Survey Says

At the end of the school year, I created a quick survey for the students, hoping to get constructive feedback. Of course, the students wanted credit for doing this but I explained this was strictly voluntary — and anonymous so they could freely say what was on their mind. I had 25 responses from across five sections so it’s hard to say if there’s any statistical validity to the results, but I found them interesting.

Below are the tallies for anyone interested. I could get defensive about some of the comments but will let the students speak for themselves. I will say this: I was surprised at the complaints about the volume of work assigned since it closely matched what I gave out at Baltimore County Public Schools. They must have received a lot less from their other teachers or schools before coming to Pallotti because I saw little wrong with the volume.

What work did youhope to read that we did not?

• I am not sure, but I will know next year. 10
• TheCanterbury Tales
• Beowulf
• Pride andPrejudice
• Maus
• More Shakespeare, perhaps a lesser-known play,such as The Taming of the Shrew (apersonal favorite)
• The Hobbit
• Gone Girl(any others works by Gillian Flynn)
• The KiteRunner
• TheHitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Get a little more in depth into the African AmericanLiterature
• The different kinds of poems

I wrote too many short answers and essays.

I received theright feedback to my writing

Most of thisyear’s classes did some independent reading, Should that be retained for nextyear?

Yes                  76%                 No                   24%

I wish you spent moretime on…

• Discussion – 3
• Grammar and writing skills, reading comprehension – 3
• Sherlock Holmes – 2
• Learning about famous authors
• On helping me improve my writing
• teaching us MLA formatting, and how to write an essay that is more than 2 pages.
• Doing things in a more exciting way
• Explaining our work before giving it to us
• Watching movies
• Finals
• Helping us not just giving us a big study guide
• Notes
• Reviewing a book before test
• I think everything is fine this year
• The last section (I think this means the British short stories and poetry)
• Vocab and essays
• “Lamb to the Slaughter”
• Hamilton the Musical
• The Harlem Renaissance

I wish you spent lesstime on…

• Poems 3
• Writing essays 3
• So many projects 2
• Classwork 2
• Books 2
• giving us long paper assignments, I feel like2-3 page essays are enough
• Reading and comprehension
• Giving us so much work
• a lot of paperwork on books because sometimes itgot overwhelming and some people didn’t even understand the book so doing apaper on it was hard. also less time on vocabulary quizzes
• Beowulf
• Kahoot (student generated, used for vocabulary warmups)
• Grammar
• I think everything is fine this year maybe payless attention to those bad students
• The first section (vague!)
• The Harlem Renaissance
• TheAdventures of Huckleberry Finn

What advice do youhave for me so next year’s classes work better?

• You’re a great teacher but, some students haveADHD and ADD. It’s hard to do millions of questions and short answers.
• You are doing so well, you don’t need any advice
• Stay organized
• Stay the way you are, you’re a sweet teacher,and I will miss this class.
• read in class more, make students chose whatbooks they want to read, I feel like they will be more engaged if they readsomething they like to read.
• I think you shouldn’t allow people who aren’t inthe class inside because the students believe that they can do anything in yourclass because they know you won’t punish them. I think you should be a littlestricter because as of now the students do whatever they want.
• Don’t give so much work
• Tea party please!!!
• less essays
• at most 2 projects per month. And betterreminders
• Be more calm.
• Space out the work more. People often see a bigpile of work they have to complete and then get so stressed and anxious thatthey keep putting it off.
• Be more disciplined! And start giving detentionsout for kids who act up
• have more Socratic seminars so students can bemore involved with the book and class, have more opinion-based writings. makesure students understand the material rather than just trying to get a grade,also write homework or assignments on the board because students tended toforget the assignments if you just said what it was in class so if they see iton the board they can actually remember it.
• I think you should continue to help studentswith reading books out loud because I really think that helped my class.
• Focus on one thing per class not multiple thingsevery class I got lost very easily
• Having more discussion based on the topic of thebook we read and we could expand it further.
• Maybe give students a choice to pick from doingan “artsy” project (drawing and coloring) or a written project for those whoare not artistically inclined.
• give less stressful work
• More in class work, like reading together inclass
• to explain things better so the students canunderstand it easily
• less work we aren’t that smart
• Trying not to pile up work