The key points of this article are: - Student surveys done throughout the year help the teacher have constant feedback in order to improve the classroom experience during the school year. - End of the year surveys are not as effective as constant feedback. - The students voice is important for every teacher. - Students should be asked “what worked” in the classroom not what did “you like.” - The majority of students are bored in class no matter how intelligent they are. - The majority of students also feel that school is not hard as long as you do what you are told. - Most students have a positive outlook on teachers. - Most high school students claim math, science, and social studies to be among their top 4 favorite classes, while family and consumer sciences, health, and technology are much lower. - This same pattern is seen in middle school students, however gym is their number 1 favorite subject whereas in high school it only ranks as number 5. - English is marked low on students favorite subject and high on students most disliked subject list. English is also said to be boring and it is disliked not due to how difficult it is but due to the content. - Students are bimodal about math; they either love or hate it.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because it gives a synopsis of some student’s surveys, which provide insight to how the students actually think about school. The majority of students find school boring. The majority of students also do not feel challenged in school. Challenging students can be an excellent way to get rid of the boring environment of school. Inquiry learning is a great way to challenge students, to have them think and discover things for themselves and hopefully eliminate some of this boredom students are feeling in school.
The key points of this article revolve around surveys. Grant Wiggins begins by stating his opinion on surveys and how they should be given to students throughout the term of course rather than at the end as course evaluations. Surveys at the end of a course do not matter to students because they have already gone through it and any change implemented by their surveys will not affect them. Wiggins also makes a few remarks about effective surveys. To understand the student experience he says that surveys should include more than multiple-choice questions; they should provide students with “opportunities to write about their experiences.” This is why he developed his own survey in which 93% of students filled out the written responses. The percentage is rather high and he attributes that to the fact that students rarely get to express their views on their education. Also, he warns that the sample for his survey does not reflect a “normal” sample for the nation because it does not include schools is the Pacific time-zone and the schools used were those in which he and his team formed relationships. However, even though the sample is skewed, his results were consistent with other survey results. Finally, he discusses some of the survey questions like: “How hard is school?” “How bored are you in school?” and “If you could give your teachers one piece of advice to improve learning and school, what would it be?” He later discusses results and some interesting findings, like the differences among students who receive good grades and those who do not.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because surveys are all about inquiry. Teachers can inquiry about how their students feel about school, why they feel that way, and then how they can respond to these feelings. Taking surveys is also an important experience for students. In one of my math courses, we were given surveys twice during the semester and it let students know the professor cared about how they were feeling about the course and that he was willing to change something if it was not working for us. The surveys were not long, but covered questions about the pace of the course, the amount of homework, and left room for us to write down any suggestions. They were ultimately helpful for the purposes of the professor and made us feel like we had a say in our education.
The key points of the article are 1. surveys can be a huge help to teachers to understand how students feel about the classes they are in. 2. Most high school students either love math and science or hate math and science. 3. Students feel for the most part that they must do their work to succeed in class but it is not overwhelming. 4. English is not a well liked subject not because of the content but because of the work IE papers and reading as opposed to math and science, which is the opposite. 5. Students for the most part like and respect the teachers they have in their subjects 6. their is a wide range in terms of boredom across the board for students in class.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because the article shows how students honestly feel about the classes they are taking in school. Unfortunately most students find class boring even though the like and respect the teachers who are teaching the subjects to them and the students even understand that teachers are trying to make the subject material more interesting for the students. The surveys teachers use can hopefully eliminate some of the boredom that students are having in the class if teachers use the tool effectively.
The key points of this article are that surveys can be extremely in the education system. They are a very helpful tool that allows teachers to get feedback from students in order to effectively improve their lessons or teaching style. When teachers give the students surveys to fill out regularly it is much more effective than the typical end of the year survey. This can allow the teacher to constantly analyze what needs improvement and make changes accordingly. Through different polls teachers can interpret the data, make correlations and realize what is working and what is not working. This benefits the current students rather than attempting to change for next year’s class. The article states that students should often be given chances to express their opinion rather than just multiple choice questions in a survey. Students should be asked questions such as “How do you learn best? What hurts your learning and if you could give your teachers one piece of advice, what would it be?” The results vary among students of different genders, intelligence levels and school systems.
This article helps me to understand teaching and learning through inquiry because these surveys allow teachers to analyze the way students think and how they feel about school and what is going on in the classroom. As teachers we must understand that all students think differently. This is shown through the variation in the survey answers among gender, age and intelligence level. Through these surveys teachers can come to understand the students in their classes and how they think. This will allow them to alter their lessons and way of teaching to benefit different classes. As a teacher, it may also sometimes become very hard to put yourself in the shoes of a high school student. Teachers have a passion for their subject area as well as educating these students and may not realize that the students are bored or are having trouble understanding the concepts. These surveys can openly express these thoughts of the students and bring these issues to the attention of the teacher. This allows the teacher to easily be able to see his or her methods from the students’ point of view. It allows teachers to take a step back and analyze what they can change to maximize the learning of the students.
The key point of this article is about how important student surveys can be for educators. Getting feedback from students' experiences can help the educator figure out what they are doing that is working and what isn't. Teachers can reuse lessons that hold interest and properly educate the students and then discard or fix other lessons that the students found to been boring, hard to follow, or hard to understand. Teachers can also learn how the students feel about how the teacher conducts his or herself. Maybe the students feel that they can't approach the teacher if they have a problem, but the teacher may be unaware of it. In this case, the teacher can use this information to be more warm and open towards their students so their students know and feel that they can approach the teacher when they have a problem.
This article helps me understand teaching and learning through inquiry because by asking the students how they feel about their teachers, the lessons, etc., as educators we can better conduct ourselves and our classrooms. Student feedback can be a huge aid to an educator if they use both the positive and negative feedback. Some people would rather disregard the negative feedback, not to bruise their ego, but if they use it to better themselves and their lessons, it could make a huge difference in how their students respond to them and in their students' overall progress in the class. In the case where the students find the class or the subject boring, the teacher can use that information to try to make the class and the material more interesting to engage the students and make them want to pay attention and to learn. Overall student surveys can be a huge asset to educators if they use them to their advantage.
The main point of the article is Wiggins’ emphasis on teachers receiving student feedback more frequently. He believes students deserve to have more of a voice in their education. As opposed to the end of the year course evaluation forms which only allow the teachers to implement changes to how they will teach the course the following year, with teachers giving out surveys to students more often, teachers will be able to change how they are teaching their current students. This makes the surveys more valuable to the students since their responses can directly lead to changes occurring while they are still in the class. Receiving student feedback more often will allow teachers, when reflecting on their lessons, to also have the useful perspectives of their students. Wiggins believes student feedback is very beneficial to teachers, but warns them against using surveys that just have multiple choice questions and to avoid certain word choices, since these will result in less effective surveys. He demonstrates his point in discussing his results of a survey he conducted of over 7300 middle school and high school students.
This article helps me to better understand learning and teaching through inquiry because it shares with me that a majority of the students surveyed experience some boredom throughout their school day every day, which is a huge deterrence in their learning. Inquiry based learning allows students to be more actively involved in the lessons, decreasing the amount of boredom students experience at school. Furthermore, this article shows how teachers can learn from inquiring about the opinions of their students on the class. Teachers will be able to more effectively make changes to their lessons, including the pace that they teach at and the main pedagogical strategy that they use, from the student feedback that they get.
The key points of this article are using constant student feedback to become an efficient teacher. Surveys at the end of the school year are not as helpful because students will only reflect on more recent topics learned in class and while that can be helpful for those topics, there may have been topics that at the time students liked or disliked but will not think of during end of year surveys. Giving the students more of a voice in their education could potentially make them more interested in their classes. Another key point is the questions that were used in the surveys. Instead of having the traditional multiple choice survey questions, Wiggins’ used short answer questions. Asking the students why they like or dislike something gives them more freedom to express themselves and get a point across.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because knowing what students excelled, what students struggled and why from week to week can help any teacher change their methods and work in the students’ best interest. Looking at the graphs it is good to see that there is a decent amount of the students who took the survey said that school is hard. Hopefully the students who think school is hard is because they are working hard to get those good grades and are being challenged by their teachers. The graph of the favorite subject areas definitely surprised me just as it says above the graph. Being a future math teacher, I find that wonderful and hope that my students are challenged and enjoy my class. I was not surprised to see that Math was on the top for least favorite subject. Math just so happens to be one of those subjects that students will either love it or hate it. This article also shows how teachers and students can work together and learn from each other.
The key points of this article show the importance of student surveys and statistical data results as well as their usefulness in teaching environment. Some of these key points discuss that surveys performed once a year may not be enough. Wiggins argues that surveys should be performed more often in order to seek feedback form students and continuously improve one’s teaching style and trigger students’ interest in any given subject. One of the main points of this article is to show that the students, despite of their interest in any subject, do get bored in schools. Wiggins performed a study with over 7000 high school and middle school students asking questions concerning their favorite/ least favorite subjects, whether they get bored at school and how often, how effective their teachers are, or how hard in their opinion school is. Based on these answers he arrived at some important conclusions, for instance majority of student do not think that school is hard as long as they do all that’s asked of them. What I found interesting is that the weaker students 1. identified that school isn’t as bad as they do what is required from them, 2. identified that math is their least favorite subject (why is that? because they do not have good grades to begin with and they simply don’t try anymore?) and 3. Physical education is their favorite subject (perhaps because it is interactive andfun? or maybe because it is considered as one of those ‘easy A’ classes where they don’t have to try as hard?).
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because asking questions is the key point in learning and improving oneself. This is what the surveys are for-- asking questions about things that matter, things that can be improved-- and what better way to improve something but by asking those who are directly involved in this process = our students. By looking at the outcomes of Wiggins’ study, we as future teachers should keep in mind that we need to do our best in making this learning process as fun and interesting, but also as educational as possible.
The key point of this article is the use of surveys and how important they are to the educator. Surveys are a way for the teacher to get feedback from his or her students to see where improvement is needed or what they did well etc. Wiggins stated that he think surveys should be given to the students throughout the course of the year rather than at the end. The students have already gone through the course, so to give the students the survey at the end would be counterproductive.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because by asking the students how they feel about their teachers and everything they do (lessons, classwork, etc) can help teachers conduct themselves better in the classroom. It is a useful tool that should be used by every teacher because it helps them become better teachers everyday.
The article focuses on surveys handed out to students at the end of the school year. The author Grant Wiggins comes up with a theory and suggests that it would be beneficial to the students if we didn’t wait until the end of the school year to ask what went wrong and what they would change for next year. Instead, Wiggins suggests we ask our students on a daily basis. Therefore, teachers can modify their lessons for their current students to better understand instead of waiting to change things that didn’t work for the upcoming school year. Wiggins made a very important message about the students voice should be heard and I agree that it shouldn’t be in June, but in fact all year long. The article made a good point about the types of questions the survey should ask. Many surveys today are multiple choice questions and students have no option to put any thought it into their responses and most surveys ask what students “liked” not about what “worked” during the school year. Overall, creating surveys asking for students input about your teaching is important and can have a great impact in the classroom.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because…
It gives the students the opportunity to state their opinion on how they feel class is going. By handing out students teachers can begin to see why some students find their science class difficult, why students think class is boring, why the majority of the class doesn’t like going to English class etc.… The majority of surveys today ask what students liked about class, what they liked about their teacher and so on. As a result, isn’t effective at all because of course students are going to say they liked field trips, liked there was no homework on Fridays. But if teachers start getting feedback from their students, they can get a head start on making the class a fun, enjoyable learning experience for the CURRENT year. Not waiting until the next year to make changes.
The key points in this article by Grant Wiggins about a study of student academic experience are: •Most students think positively of their teachers overall. •Students who get good grades favorite subject is Math. •Students who get weak grades least favorite subject is Math. •Students who consider English as their least favorite subject dislike it more because they are not interested in the work and not because it is hard. •Students who have weak grades favorite subject is physical education. •Students who have weak grades think their classes are not so hard as long as they do their work. •Students whose least favorite subject is Math are mostly females. •Students whose least favorite subject is English are mostly males. •Most students are either a little bored or mostly bored in their classes as a whole each day.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because it shows that many students find school to be boring for many parts of the day. If students are bored they will not be engaged in the learning process. Surveys can be helpful to direct schools in what changes they can make in order to engage students in their learning
The key point of this article is the value of student feedback through surveys. The goal of education is for students to learn. Tests, quizzes and homework might give educators an idea of how much students are learning, but asking students directly what works for them is the best way to make teaching more effective, thereby improving the quality of their learning. Judging by the high percentage of students who answered the written-response questions, we can see that students want to give feedback, and their feedback is arguably the most valuable of all, since it is the students who are doing the learning.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because it is a concrete example of how teachers can communicate with students to better aid the students' learning. Teachers are always giving feedback to the students to help them become better; why should teachers not benefit from the same practice? The data also raises some questions for me. The fact that the majority of students with weak grades thought schools was not hard surprised me, and made me think that these students were unmotivated. I wonder what would help them become motivated. I loved the idea of the continual feedback at the end of every week so that the teacher can know what works and what doesn't work, and how to better differentiate his or her instruction. Perhaps another part of the weekly survey could ask what interested the students, and why it interested them (or why not). A big part in making students motivated and interested is making the curriculum relevant to them, and students can help teachers understand what would motivate them to learn.
The key point of this article is to describe how constant feedback from students can aid in the adjustment of teaching practices to meet student needs. Students feel that surveys given at the end of the year aren't as important because the changes made based on the feedback won't effect them. Grant Wiggins also mentions how survey content can be changed to become more effective. Surveys that employ only multiple choice questions are less effective than those that ask students to write their thoughts out. Which is why Grant Wiggins conducted a written survey that received a 93% response rate. He credits the success to the idea that students are rarely asked for their opinions on education and when given the chance, they will respond. The article then goes on to explain more details of his study, such as the types of questions he asked as well as the interesting results he recorded.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because surveys are a great source of information for teachers and students alike. For students it allows them to reflect upon the curriculum as well as the effectiveness of the teacher. For the teacher, it provides feedback from students about what they like and dislike about class. In essence, it is a source for inquiring teachers to consult in order to learn about the students needs and adjust their teaching practices accordingly. This can help a teacher learn how to keep students interested and motivated to learn.
The key point of this article is to show the results of multiple student surveys and how they can be used to improve education. Questions were asked such as "What is you most favorite and least favorite subject, and why? How bored are you in school?" 93% of the students answered every question, showing that they are happy to have a chance to have a say in their schooling. Having end of year assessments and questioning usually results in uninterested students, because it is too late to change anything. By allowing for input during the year, students believe they actually get to be a part of their education. The surveys show that it is typically the work itself that students complain about, not the teacher or the instruction. As a math major, it was interesting to see that math is either loved or hated, with no in between.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because this is a strategy that can and should be used in any classroom environment. Like the teacher in the beginning of the article, handing out an index card and finding out what is working can really change the way you teach. Without doing so, students may never get the chance to tell a teacher if they don't understand something. The teacher will continue to teach in a way that the students may be confused by. But if surveys like this are given, the teacher will have the ability and chance to adjust their teaching to best suit their students.
The key points of this article are:
ReplyDelete- Student surveys done throughout the year help the teacher have constant feedback in order to improve the classroom experience during the school year.
- End of the year surveys are not as effective as constant feedback.
- The students voice is important for every teacher.
- Students should be asked “what worked” in the classroom not what did “you like.”
- The majority of students are bored in class no matter how intelligent they are.
- The majority of students also feel that school is not hard as long as you do what you are told.
- Most students have a positive outlook on teachers.
- Most high school students claim math, science, and social studies to be among their top 4 favorite classes, while family and consumer sciences, health, and technology are much lower.
- This same pattern is seen in middle school students, however gym is their number 1 favorite subject whereas in high school it only ranks as number 5.
- English is marked low on students favorite subject and high on students most disliked subject list. English is also said to be boring and it is disliked not due to how difficult it is but due to the content.
- Students are bimodal about math; they either love or hate it.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because it gives a synopsis of some student’s surveys, which provide insight to how the students actually think about school. The majority of students find school boring. The majority of students also do not feel challenged in school. Challenging students can be an excellent way to get rid of the boring environment of school. Inquiry learning is a great way to challenge students, to have them think and discover things for themselves and hopefully eliminate some of this boredom students are feeling in school.
The key points of this article revolve around surveys. Grant Wiggins begins by stating his opinion on surveys and how they should be given to students throughout the term of course rather than at the end as course evaluations. Surveys at the end of a course do not matter to students because they have already gone through it and any change implemented by their surveys will not affect them. Wiggins also makes a few remarks about effective surveys. To understand the student experience he says that surveys should include more than multiple-choice questions; they should provide students with “opportunities to write about their experiences.” This is why he developed his own survey in which 93% of students filled out the written responses. The percentage is rather high and he attributes that to the fact that students rarely get to express their views on their education. Also, he warns that the sample for his survey does not reflect a “normal” sample for the nation because it does not include schools is the Pacific time-zone and the schools used were those in which he and his team formed relationships. However, even though the sample is skewed, his results were consistent with other survey results. Finally, he discusses some of the survey questions like: “How hard is school?” “How bored are you in school?” and “If you could give your teachers one piece of advice to improve learning and school, what would it be?” He later discusses results and some interesting findings, like the differences among students who receive good grades and those who do not.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because surveys are all about inquiry. Teachers can inquiry about how their students feel about school, why they feel that way, and then how they can respond to these feelings. Taking surveys is also an important experience for students. In one of my math courses, we were given surveys twice during the semester and it let students know the professor cared about how they were feeling about the course and that he was willing to change something if it was not working for us. The surveys were not long, but covered questions about the pace of the course, the amount of homework, and left room for us to write down any suggestions. They were ultimately helpful for the purposes of the professor and made us feel like we had a say in our education.
The key points of the article are 1. surveys can be a huge help to teachers to understand how students feel about the classes they are in. 2. Most high school students either love math and science or hate math and science. 3. Students feel for the most part that they must do their work to succeed in class but it is not overwhelming. 4. English is not a well liked subject not because of the content but because of the work IE papers and reading as opposed to math and science, which is the opposite. 5. Students for the most part like and respect the teachers they have in their subjects 6. their is a wide range in terms of boredom across the board for students in class.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because the article shows how students honestly feel about the classes they are taking in school. Unfortunately most students find class boring even though the like and respect the teachers who are teaching the subjects to them and the students even understand that teachers are trying to make the subject material more interesting for the students. The surveys teachers use can hopefully eliminate some of the boredom that students are having in the class if teachers use the tool effectively.
The key points of this article are that surveys can be extremely in the education system. They are a very helpful tool that allows teachers to get feedback from students in order to effectively improve their lessons or teaching style. When teachers give the students surveys to fill out regularly it is much more effective than the typical end of the year survey. This can allow the teacher to constantly analyze what needs improvement and make changes accordingly. Through different polls teachers can interpret the data, make correlations and realize what is working and what is not working. This benefits the current students rather than attempting to change for next year’s class. The article states that students should often be given chances to express their opinion rather than just multiple choice questions in a survey. Students should be asked questions such as “How do you learn best? What hurts your learning and if you could give your teachers one piece of advice, what would it be?” The results vary among students of different genders, intelligence levels and school systems.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to understand teaching and learning through inquiry because these surveys allow teachers to analyze the way students think and how they feel about school and what is going on in the classroom. As teachers we must understand that all students think differently. This is shown through the variation in the survey answers among gender, age and intelligence level. Through these surveys teachers can come to understand the students in their classes and how they think. This will allow them to alter their lessons and way of teaching to benefit different classes. As a teacher, it may also sometimes become very hard to put yourself in the shoes of a high school student. Teachers have a passion for their subject area as well as educating these students and may not realize that the students are bored or are having trouble understanding the concepts. These surveys can openly express these thoughts of the students and bring these issues to the attention of the teacher. This allows the teacher to easily be able to see his or her methods from the students’ point of view. It allows teachers to take a step back and analyze what they can change to maximize the learning of the students.
The key point of this article is about how important student surveys can be for educators. Getting feedback from students' experiences can help the educator figure out what they are doing that is working and what isn't. Teachers can reuse lessons that hold interest and properly educate the students and then discard or fix other lessons that the students found to been boring, hard to follow, or hard to understand. Teachers can also learn how the students feel about how the teacher conducts his or herself. Maybe the students feel that they can't approach the teacher if they have a problem, but the teacher may be unaware of it. In this case, the teacher can use this information to be more warm and open towards their students so their students know and feel that they can approach the teacher when they have a problem.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me understand teaching and learning through inquiry because by asking the students how they feel about their teachers, the lessons, etc., as educators we can better conduct ourselves and our classrooms. Student feedback can be a huge aid to an educator if they use both the positive and negative feedback. Some people would rather disregard the negative feedback, not to bruise their ego, but if they use it to better themselves and their lessons, it could make a huge difference in how their students respond to them and in their students' overall progress in the class. In the case where the students find the class or the subject boring, the teacher can use that information to try to make the class and the material more interesting to engage the students and make them want to pay attention and to learn. Overall student surveys can be a huge asset to educators if they use them to their advantage.
- Michele Treadwell
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe main point of the article is Wiggins’ emphasis on teachers receiving student feedback more frequently. He believes students deserve to have more of a voice in their education. As opposed to the end of the year course evaluation forms which only allow the teachers to implement changes to how they will teach the course the following year, with teachers giving out surveys to students more often, teachers will be able to change how they are teaching their current students. This makes the surveys more valuable to the students since their responses can directly lead to changes occurring while they are still in the class. Receiving student feedback more often will allow teachers, when reflecting on their lessons, to also have the useful perspectives of their students. Wiggins believes student feedback is very beneficial to teachers, but warns them against using surveys that just have multiple choice questions and to avoid certain word choices, since these will result in less effective surveys. He demonstrates his point in discussing his results of a survey he conducted of over 7300 middle school and high school students.
DeleteThis article helps me to better understand learning and teaching through inquiry because it shares with me that a majority of the students surveyed experience some boredom throughout their school day every day, which is a huge deterrence in their learning. Inquiry based learning allows students to be more actively involved in the lessons, decreasing the amount of boredom students experience at school. Furthermore, this article shows how teachers can learn from inquiring about the opinions of their students on the class. Teachers will be able to more effectively make changes to their lessons, including the pace that they teach at and the main pedagogical strategy that they use, from the student feedback that they get.
The key points of this article are using constant student feedback to become an efficient teacher. Surveys at the end of the school year are not as helpful because students will only reflect on more recent topics learned in class and while that can be helpful for those topics, there may have been topics that at the time students liked or disliked but will not think of during end of year surveys. Giving the students more of a voice in their education could potentially make them more interested in their classes. Another key point is the questions that were used in the surveys. Instead of having the traditional multiple choice survey questions, Wiggins’ used short answer questions. Asking the students why they like or dislike something gives them more freedom to express themselves and get a point across.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because knowing what students excelled, what students struggled and why from week to week can help any teacher change their methods and work in the students’ best interest. Looking at the graphs it is good to see that there is a decent amount of the students who took the survey said that school is hard. Hopefully the students who think school is hard is because they are working hard to get those good grades and are being challenged by their teachers. The graph of the favorite subject areas definitely surprised me just as it says above the graph. Being a future math teacher, I find that wonderful and hope that my students are challenged and enjoy my class. I was not surprised to see that Math was on the top for least favorite subject. Math just so happens to be one of those subjects that students will either love it or hate it. This article also shows how teachers and students can work together and learn from each other.
The key points of this article show the importance of student surveys and statistical data results as well as their usefulness in teaching environment. Some of these key points discuss that surveys performed once a year may not be enough. Wiggins argues that surveys should be performed more often in order to seek feedback form students and continuously improve one’s teaching style and trigger students’ interest in any given subject. One of the main points of this article is to show that the students, despite of their interest in any subject, do get bored in schools. Wiggins performed a study with over 7000 high school and middle school students asking questions concerning their favorite/ least favorite subjects, whether they get bored at school and how often, how effective their teachers are, or how hard in their opinion school is. Based on these answers he arrived at some important conclusions, for instance majority of student do not think that school is hard as long as they do all that’s asked of them. What I found interesting is that the weaker students 1. identified that school isn’t as bad as they do what is required from them, 2. identified that math is their least favorite subject (why is that? because they do not have good grades to begin with and they simply don’t try anymore?) and 3. Physical education is their favorite subject (perhaps because it is interactive andfun? or maybe because it is considered as one of those ‘easy A’ classes where they don’t have to try as hard?).
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because asking questions is the key point in learning and improving oneself. This is what the surveys are for-- asking questions about things that matter, things that can be improved-- and what better way to improve something but by asking those who are directly involved in this process = our students. By looking at the outcomes of Wiggins’ study, we as future teachers should keep in mind that we need to do our best in making this learning process as fun and interesting, but also as educational as possible.
The key point of this article is the use of surveys and how important they are to the educator. Surveys are a way for the teacher to get feedback from his or her students to see where improvement is needed or what they did well etc. Wiggins stated that he think surveys should be given to the students throughout the course of the year rather than at the end. The students have already gone through the course, so to give the students the survey at the end would be counterproductive.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because by asking the students how they feel about their teachers and everything they do (lessons, classwork, etc) can help teachers conduct themselves better in the classroom. It is a useful tool that should be used by every teacher because it helps them become better teachers everyday.
The Key Points of the article are…
ReplyDeleteThe article focuses on surveys handed out to students at the end of the school year. The author Grant Wiggins comes up with a theory and suggests that it would be beneficial to the students if we didn’t wait until the end of the school year to ask what went wrong and what they would change for next year. Instead, Wiggins suggests we ask our students on a daily basis. Therefore, teachers can modify their lessons for their current students to better understand instead of waiting to change things that didn’t work for the upcoming school year. Wiggins made a very important message about the students voice should be heard and I agree that it shouldn’t be in June, but in fact all year long. The article made a good point about the types of questions the survey should ask. Many surveys today are multiple choice questions and students have no option to put any thought it into their responses and most surveys ask what students “liked” not about what “worked” during the school year. Overall, creating surveys asking for students input about your teaching is important and can have a great impact in the classroom.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because…
It gives the students the opportunity to state their opinion on how they feel class is going. By handing out students teachers can begin to see why some students find their science class difficult, why students think class is boring, why the majority of the class doesn’t like going to English class etc.… The majority of surveys today ask what students liked about class, what they liked about their teacher and so on. As a result, isn’t effective at all because of course students are going to say they liked field trips, liked there was no homework on Fridays. But if teachers start getting feedback from their students, they can get a head start on making the class a fun, enjoyable learning experience for the CURRENT year. Not waiting until the next year to make changes.
The key points in this article by Grant Wiggins about a study of student academic experience are:
ReplyDelete•Most students think positively of their teachers overall.
•Students who get good grades favorite subject is Math.
•Students who get weak grades least favorite subject is Math.
•Students who consider English as their least favorite subject dislike it more because they are not interested in the work and not because it is hard.
•Students who have weak grades favorite subject is physical education.
•Students who have weak grades think their classes are not so hard as long as they do their work.
•Students whose least favorite subject is Math are mostly females.
•Students whose least favorite subject is English are mostly males.
•Most students are either a little bored or mostly bored in their classes as a whole each day.
This article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because it shows that many students find school to be boring for many parts of the day. If students are bored they will not be engaged in the learning process. Surveys can be helpful to direct schools in what changes they can make in order to engage students in their learning
The key point of this article is the value of student feedback through surveys. The goal of education is for students to learn. Tests, quizzes and homework might give educators an idea of how much students are learning, but asking students directly what works for them is the best way to make teaching more effective, thereby improving the quality of their learning. Judging by the high percentage of students who answered the written-response questions, we can see that students want to give feedback, and their feedback is arguably the most valuable of all, since it is the students who are doing the learning.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because it is a concrete example of how teachers can communicate with students to better aid the students' learning. Teachers are always giving feedback to the students to help them become better; why should teachers not benefit from the same practice? The data also raises some questions for me. The fact that the majority of students with weak grades thought schools was not hard surprised me, and made me think that these students were unmotivated. I wonder what would help them become motivated. I loved the idea of the continual feedback at the end of every week so that the teacher can know what works and what doesn't work, and how to better differentiate his or her instruction. Perhaps another part of the weekly survey could ask what interested the students, and why it interested them (or why not). A big part in making students motivated and interested is making the curriculum relevant to them, and students can help teachers understand what would motivate them to learn.
The key point of this article is to describe how constant feedback from students can aid in the adjustment of teaching practices to meet student needs. Students feel that surveys given at the end of the year aren't as important because the changes made based on the feedback won't effect them. Grant Wiggins also mentions how survey content can be changed to become more effective. Surveys that employ only multiple choice questions are less effective than those that ask students to write their thoughts out. Which is why Grant Wiggins conducted a written survey that received a 93% response rate. He credits the success to the idea that students are rarely asked for their opinions on education and when given the chance, they will respond. The article then goes on to explain more details of his study, such as the types of questions he asked as well as the interesting results he recorded.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because surveys are a great source of information for teachers and students alike. For students it allows them to reflect upon the curriculum as well as the effectiveness of the teacher. For the teacher, it provides feedback from students about what they like and dislike about class. In essence, it is a source for inquiring teachers to consult in order to learn about the students needs and adjust their teaching practices accordingly. This can help a teacher learn how to keep students interested and motivated to learn.
The key point of this article is to show the results of multiple student surveys and how they can be used to improve education. Questions were asked such as "What is you most favorite and least favorite subject, and why? How bored are you in school?" 93% of the students answered every question, showing that they are happy to have a chance to have a say in their schooling. Having end of year assessments and questioning usually results in uninterested students, because it is too late to change anything. By allowing for input during the year, students believe they actually get to be a part of their education. The surveys show that it is typically the work itself that students complain about, not the teacher or the instruction. As a math major, it was interesting to see that math is either loved or hated, with no in between.
ReplyDeleteThis article helps me to better understand teaching and learning through inquiry because this is a strategy that can and should be used in any classroom environment. Like the teacher in the beginning of the article, handing out an index card and finding out what is working can really change the way you teach. Without doing so, students may never get the chance to tell a teacher if they don't understand something. The teacher will continue to teach in a way that the students may be confused by. But if surveys like this are given, the teacher will have the ability and chance to adjust their teaching to best suit their students.