Using Google Forms to access student voice

If I think back to ten years ago, if someone mentioned student voice to me, I have to admit I was threatened by this. The thought of student feedback impacting upon my career – heaven forbid.

My point of view ten years on is somewhat different now. Certainly I don’t think that student voice should decide policy, for example, but as José Picardo eloquently puts it in relation to evidence-based practice, I think student voice should 100% be part of something that informs practice. A place where groups such as digital leaders inform digital practice in a school, or year councils inform policy. That students and their gaps in knowledge as found out through close assessment and forms of AFL should inform revision and practise in class.

One way that I take on board the views of students is through surveying them. I was surprised to see @EddieKayshun this weekend surveying using Survey Monkey. I thought Survey Monkey was pretty much obsolete now thanks to the prowess, ease of use and functionality of Google Forms. Rory’s post is part of his MEd research in to teacher attitudes to student feedback. I guess he might find this blog post useful although I’m using it as a vehicle to point out the wins of Google Forms and things you can do with the results afterwards – his post is definitely worth a read!

Google Forms

Not only is Google Form dead simple to use, as shown in the video above (caveat – Google Forms has updated since I made the video but it is basically still the same) but the wins are great.

1. It’s easy to use
2. It’s easy to set up
3. It’s free
4. It’s easy to collaborate on it with others
5. The results are easy to analyse
6. It does chart based analysis for you
7. It’s easily sharable
8. It’s easily embeddable in to other tools
9. You can scripts in to make more wins, e.g. flubaroo to create AfL quizzes in class

Once I have surveyed a class I like to make the results transparent and so I then update my wall display with the results. I call this my “You said / We did” board. On there I add written responses from students from questions that I have asked and next to it I write our responses. For example:

There you go. Nothing amazing. Nothing ground breaking. Just transparent sharing of process and ensuring students are listened to. It’s important. What do you think?

Photo Credit: fensterbme via Compfight cc