Student Feedback (Part 1)

I posted a form on Schoology the last week or so of school to give the kids an opportunity for feedback. And then I didn't check the results because I didn't want to know. No, not that I didn't want to know, but that I was a little worried to see what they would say. Only a few filled it out (I didn't make it a big deal) and the results are conflicting, but interesting.

I did it via a form that I found on twitter that someone shared (sorry - I don't remember who!). It basically asked the kids to list up to 4 things to keep, 4 to change, 4 to start, and 4 to stop.  (My comments in italics.)

Here are the results. (This got waaay long, so I split it up into 2 posts.)

Keep:

• Interactive notes on the projector (5)
• Warm-ups (5)
• Games with boards (?)
• You always make sure [we] know the material before we test
• Review sessions (4)
• trashketball
• Being funny and letting kids chose their seats. I worked really well with the people I was near and have some great memories your class is a lot of fun
• Give time in class to work on homework (2)
• No MathXL
• MathXL (different class)
• Exam reviews (2)
• Review games
• Worksheets (amount) (2)
• Weekly agenda (I posted my plan for the week on a board in my room.)
• Quizzes instead of tests (just the name quiz makes it less stressful)
• Graded homework (always something for me to re-think in the summer!)
• Spend lots of time on notes when we start a new topic
• Online exams
• Transitions between units
• Going over homework
• MathXL with factoring practice was so helpful for keeping the basics of first semester in mind because it made exam review much easier
• Posting things on Schoology. It's a great way for keeping informed and helps students who are easily confused like myself and the notes you gave were a big help.

Change:

• Homework (what? how?)
• Less homework (2)
• Go over tests 
• That you choose seats
• Go over all aspects of problems because sometimes it doesn't shop up that way on tests
• Warm ups: I liked doing them on Schoology
• Have more review games in class (2)
• Length of notes: make them short and simple to understand
• More time to do homework in class
• Sit in table groups (the rows were less conducive to group learning and discovery) (yes!!)
• Break practice exam on Schoology into sections
• Maybe a little more review before quizzes
• Give credit (or lack thereof) for every homework assignment
• Class setup (?)
• More in class time (to work?)
• Go slower
• Homework every night (there wasn't... maybe this person wish there had been?)
• More opportunities for extra credit (2)
• Partner projects: I liked them, but I like it if we could work with more than one other person
• More problems on review sheets
• Amount of homework (we have 9 (6) other bells, possibly 9 (6) other bells of homework and a life to live outside of school as well) (Funny, because their typical assignments were less than 10 problems. I'd have trouble shortening them any more and still feeling good about the practice they were getting.)
• Have MathXL be extra credit
• Do a warm up every day
• Pizza boxes sometimes worked but all need to be in one direction or it doesn't work (I used pizza boxes to create barriers during quizzes. Adjacent students also had different quizzes. Nothing's perfect, but I thought this would be pretty good.)
• Less time spent on the unit circle (Blasphemy.)
• More test corrections
• Wish you wouldn't go so fast sometimes when we learn things
• Less MathXL
• More class time work so we can ask more questions

Start:

• Different fun in-class activities (3)
• More review games (5)
• Start going slower
• Letting us choose seats (2) (I did for certain classes. Some couldn't handle it.)
• More extra credit (4)
• But only to the people who do their work and deserve it but maybe got a few bad grades on tests or quizzes
•  It would be helpful for me, but learning benefits are dubious. This recommendation is less of something that you should do and more something I would prefer that you do. 
• Slow down a little for students who struggle with the current topic
• More partner work
• Split up BOB into the chapters (it takes forever to find the answers in one big BOB) (I posted the odd answers for the kids to check their work. BOB = back of book)
• If early exam review on MathXL doing it in class after due date would be really helpful instead of independent review (I'm not sure what exactly this means... go over assigned exam review problems together?)
• More projects
• A note sheet at the end of the year with the most important things to know
• Be able to ask more questions
• Quiz corrections
• Help struggling students with extra material to help them review better
• Short practice quizzes or tests for large unit test on Schoology or MathXL for independent review
• Group assignments (which, IMO, only one person out of the group actually does)
• Reward system? Candy? Homework passes?
• Perhaps go deeper into derivatives? I enjoyed that unit. (Wish I'd had time!)

Stop:

• Being so lenient. I liked how you are ready to help but sometimes people became such a distraction and it was hard to learn. (TRUTH. I'm too nice sometimes and it causes issues.)
• Giving homework.
• MathXL (5)
• Some of them are pretty tricky. Or at least give more attempts per question. (I would limit them to 2 - 3 tries per question.)
• Teaching so fast
• Don't teach new stuff the week that exams start (even though they had 3 days in class to review beforehand...)
• Warmups (3)
• Some of them are tough and having math early in the day makes warmups dreaded 
• The tables (I didn't know anyone at my table and no one there made an effort to include me, so I didn't learn as well). (That's sad. But I also think this person should have made an effort to meet people. With juniors in high school do I need to do ice breakers to learn names?)
• There was nothing really bad that I didn't like.
• Everything seemed to go fairly well. I wouldn't recommend stopping anything.
• gesmos (I think they meant desmos... and that ain't stopping!)
• Choosing our seats
• Large MathXLs
• Having homework every night (again, they didn't)
• I didn't think there was anything else I really didn't like!
• Overall I thought the class was awesome and your class was really fun you are a great teacher

Here's my take on the perfect class.
No homework every night, and every homework is graded. For completion. And make it short.
More time in class to review and play games but go slower on the new material.
Lots of extra credit.
Keep warm ups, and yet don't.

Got it.