by Emma Willibey
Most STA teachers distribute surveys over their classes’ content during October and November to fulfill the administration’s yearly requirement and alter instruction techniques for second semester. According to academic principal Barbara McCormick, student reviews allow instructors to evaluate their methods of delivering information.
“One of the highest priorities of having course surveys is gathering feedback from students in regards to how their classrooms are operating,” McCormick said. “The biggest thing is for teachers to know what students perceive as working for them.”
According to McCormick, teachers value responses to hands-on exercises and web tools. The electronic forms often include lists of in-class activities for students to rank so teachers can recognize effective procedures.
“It’s really important that teachers have that feedback and that insight,” McCormick said. “The goal is that you’re learning, not that we’re just throwing stuff at you.”
This year, instructors anticipate reactions to standard courses with new approaches like the “flipped classroom.” According to McCormick, student advice impacts new or revised classes more than it does traditional courses with firm schedules.
“I definitely think when a new course is offered, the feedback is really beneficial,” McCormick said. “[For] old courses with new ways of teaching, it’ll be interesting to see [student] feedback forms.”
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According to science teacher Terry Conner, the science department hopes to gage opinions of the flipped classroom by adding survey questions focused solely on the new structure.
“[Flipped classroom teachers will distribute] just one survey for the course,” Conner said. “But we’re adding in three or four questions for the flipped classroom.”
Conner introduced the flipped classroom to the science department in response to previous end-of-semester polls. According to Conner, students commented that they received an ‘A’ in Conner’s class, but did not absorb the information.
“If [students] get a good grade, they should feel confident that they learned that material,” Conner said.
However, Conner admits not all student appraisals are valid. According to Conner, some students criticize the class without considering their own faults. Like the self-governing flipped classroom, Conner’s surveys begin with assessments that prompt students to measure their effort before judging the course.
“I like to give that student evaluation first to show [students] it’s a two-way street,” Conner said.
Junior Dominique Spini agrees that students do not always provide well-founded feedback.
“To be honest, some people take [the surveys] seriously, but some people don’t,” Spini said.
To ensure that submissions are representative, McCormick recommends instructors to poll about half of their class.
“If a teacher has anywhere from 75 to 125 students, they need to have a good 40% of those students responding to get the qualitative feedback that’s needed,” McCormick said.
After assembling these results, each teacher meets with McCormick to analyze the data. According to McCormick, instructors determine areas that need adjustment by identifying recurring replies.
“If five students say the same thing about one item, that raises concerns,” McCormick said. “[We think], ‘I need to study why the comment is coming off this way.’”
Teachers then test repeated suggestions second semester, integrating them into the curriculum if positive outcomes emerge.
“[The surveys] help teachers in perceiving what’s going well for them and what’s not going well,” McCormick said. “[Teachers] can’t change the past, but they can change what’s gonna happen now.”
