At school, one of our Vice principals came around last semester, before Christmas and asked our department to think about giving a survey to our students. He said that his own children didn't feel like they could tell their teachers how they really felt about their classes and if we could just ask our students for a bit of input, he would really appreciate the efforts.
We were supposed to work together to make one survey, but that didn't happen.
I made my own survey to find out how my students felt about two things I've been doing this year in my class. I use a text messaging system to remind them about homework, called Remind.com and I can send out a different message to each of my classes. The kids or parents sign up for it and I can schedule it to go out any time of the day. I started using twitter about 4 years ago and found that by sending out a reminder, I got about 90% returned homework. The kids are just so busy these days, they forget things. But, when that cell phone buzzes, they always check it. Parents love getting the message their student has a test or homework assignment and it really has improved communication and support.
The other thing is I use quilet.com to make reviews for tests. Kids who use it find them very helpful for studying for the tests. Some of the kids said they weren't as helpful because the vocabulary I used wasn't exactly the same. I didn't realize their vocabulary isn't great and they were lacking some of the basic words I figured they should just know. So, I'm trying to make sure I use the same words on my quizlet reviews as I use on the tests so the kids aren't confused.
SO, today we had an all school meeting and our department was asked to present what we learned from our survey. I was really nervous talking in front of all of the teachers. Put me up in front of students and I can talk all day, but get me up in front of adults and my hands shake and my knees knock. What's up with that? To add to that, we have a new tech guy and half the web sites are blocked and I tried to show them my survey and the website was blocked. Everyone laughed and I made a comment about how I missed the old tech guy and one of the teachers interrupts me and starts defending this new tech guy and says it isn't his fault that nothing works around our school. Really? Dude! The website worked before the new guy got here and now it is blocked as spam. Plus, the new guy is really rude. Most of the teachers were on my side, so that was nice :) Later in the day, I got in a big argument with that teacher. He said I was rude for calling him out and saying it was his fault that the website wasn't working in front of the whole school when I did no such thing. Maybe he was taking a nap during my presentation (like the kids do) and didn't hear what I actually said.
But I was able to share with the school some cool things and some people appreciated what I did. Of course all of the stress brought on a HUGE migraine so I'm not sure it was worth it.
I'm trying to hold things together until my stress relief gets here. Hopefully it will be here by this weekend. We have another quilt day planned for Monday
1 comment:
If students behaved in the classroom like teachers do in meetings, no one would learn anything or teachers would be pitching a fit! Teachers talk among themselves, grade papers and generally ignore the boring meetings. I remember once getting called out by a vice principal because he thought I was grading papers during a meeting...he was quite embarrassed when I showed him I was taking notes on the meeting!
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