This article is interesting from several aspects. First, the teacher creates a survey to better know his/her students so that teaching methods can be tailored to fit student preferences. In this article the survey was sent home for parents to transcribe their childrens' responses. The side benefit here was that the parents gained new insight about their own children. I, on the other hand, thought the same survey was too long, but I thought the idea was a good one in our efforts to build positive relationships with our students.
Listening to Students. Elena Auilar. 9.27.12. edutopia. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/listening-to-students-elena-aguilar
What is your reaction to this type of survey? Would parents follow up? What are your thoughts?
I like the survey questions this teacher chose, because I think that is why this activity stands out compared to similar get-to-know-you projects. Rather than “What is your favorite book?” or, “What did you do over the summer?” the teacher chose things that asked about how the child feels. Likes and dislikes are less helpful than knowing what a child fears or what they think of school. I especially like the question, “What distracts you more: movement or noise?” I can see this being helpful in deciding where to seat students in a classroom. Students who are distracted by movement should probably be out of high traffic areas, and students distracted by noise might not need to be right by the teacher’s desk or may learn more sitting alone rather than in a group.
ReplyDeleteI also think this turned into a nice mother-son bonding activity because the assignment was structured so the parent wrote down the child’s responses. The responses were probably longer and more detailed this way, rather than limiting students based on their writing ability.
Of course, surveys like this are limited by how much children really know about themselves. Young children especially might feel things they can’t explain or describe. They might not be self-aware enough to know what distracts them more. I don’t think that means we shouldn’t do these types of activities, but it is important to remember that students might not answer completely and give you a nice road map of how they like to be taught. The more you do this stuff, the more reflective students can be.