I was working with a teacher the other day and we got to talking about assessments and learning styles.  During the course of that conversation, the teacher shared with me a survey that he gives to students at the beginning of the year/quarter.  It’s a simple online survey with a virtual gold mine of information that can be put to good use when planning lessons/activities.

The survey was built using Google Forms and the snapshots below are a few examples of the types of information gathered.

 

My first thought was, why aren’t I doing this?  Why not ask these questions directly and upfront instead of struggling to figure it out.  My next thought was to refresh your thinking with this post and challenge you to introduce some form of a survey to gauge learning style, interests, knowledge and/or skill sets of your students.

I confess that I have an equal amount of failures as I do successes in terms of designing group projects in my classroom.  I recognize the value of group work although I don’t prefer it personally.  As I reflect on this, it’s clear I could use this type of information to improve my practice.

If I were to assume the results above were from my class, 2/3 of the students want to work in groups and there’s a wonderful balance among students in terms of group roles they feel confident in.  This data also supports continued work to diversify activities and materials so that we are helping all students, not just those skilled in one style/modality or another.

I believe I could take information gathered from a survey like this and more effectively assign students to groups and offer alternative explanations/instructions to students that prefer learning in those ways.

It’s not that I haven’t considered surveys before.  I have used them infrequently over time, often substituting informal performance based observations to gauge knowledge/skill level.  In working with a colleague, my mind was refreshed as to the value and utility of student surveys to learn more about my learners.  My hope is that your mind might be refreshed as well.