Student & Parent Feedback Surveys

As a teacher, your goal is to make sure that your students are learning. There is only so much you can do – what their home life is like, what their after-school life is like, and what the students are like – all play a role in the student’s ability to thrive, but your goal is to make sure that you’re equipping them with as much as possible to ensure their success. Unfortunately, there are currently very few ways to measure yourself. It’s hard to know exactly what students are understanding and what they’re not understanding, as well as what you could explain better and what is well understood as is.

The most difficult time for a student isn’t in the classroom. It’s when they’re at home. That’s when they’re on their own with no help, trying to figure out the material.

That’s also when you may want to consider creating some type of student feedback form. At home is when the students are able to figure out what they understand and what they cannot. It’s when they find some material easy and some material difficult.

It’s when anything that needs to be explained further comes out. That makes it the perfect time for students to send you questions and feedback about the topics they’d like discussed more in class. Give them access to an open survey that asks them questions like: How confident are you with the material? Is there anything you’re struggling with? Is there anything you understand well and we do not need to cover again in class? You can ask them a variety of questions, and either send the survey out at certain parts of the year or make it easily accessible online at any time.

Students can fill out the survey with their questions or thoughts, and then before class you can review them to see if there are any themes or anything students are struggling with that needs additional assistance. This feedback can be immensely valuable, especially since most students forget their questions or refuse to bring them up in class the next day. As a teacher, it gives you the opportunity to learn more about what your students are learning and what they need additional help with.

You may also want to know how to evaluate student outcomes with online surveys .

For K-12, it also gives you the opportunity to solicit parent feedback. Sometimes parents are the ones that have the most insight into what their child needs to learn. While parents may also be more prone to overreacting to their child’s struggles, parents also know if their child is having a hard time, if something has come up in the child’s life that may be holding them back, and so on.

Teachers are often loathe to receive feedback from parents, but there is also value in their thoughts. Because all of these surveys can be anonymous as well – for both parents and students – you are likely to get more honest opinions, and possibly insight that could help you be a better teacher or raise better students.

Even though surveys are seen primarily as a data collection tool for researchers, they have value in dozens of different industries, and can be used in a variety of ways that you may never have considered. As a teacher, this type of survey use may be a great way to make sure that your students graduate your class genuinely ready for the next level.