Another task for this Unit's activity was to develop and distribute an age appropriate “Getting to know you” questionnaire for students in the grade levels that I'm teaching on SurveyMonkey or something similar. The questionnaire should help me gauge the following information about your students:
Developmental capabilities and limitations (behavioral and cognitive)
Literacy skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing
Family background and any other social, economic, and cultural influences
Student interests, skills, and talents
Access to and use of technology
Extra-curricular activities or responsibilities, if any
Student special needs, if any
I'm teaching grade 10 and 11, but decided I would roll this out to my Grade 11s first for the purposes of this task. Since then I have already rolled this out to my Grade 10s too and collected and correlated the results as I found this task a particularly useful and rewarding practice.
Please find below the questions I asked them.
Student Survey
Hello lovely students!
Please know that your answers will not be shared with anyone, so please answer honestly. This will help me for my personal studies and will also help me progress to be a better teacher.
So, thank you very much for taking the time to complete this survey!
1. What goals do you have? (This can be something you want to do in life, a dream job, family or achievements.)
2. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
3. Tell me about something that you are proud of.
4. Use 3 adjectives (Adj.) that you think other people would use to describe you.
5. What technology do you use (phone, tablet, computer?) and how much time do you usually use it each week? (approximately)
6. Who do you know that has gone to university? (Not including your teachers)
7. Tell me a little about your family.
8. Do you agree or disagree? Speaking in front of the class scares me
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
9. Do you agree or disagree? When I get things wrong in class, it makes me feel sad or upset.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
10. What are your honest feelings towards English and why?
Each question formulated served a purpose, or multiple, to discover the needs and approaches I can use for my students. The key will act as a useful tool for understanding what this was for each question from here on forward as I elaborate on the purpose for each question and summarise the results received.
NOTE: All questions in this survey would be assessing their literacy skills of reading, and writing as they would be reading and writing in their second language, giving me an indicator of the comprehension and writing levels.
As stated at the beginning of the survey that I would not share their answers. The information I am providing here in no way shares their personal responses. It merely shares the findings as a class as a whole as a quantifiable representation.
For example:
Q4. Use 3 adjectives (Adj.) that you think other people would use to describe you.
A student could reply "Happy, smart, handsome". As a result the adjectives would fall under the categories of "positive" and "physical", detaching any chance of the response being linked to any individual student. As a result their personal responses are kept confidential and the only thing being shared is the class' results as a collective.
To continue forward, let's begin looking at my findings.
What goals do you have?
The intent of this question is to identify what their personal objectives are to find wants to make content relevant to them. Resulting in accomplishment of the learning objectives presented and their own personal objectives.
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Many students when I first met them stated they don’t know what they want to do in the future. So this question is designed to give me another angle in creating relevant and meaningful lessons for them. Again, to meet their own personal objectives and increase engagement by talking and studying something they really care about.
Tell me something you are proud of.
Each student finds gratification in different things. By finding that out I can consider appropriate reward schemes and methods of possitive reinforcement for each student. Furthermore, they may open up about particular interests out of school where they have succeeded again, creating an opening to build relevance in the lessons I deliver. This can also be particularly useful to know in cases where students are undergoing particular hardships, suffering depression or lacking self-esteem.
Use three adjectives to describe yourself.
This is straight forward. This gives me insight into how they view themselves and how I can approach and support. For example, confident students may be more able to take supportive criticism, while less confident may take the same criticism as a failure on their part. Thus requiring a more delicate and compasionate approach.
What technology do you use and and how much time do you spend using it each week?
Asking this tells me what devices they have access to and commonly use.
It’s useful knowledge to have when considering what technology and resources to implement in the lesson and what tasks to set.
Commonly I use WeChat to broadcast classwide notifications and have had the students create a specific email account for school where they can submit classwork and homework where appropriate, especially for ICT or Engish group project materials they have created.
Who do you know who has gone to university?
Usually parents who have gone, or have other children that have gone to university place more emphasis on its importance and are usually more willing to support the students in that endevour. Also, in China, if a family has multiple children aiming for university then it’s a strong signal that they are a high income family with the resources to support their children.
Does speaking in front of the class scare you? & Does getting things wrong in class upset you?
These two questions that students can agree or disagree with on a scaled basis allows me to understand my students disposition to these two scenarios. As a result I can interact with the individual students as well as the class in a more appropriate way that accomodates their needs through improved teaching strategies and classroom management. Ignoring their comfort levels can, and will, quickly lead to them retreating from class participation and becoming silent bystanders. Building up confidence gradually with positive reinforcement and coercing there inclusion in small, gentle steps can yeild better results over time.
How do you feel about English and why?
Feelings, irrespective of skill can obstruct the outcomes of a students pathway to learning. Knowing this can help me address the negativity towards the classes to foster and support the learning objetives of the students.
Of course, what these actions are to resolve negativity or angst towards English would need to be assessed and tackled on a case-by-case basis.
Question 7 “Tell me something about your family” isn’t present in a chart due to it’s very open nature preventing it from being quantifiable. The reason for this is because family questions can be very delicate and viewed as invasive. So the question has been formed in a manner that allows the student to reveal as much or as little as they feel comfortable with. Although speculative, the little amounts some students express about their family can sometimes tell us volumes about what they don’t say. The question can give insight into what support, potential problems or reasons for unusual behaviour may stem from home for past or future events if enough information is revealed.
Notice: At the moment of publication only 6 students have submitted their surveys (out of a possible 11), so the findings at this moment in time represent a little over half of the class.
Bình luận