Surveying Your Clientele

As teachers, part of our formal evaluation for the current academic year will be based on student surveys.  Among my teacher friends, it is not necessarily a popular viewpoint to be in support of including this component in our evaluations.  However, I have always been of the opinion that student evaluations could serve as a useful tool for improving instruction.  Student evaluation forms are also used at the college-level, and isn't that our ultimate goal - to prepare students for college?  I think that student evaluations could prove to be very useful for teachers.  But, if it is to work, positive feedback trends and suggestions for improvement should be compiled at the administrative level and provided to teachers during the early summer.  This will allow teachers an appropriate amount to time to reflect on their practice and implement adjustments where necessary.

I have been piloting the Moodle Learning Management System with my design technology students, and I have asked them to provide formal feedback and evaluations of the Moodle interface (and the 5 E's framework).  So far, the feedback from students has been incredibly insightful.  As a facilitator, I have provided some meaningful learning activities that have been very successful, and I have encountered pitfalls and roadblocks (the students were quick to let me know when these happened).  Students (with initial support from me) were able to navigate the Moodle interface and communicate in meaningful discussion forums.  I have found uses for the Moodle blog feature, and I have been able to weigh the benefits and drawback of the Moodle quiz feature vs. other quiz/survey tools on the web.

As teachers (both in traditional classrooms and in virtual learning spaces), it is our job to provide instruction that works for students.  The students are our clients, and if we are unable to gauge how they perceive their learning, then we will also be lacking in the ability to improve the effectiveness of our teaching.  We need to be sure that we are serving our clients to the best of our ability. I have found that making lessons that are as interactive as possible is, more often than not, the right path for science instruction.  Still, there is a lot of room for improvement in my pedagogical practices, and these reflections definitely help to push me in the right direction.