Student Surveys: An End-of-the-Year Reflection

The end of the year will be here before we know it! Summer is soooo close. With the end of the year approaching, the time for reflection is upon us. Let’s dive into student surveys – why we love them, how to implement them, and how to grab our free middle school survey (+ Google Form option too!)

WHAT IS A STUDENT SURVEY?

A student survey is a great tool to get students thinking about their experience in your classroom – their achievements, areas of growth, and what they learned over the course of the year.

For you, the teacher, it serves as a tool to improve your craft and make choices about what you will do next year. One year, I received overwhelming feedback that students had a hard time seeing notes on my document camera. The next year I invested in technology to connect my iPad to my projector.

They can be as in-depth as you would like, but I would suggest keeping them around 10 questions with a variety of free-response, check boxes, and ranking scales. We are looking for quality answers over quantity. 

WHEN TO DO A STUDENT SURVEY

The end of the year is notorious for a random assortment of bell schedules. Sometimes you only see classes for 20 minutes a day or you only see your morning classes one day and the afternoon classes the next. That is a perfect time for a student survey! Student surveys can be the perfect bell ringer (they are pretty self-explanatory) or exit ticket. I would recommend doing it in class, so you can guarantee 100% completion.

STUDENT SURVEYS SOUND INTIMIDATING

I loved doing end of the year surveys with my students because it provided some great insight and helped me to reflect on the year!  

You may feel nervous to hear what your students think about your class and your teaching, so let me encourage you by stating – you are a great teacher!  I know this because in your spare time you are reading a teacher blog.  🙂

Remember that you are the one crafting the questions.  Think about how you word them and what exactly you want to learn from the response. 

For example, you could ask “What was your favorite part of this class?” and if you leave it open you may get a few responses that say “Nothing.”  But likely you will get better responses if you provide a few selections for students to choose from and then an “other” blank where students can write in something you may had not thought of.  

You could also reframe the question to, “What is one thing you learned in this class that you can carry into next year?”

SUGGESTIONS FOR QUESTIONS

Before you write your questions, really think about what you want to accomplish with the responses:

• Do you want to improve your classroom management?
• Do you want to get a feel of how your classroom felt?
• Do you want to rework your lessons and need some suggestions for the fall? 

Here are a few general suggestions:

• How has your confidence in _________ (subject) improved this year?
• What lesson/project/activity did you most enjoy?  Why?
• What lesson/project/activity was the most difficult for you ?  Why?
• What is one piece of advice that you would share with a student who is entering this class next year?
• What skills do you still need help with?
• Explain a time in class in which you were able to overcome a struggle.
• What is something that you would change about our class?
• What is one thing in class that made it difficult for you to learn?
• Did you feel as though I had high expectations of you?

You can also grab our free printable 12 question End-of-the-Year Survey, complete with an editable Google Form (since paper is so valuable!)

GRAB THIS FREE STUDENT SURVEY WITH AN EASY TO USE EDITABLE TEMPLATE!