Increasing Student Voice
Mild: Being Heard through Surveys
If you are looking to increase student voice in your classroom, an easy place to start is to survey your students to shed light on their thinking and to gain a deeper understanding of their experience. Most teachers already use surveys both at the beginning of the year to get to know their students and at the end of the year to elicit feedback. There are many other reasons and opportunities to survey students in between these transitional events.
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Depending on the scale and purpose, surveys can span from the simple and short (daily exit tickets) to a more extensive annual event (YouthTruth), and include everything in between (interviews, focus groups, Google Forms, etc). See column at right for specific examples.
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An important follow-up to the survey is reviewing the results and using them to inform your next steps, whether it's making a curricular decision or shifting classroom routines to create a more positive culture. If students take surveys, but don't see how their voices make a difference, they will quickly lose interest and will stop taking surveys seriously. Reviewing survey data takes time- be sure to plan for this critical and time-sensitive step.
Helpful Hints:​
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Start with a clear purpose in mind.
Ask yourself: what do you want to know? Don’t give surveys without a compelling reason, otherwise students will stop taking them seriously.
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Be transparent about your data analysis and how you plan on using the data.
This will build trust and increase buy-in, especially if there is a wide range of opinions that can make decision making challenging.
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Google Forms
A 7th grade teaching team used Google forms to survey their 7th graders twice to include them in the decision-making process for developing the next big project. The first survey asked students to rank their choices based on topic and product interest. The second survey was given after the students looked at the initial survey results so that they could advise their teachers on what the next steps should be.
YouthTruth Survey & Student Data Teams
Schools across the country invest time and resources on the annual YouthTruth survey, a comprehensive tool for garnering student voice on various aspects of their school experience. In a few short weeks, the school receives a robust package full of valuable data that can be used to guide improvement efforts at the classroom and school level.
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Take it to the next level by convening a student data team tasked with the responsibility of review survey data and determining next steps. The team's ideas might lead to shifts in current programming or the creation of new initiatives, based on their perspective of where to prioritize school improvement efforts.
