For the past few years, I’ve had students fill out an online survey for their very first nightly work assignment. It’s to help me get some of the logistics out of the way (their nicknames, making sure they read and understand some key things in the course expectations, making sure they know to have their name on the back of their calculators). But it’s mainly for me to learn about my kids.

I’ve found the questions on the survey are simple and nonthreatening enough that I get interesting responses. However I find that I do get way more extensive and thoughtful answers from the upper level grades than from freshman.

Here is a link to the survey if you want to check it out.

The thing is… I get tons of interesting information about my kids. They let me know about some horrifying thing that happened in fifth grade math that they still remember, or an amazing feeling they got once some abstract concept snapped into place, or about some lifelong passion of theirs that I wouldn’t know about. Perhaps the most important question — in terms of the information I get from it — is this one:

It’s kinda amazing. The phrasing of the question implies that there is something they are nervous about and are invited to write. (It’s so different than “Are you nervous about math this year? If so, why? And if not, why not?”… It’s like asking “What questions do you have?” instead of “Do you have any questions?”)

I’m not going to copy and paste responses, but I will share some types of responses:

• keeping up with the material / keeping up with classmates / falling behind
• test anxiety
• fractions
• coming across as annoying to classmates
• memorizing formulas
• explaining my reasoning in words

They really open up given the opportunity, especially considering I had only met them for 30 minutes before I asked them to fill this out. And if a kid came to you and had told you they were nervous about any of these things, you would know as a teacher precisely what to say!

So what I do, once I get these surveys, is I write back individually to each kid. The emails aren’t long, but they do talk about things that students specifically referenced in their survey. Here’s one from a couple years ago:

Howdy [Stu],

I’m reading through the surveys that you guys filled out for precalculus, and I wanted to respond to you, just to say hello! I’m thrilled that you’re going to be in our large band of precalculetes for the year. I’m excited about everything! We’re going to be doing a lot of exploring and making a ton of connections. I love love LOVE math and have since I was in high school, and I want to extend myself to you. If you ever feel overwhelmed or unclear about things, and they just are staying foggy, never hesitate to email me to set up a meeting. (Of course, I think you should first try to ask a colleague, because they often are better resources than I am.)

You noted that you’re nervous about keeping up with the workload. It is going to be a solid amount each night, but I very much try to keep it reasonable and I also try to make sure it is all relevant/important. I don’t assign 10 of the same types of problems, but rather I assign a couple of them and expect students to try extra problems if they need extra practice. But please let me know if the workload is getting to be too much for you. Last year I asked for feedback periodically on the workload and for the most part kids said it was fine, except in the third quarter when I think I accidentally asked for too much — and when kids told me, I was able to be more conscientious!

You also said that you don’t talk a lot at first, but you will. I saw you talking in your group! I think maybe because this is going to be a group-based class, you’ll find you’ll come out of your shell pretty quickly! But if you’re painfully shy, definitely talk with me. I’ve worked with kids who are shy before and we’ve come up with ways to help get over that so they can delve into the math!

Glad to have met you, and I’m looking forward to an enjoyable year.

Always my best,
Mr. Shah

It takes up a long time to write to every student. I have smaller class sizes that most of my friends, because I’m in an independent school. But still… I only get 5-6 emails written in an hour.

Why do I do this survey? Mainly because I love reading their responses. Especially to these two questions:

I also take the time to reply individually because I hope — though I never really know — that it helps make me more approachable. I pray that it implicitly tells my kids hey, I care. And early in the year, when I stumble through not remembering their names and want to crawl in a hole, this is such an important sentiment to get across.

So in this survey are some of my better questions, and how I deal with them.

[Cross posted on the betterQs blog]