This editorial represents the opinion of 12 out of 13 Outlook editors.
Students receive grades and feedback from their teachers every six weeks. These progress reports allow students to identify their areas of growth and where they are excelling in order to improve their academic performance.
However, teachers rarely receive the same amount, if any, feedback from their students. This lack of evaluation hinders teachers’ abilities to examine or revise their teaching methods. Without the opportunity to receive from students, teachers have to assume what students are enjoying their classes and what areas should be changed in order to help students learn.
Students are already limited in making decisions for their education. Although they can choose some of their classes, they don’t have a say in the curriculum or class structure. Therefore, to provide students with more opportunities to voice their opinion about their education, student-written teacher feedback should be mandatory. This will allow all teachers to better assess their teaching strategies, increasing engagement and student performance. Because every student is unique, teachers must find different ways to help all of their students.
In order to improve the feedback that teachers receive, Aragon should require students to take anonymous surveys about their teachers at the end of each grading period. These surveysshould have a baseline set of questions and teachers should be able to add questions specific to their courses.
Although some teachers have feedback assessments at the end of each semester, having these forms filled out consistently will encourage teachers to experiment with new ideas and incorporate new technology and teaching strategies. This could also target more experienced teachers that often rely on patterns and teaching methods that worked in the past to change their curriculums with their changing students. They could get feedback on which technology to use or which teaching strategies will be the most effective for their new group of students, as every group is different from the last.
The Outlook believes that if this new policy is implemented, the quality of students’ education will improve as there will be more transparency between students and teachers, giving students a louder voice in their education. This will allow students to truly enjoy their classes and the content that they’re learning.
