Getting feedback from your students
Want to know how you’re doing? Just ask! Most students love to give teachers feedback, and considering how insightful they can be, it’s really a shame we don’t ask them more often than we do. (You do not need to ask for names to get some good reinforcement for things you’re doing that are working for them or for ideas about ways you can tweak your teaching, changes you can make in your classroom, or choices you might be able to start offering.) A few sample questions you might consider asking follow:
1. What do you like most about being in this class?
2. What do I do that you appreciate most? Or what do I do that helps you most?
3. What can I do to make your experience in this class better?
4. What do you wish we would study in here?
5. What do you wish you could do in here to make your learning even better?
6. How would that help?
7. What in my behavior makes you feel valued and welcome in this class?
8. What in my behavior makes you feel safe in this class?
9. If there were one thing you could change about the way I teach, what would it be?
10. If there were one thing you could change about this class, what would it be?
11. If there were one thing you could change about this room, what would it be?
12. Other comments or feedback:
Excerpted from chapter 13, “Create a Win-Win Classroom,” from The Beginning Teacher’s Survival Guide: Win-Win Strategies for Success, by Dr. Jane Bluestein, © 2021, Father Sky Publishing, Albuquerque, NM.
© 1997, 2012, 2022, Dr. Jane Bluestein
Related resources:
Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: The importance of meaningful feedback
Guidelines for Offering Choices to Students
Guidelines for Reinforcing Positive Student Behavior
Handling Negative Student Behavior
Improving Student Behavior Through School Climate—It’s not about the Rules
Dealing Successfully with your Students’ Parents
Getting Away with Success
Motivating Cooperative Behavior
Also check out a post by Ruth Moeller: Feedback from students— Who cares? (I do!)
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Thanks for sharing