.Building relationships with my students has never been easier with this made for you beginning of the year questionnaire.
You might be thinking, “Wait, what? Summer just started!” Girlfriend, I know it. After what seemed like an endless school year lasting decades, summer is here and it will be over before you know it.
Take it from me. My district is on a modified traditional calendar. It’s normally a really great schedule because come October, we get a two week fall break. This year though, I have spent the past month just trying to decompress from last year. Getting ready for another year has taken a great deal of daily motivation.
But, while I have less than a month before I return to school, it means that I will be developing and providing you with materials to start your year.
First on my list is this beginning of the year questionnaire to get to know my students.
Why are student/teacher relationships so important and how can a questionnaire help?
Okay, I am pretty sure you didn’t ask that question. I am sure you know that BEFORE you can teach content, you need to build trust with your students and meaningful connections. Time is so fleeting, but THIS year, perhaps more than any other year, our students are going to be craving connection.
How can you improve student/teacher relationships? Get to know your students – DUH! Who are they? What are their interests? Who do they live with and what is it that their family holds dear?
Knowing your students and their families has several benefits. These include: creating a safe environment for them to learn; increasing engagement and success with content by incorporating student interest; broadening your understanding, empathy, and patience as you come to know your students.
Do you want your students to thrive this year? Getting to know them is your top priority. It will not only open the doors to teaching them the content you are responsible for, but is also part of having an effective classroom management strategy. That’s where the beginning of the year questionnaire comes in handy. It’s a starting point for you to get to know them.
What can I do with the information from the beginning of the year questionnaire?
Math is my passion. I especially love building my own students’ accuracy of solving word problems. In my research, I have come to know the following to be true:
1. Teaching students to recognize word problem types and their associated schematic increases their ability to choose the correct operation when solving.
2. Reducing cognitive load (aka the brain’s workload) while solving word problems leaves more brain power for higher level thinking skills.
3. Assessing prior knowledge and schema, while also developing that schema further increases student success in solving word problems.
4. Including a variety of contexts, especially those relevant to student experiences increases student success in solving word problems.
So, I ask my students to complete a questionnaire that I can use to better personalize our classroom learning throughout the year.
Instead of doing a thematic unit the week of Thanksgiving to teach dividing with fractions (which I have DONE and more recently at that!), I can develop either task card word problems relevant to my students or create a project based learning opportunity with a classroom themed cookbook. Contexts for task cards are easier because I discovered some of what my students do at home in that first week of school questionnaire. Their interests are also more clear to me because II have developed my relationship with them further from that questionnaire.
Get permission before using the information from the questionnaire:
I ask my students if I can use the information on the questionnaire to develop personalized materials for our classroom I also give them the option to complete as much of the form (both digital or print) that they want to.
Individualized learning increases engagement. Likewise, when students can relate to the information, especially in math word problems, they can better visualize the problem, relate to the plot of the word problem, and have a context to increase their likelihood of choosing the correct strategy to solve. When they lack that familiarity or prior experiences, it isn’t a question of math ability but experience with the context of the problem.
Of course, you can use this information to make a variety of materials, tailoring your lessons to engage students based on their personal interests and experiences.
The beginning of the year questionnaire is just a staring place:
In order to build a strong classroom community where students feel accepted, known, and genuinely cared for, you must continue the conversation to get to know your students after giving the questionnaire.
Use this questionnaire as a discussion generator. Now that you know more about a student, how can you engage in conversation to learn more?
Also, it is important to DO something with this questionnaire. Having students fill it out isn’t enough. You MUST look at it and use it to foster relationships with your students. Simply giving it will not create relationships, only you can do that.
Summary:
Getting to know your students is the MOST important thing you can do in your classroom.
If you want to teach your students this year, you first have to make connections with them.
The more connected your students feel to you and your classroom, the more likely they will grow as learners in the coming year.
A questionnaire is just a starting point to getting to know your students. You must foster those relationships by using these questions as a starting point to building a GENUINE relationship with your students.
Using student interest and experiences will increase engagement and improve accuracy simply because students are more invested in the learning taking place in your classroom.
How will you use the information you gather from your beginning of the year student inventory questionnaire? Share in the comments below or head on over to Instagram to share.