Student Feedback Made Me a Better Broadcast Teacher
Discover how one broadcast teacher used simple student surveys to improve lessons, increase engagement, and become a more effective educator.
Why I Started Asking Students for Feedback
Every summer I found myself questioning whether I was teaching my students as effectively as I could. Like many educators, I struggled with imposter syndrome despite years in the classroom. The breakthrough came when I started asking my students for honest feedback.
I know it’s still summer and the last school year is well in the rear view mirror. It’s about now though, where I would begin thinking about the upcoming school year. I found myself questioning whether I was teaching my students as effectively as I could. Like many broadcast teachers, I struggled with imposter syndrome despite years in the classroom. The breakthrough came when I started asking my students for honest feedback.
The Four Questions That Changed My Teaching
From these conversations, I started giving an Extra-Credit Journal for students to complete as their last journal of the semester. I would ask the following questions:
- What was my favorite unit and why?
- What was my least favorite unit and why?
- What is one thing you wish we would have done?
And the last, and most important to me,
- What is one thing Mr. Phelps could do to help me better learn the material?
So long as the students were honest and on topic, they earned the extra-credit. There were some things they wished were changed, but I wasn’t going to change them. Things like, breaking up the final projects into shorter due dates. (I left HOW they would attack the project and manage their time to them, that’s part of the lesson.) Or, longer late submission periods. Nope, I would stick with 3 days. They needed to learn how to manage their time and their work. Only about half the students submitted this journal, and most of those who did, took it seriously.
What Students Really Taught Me
Reviewing their answers to the questions, the units they liked, I obviously kept a lot of what was done and how it was presented. The units they didn’t like weren’t going to change, but, sometimes I got great ideas on projects that would have helped them enjoy the unit more. For example, as part of my Audio Unit, we did a Foley project. We had just learned about the different types of microphones, pickup patterns, how and where they’re best used. Then we explored Foley sound. We watched a few videos of how foley sounds are made and used for movies. We also watched how foley is critical for animated films as well. That was important as the project was for them to create foley for 60 seconds of an animated clip where I removed the audio from. The students shared that the project allowed them to have fun figuring out what sounds to make and use their own creativity to determine how to make those sounds with what they had on hand. I believe what made the unit successful was the ability for students to use their own ideas, there was no “one right way” to create the sounds, and they weren’t graded on their ability to simply replicate a technique.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foleying_the_water_sound.jpg
The “Units they didn’t like” question was also important, especially the why. Sometimes I had too much “lecture” and not enough practical hands-on activities – and they told me! Sometimes, it was very technical Adobe Premiere Pro, for example. Not every student is technically adept and needs more time and practice than I had allocated to learn it. The technical items forced me to constantly look at HOW I was presenting the material. I often would follow up on these items with emails to the students to ask for more information and ideas on how I could do better.
The “One thing they wish we could have done”, was always a great question. It provided some interesting ideas and gave me a better idea of what they were interested in and allowed me to adapt my curriculum to add some of their suggestions. Some ideas were way over the top, especially for the level 1 students, like “making a full length movie”. Others were more reasonable, like watching more movies, or bringing in guest speakers. I would look for ways to accommodate those requests for the next semester.
And finally, the one thing that was MOST important to me, was the question
“What could I (Mr. Phelps), do better to help you better learn the material?”
I found that, for the most part, when the students answered this question honestly, many of them came to terms with their responsibility in their learning. They brought up points that they realized were in their control for learning the material. Admitting things like “paying attention more”, “asking more questions”, “managing their time better”, etc. I must admit I found these admissions to be encouraging and gave me hope that they were starting to “get it” when it came to understanding that learning was their job in the big picture.
Suggestions like “lecturing less” and providing more time to practice, really helped me focus on doing a better job of outlining my lessons, simplifying the concepts where possible, and giving the students the opportunities to figure things out for themselves and get better at asking questions. This was an ongoing battle for myself as I always tried to explain things in more ways than necessary, thinking I needed to do that to reach more students. In reality, talking less and allowing more hands-on time helped them figure things out for themselves and their understanding improved. It also helped develop the skill of asking questions better.
Using Student Feedback the Following Semester
This exercise, done during pre-planning, I think, helped develop my teaching skills, and made my class more enjoyable and something the students looked forward to each day, I hope. One interesting side note from this exercise, in the first week of the new semester, when I would review what things we would cover and some of the projects we would do, I would reference the “Extra-Credit” Journal from the previous semester and highlight some of the responses and changes that I was planning on making as a result. I’ve had several students share with me that they liked the transparency. As we introduced the changes during the unit, I wasn’t shy about saying that it was a “new idea” developed from the Journal and we would take a moment after the unit to break down what worked, what didn’t (there was a lot of that), and how it could be improved. One thing it really taught me was humility. I learned a LOT about myself and my teaching.
Final Thoughts
I hope you found this interesting and maybe worth trying yourself. While sometimes it may feel like you’re constantly tweaking or changing things, the students, and you, may find it makes for a more enjoyable semester as a result. Good luck this semester!
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