This course will become read-only in the near future. Tell us at community.p2pu.org if that is a problem.
The teaching term "student engagement" has a wide and varied usage in education. In this course participants will share, enlarge, adapt, and redefine their ideas about engagement through watching videos, reading articles, trying out methods in their own classrooms, and by sharing and challenging each other. Together we will share the pros/cons, challenges and ease of different engagement methods to help students learn. Our focus will be on open dialogue about all methods and the elements and nature of engagement itself. This course begins September 26 and ends November 6.
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
The High School Survey of Student Engagement releases its findings to the public on a regular basis. These findings certainly reveal the need for attention on the issue of student engagement. The survey defines engagement as all that involves and invests students to come to school, remain in school, and learn in school. Many of the students that were surveyed expressed surprise that they were being asked to share their experiences and opinions. A number of them shared they did not imagine anyone would do anything about their struggles with engagement. Read over some of the findings in this web page on the HSSSE:
The High School Survey of Student Engagement from Indiana University (all rights reserved).
Your assignment is to develop a simple engagement survey of your own designed for your given student population (no more than 10 questions). Share your survey with this P2PU learning group through a link, google documents, or a mass email. This assignment is flexible on timing so work on it but do not rush yourself to be done this week. Try to complete the survey and carry it out prior to the end of the course.
After giving and receiving feedback on your survey, administer it to your students and share with us how it went using the comments feature of this task.
Here is a link to my blog. I was able to try my survey with a very small sample of students. I plan on using it again next week on another lesson.
http://mistersunne.blogspot.com/
In our Math department we hold online classes once a month for specific topics. We have had three such classes so far. Each class is held using a Web Ex format and also uses web cameras, audio, and powerpoint. I would like to survey the students about their interest and study the results to learn how we can engage them further in these classes.
My survey would be as follows:
1. How many of the online classes have you attended?
2. If you have not attended all of the online classes, which did you not attend? Why?
3. What did you like about the online class?
4. What did you not like about the online class?
5. What topics would you like to see in future classes?
I think these five questions will give us great insight to engage more students in these classes.
Hi Tasha,
I think those five questions will give you great insight. One suggestion I have heard used before in such surveys is: What question did we not ask that we should, and what would be your answer? (Not sure if I am wording that correctly, but you get the gist).
I would love to hear more about your online math classes. Can you share an example with us?
Thanks,
Bonita
Hello Everyone
I will not be in full participatory mode this week. I'm preparing for my Canadian Thanksgiving and my family is coming this weekend. It's going to be so much fun.
I will read the comments and try to respond if I can.
Next week I will put the wiki together. At least we will have a place to start. We can adjust it as get going with it. I'm going to label it into weekly session with a cross-reference to the individual topics and a misc page for all our ideas, thoughts and suggestions. When I create it I will ask you to take a look at it and ask for construcitve feedback. And I may need some help in some of the formating so if you have had experience with wikispaces I would love to learn from you. Well heck I would love to learn from everyone.
Anyway we will start with something. That way it will be easier to make suggestions.
Mireille
Toronto, Canada
I have not picked my topic for my lesson yet to administer my survey yet. However, I have written my survey. Keep in mind my lesson will be delivered online, where students will be able to hear me, see my computer screen, and also available is chat. I will be giving the students the survey after completing the lesson. The feedback is anonymous.
The following questions are rated on a scale from 1 to 4. 1 being Strongly Disagree, 2 Disagree, 3 Agree, 4 Strongly agree.
1. Did you feel like the lesson was interesting?
2. Did you feel like the lesson was fun or entertaining?
3. Did you feel like the teacher was fun or entertaining?
4. Do you feel like learning more about the topic?
5. Do you think you will talk about this topic with someone later today?
The following questions are free response.
6. What do you think could have been better about the lesson or teacher?
7. What did you like about the lesson or teacher?
Any comments would be appreciated or questions. Thanks!
Hi Grant
My I suggest open ended questions vs closed questions? Asking kids whether your lessons where interesting gives them more opportunity to say no without the reasons why.
If I may suggest a format in which they can say why it was interesting
For example
This lesson was interesting because
a) b) c) d) Your Insight.
In my corporate world we have these feedback sheets which I personally haven't used in decades because they give me little useful information. I want constructive feedback and since people hate filling out these sheets I ask the following questions
What is One thing you were able to apply that you already know
What is one thing you learnt in this section that you can add immediately to what you do.
What is one thing that you have become curious about?
Two weeks later
I ask them to share their insights
My interest in surveys or feedback is to draw attention to what they know, what they are already doing, what they can add to what they are currently doing and what they are curious about (so we can perhaps offer sessions on or they can)
I know the educational environment is somewhat different but I think constructing surveys are more informative and more productive. I think these questions could easily be answered in negative responses
Having said that you know your kids and perhaps these questions will end up being more informative. I don't know what gradue your students so perhaps kids you are 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 will result in thoughtful answers.
Being a sarcastic teenager in my less than mature life I know how I would answer and now being a mature adult (okay more mature than when I was a teenager ) I would find my responses useless.
It's a thought from my own experience and I hope I haven't offended you by sharing it.
Mireille
No I am not offended at all! I appreciate your feedback! That is why I posted it to see what people would change.
The reason I chose this way was that I have no way of making my students take this survey. I can only ask them to do it as they can leave our lesson as soon as it is done. I am hoping that by giving them choices it will be something quick they can do and still give me some feedback.
When I taught in the classroom, I always had open ended questions like you are talking about and I would make sure they did give me some constructive criticism and positive feedback. Thanks again for looking at it!
I will be very interested in learning how they respond and what comes out of the survey.
I need to remember that your environment is different from mine in the sense I'm suppose to be interacting with adults.
What is it if I may ask do you teach? And at what grade level?
I'm curious what opened ended questions do you ask? The reason I ask is that I'm a strong believer in something called "dialogue education" It focuses on the power of questions. The challenge with this is that it doesn't teach you how to ask questions and there is a science and art to asking questions> So that is why I'm interested in the questions you and everyone in the class asks.
Speaking of questions I do have a number of resources I will put on the wiki on how to ask questions. My sister gave me a couple of them so I know some of these resources will be appropriate for this course. I will set this wiki up next week.
Bare with me I have Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I'm having my entire family for the weekend. I'm so looking forward to it.
I'm not going to be as "engaged" this week but I am following the conversation.
MIreille
Toronto, Canada
Happy Thanksgiving, Mireille!
I am looking forward to seeing/hearing about those questioning methods so come back to us soon!
:)Bonita
Hi Grant,
I like that your recognized the limitations of your instructional environment and designed your survey to suit that environment. I think we definitely have to keep our learning environment in mind as we attempt methods of engagement. I hope you get good feedback, Let us know!
:)Bonita
I taught 6-12 Math at a small school in South Dakota for 2 years. I now teach at an online school in Iowa.
My questions when I taught in South Dakota were along the lines of:
Give me three things you enjoy about the class/lesson.
Give me three things you dislike about the class/lesson.
Give me three things you like about me or my teaching style.
Give me three things you dislike about me or my teaching style.
Give me three things you would like to see different.
Give me three things you would like to stay the same.
Some kids went into great detail, while others would give me one word answers. It was always a breath of fresh air to get these back from students because there are always going to be kids that like what you do while there are others who think you are the worst possible person for the job.
Now like I said, the kids are at will to leave our virtual classroom at their leisure so I am hoping to get as much feedback as possible. We will see. :)
