when I give them a feedback form for the end of the second term. 

My main point is: don't be afraid to get feedback from students. It's not always constructive because they're kids, and they don't always know how to be constructive with their criticism, but that doesn't make their opinions any less valid. This is too important to not do. Just re-read all the positive comments as much as you have to in order to help you remember how amazing of a teacher you are, and find patterns of criticism in the not-so-happy comments to help you be even more amazing. 

Keep being amazing,

Timothy