Recently I’ve been trying to leverage the knowledge, experiences and willingness of my PLN and graduate school classmates to help me gain insight about some work related issues. My latest request for help was about a technology survey I’ve been directed to administer to the students in my elementary building during their regularly scheduled library class. It’s a survey about technology. As one of my favorite subjects you wouldn’t think this would pose a problem. Yet it does.
One problem with administering the survey is the manner in which it was assigned – no discussion, no communication – just an order from on high. Forsake your curriculum, drop everything you are doing, too bad about your students’ half-completed projects, you must do our bidding and you must do it within the next 7 days. It doesn’t matter how many studies say that treating teachers like professionals is more important to job satisfaction than salary – in my district edicts are issued to principals who tell us what we must do.
So now let’s look at the survey itself. Teachers were asked to take a similar survey last week. (Well, I guess ‘asked’ isn’t the correct word since a list of all those who did not was sent out three times for the principals to enforce. But I digress…) At the time several teachers found it invasive and did not feel comfortable answering questions about their home technology use. That didn’t really bother me as I’m pretty sure nothing is private anymore anyway.
I looked through the questions on the student survey and they appear to me to be very poorly written. The first question is “How often do you use computer devices in class? Weekly, Monthly or Never” So, how does a student who uses a device daily mark that? These are 3rd and 4th graders – I have no idea what the daily users will answer but I’m pretty sure it will yield inaccurate results. Same for how often do you play games, or Facetime. There are no choices for Daily on the entire survey.
Here’s a big one for me – I absolutely model this daily, but that’s not a choice.
One problem with administering the survey is the manner in which it was assigned – no discussion, no communication – just an order from on high. Forsake your curriculum, drop everything you are doing, too bad about your students’ half-completed projects, you must do our bidding and you must do it within the next 7 days. It doesn’t matter how many studies say that treating teachers like professionals is more important to job satisfaction than salary – in my district edicts are issued to principals who tell us what we must do.
So now let’s look at the survey itself. Teachers were asked to take a similar survey last week. (Well, I guess ‘asked’ isn’t the correct word since a list of all those who did not was sent out three times for the principals to enforce. But I digress…) At the time several teachers found it invasive and did not feel comfortable answering questions about their home technology use. That didn’t really bother me as I’m pretty sure nothing is private anymore anyway.
I looked through the questions on the student survey and they appear to me to be very poorly written. The first question is “How often do you use computer devices in class? Weekly, Monthly or Never” So, how does a student who uses a device daily mark that? These are 3rd and 4th graders – I have no idea what the daily users will answer but I’m pretty sure it will yield inaccurate results. Same for how often do you play games, or Facetime. There are no choices for Daily on the entire survey.
Here’s a big one for me – I absolutely model this daily, but that’s not a choice.
What about this gem:
Personally own? Share what I personally own? Who paid for my computer? If the students don’t know how to answer then what kind of data will we be getting?
Here are a few more of my favorites for your viewing pleasure:
Here are a few more of my favorites for your viewing pleasure:
I did a little research and found out that this is a well-regarded survey by a well-regarded company, an MIT offshoot. School districts are paying for this service. The questions appear to be the same at the elementary level in most schools – a few replaced ‘Never’ with ‘I don’t do this.’ I found only one or two negative comments in my precursory search. Some parents mentioned that there was no place for students to say they weren’t allowed – to go online, to email, to chat. The choices were just weekly, monthly or never.
Verbiage thanking teachers for their opinions and thanking students for their ideas is included as well. If there are no open-ended questions, and if the choices are inaccurate, are you really sharing opinions or ideas?
What do you think, esteemed colleagues?
Verbiage thanking teachers for their opinions and thanking students for their ideas is included as well. If there are no open-ended questions, and if the choices are inaccurate, are you really sharing opinions or ideas?
What do you think, esteemed colleagues?