During Wednesday’s staff meeting myself, Justin, Dave, Rob and Tim used Survey Monkey to produce surveys for our students using all or part of the 48 questions (there is a set of questions for younger students)  found in the TfEL Review Tools Handbook. These 48 questions are evenly spread across Domain 2, 3 and 4. Once feedback is recieved staff can see areas for improvement as they relate to the TfEL Domains.

Setting up the survey was fairly time consuming, between 1 and 1.5 hours (which included a quick 5-10mins on how to use Survey Monkey) however now they are set up and can be reused with classes over and over again.

Dave is planning to use his survey with his secondary students before the end of the semester. Rob, Tim and myself will be looking at using them during term 3.

Justin surveyed his 7/8 class on Thursday. Feedback from Justin about using Survey Monkey was how easy it was to implement with the students. Students merely click on a link provided by Justin in a Word document and they have instant access to the survey, complete it and click submit. The data is back in Justin’s account instantly collated and ready for him to use.

Justin thought quite deeply about preparing his students for the survey and how he intends to use the results. Prior to giving the survey Justin produced a Power Point explaining to the students the purpose of the survey, setting the scene for its importance to Justin and ultimately the students. Justin intends to give his results to his line manager to look at then use this as a starting point for working with his line manager to improve aspects of his teaching through the rest of the year. A great process and well done to Justin who is well on his way with this.

If other staff have any questions regarding Survey Monkey and setting up a TfEL survey I am more than happy to organise a time to work with you in term 3. As we are all time poor the easy response to this is “I don’t have time”. If you genuinely would like feedback from your students maybe you could aim to work with me to set up the survey by the end of term 3 (10 weeks to set up a survey seems reasonable) and then look at implementing in term 4 as a basis for improving your teaching in 2013.