I’ve been thinking about a few different things this week with my inquiry question. Last weekend at the Ethnography in Education Research Forum, I attended a very interesting presentation on using an open syllabus in undergraduate and graduate classes. An open syllabus was described as an “attempt at democratic education” and involved allowing students in a course to design their own syllabus, including choosing which topics to study, what assignments to complete, and how grading would be decided. During this presentation from a panel of professors and graduate students, I began to think about my own research with transparency in my teaching practices.
Many of the professors talked about providing students with a curriculum map with many different topics they could study and allowed the students to collaboratively decide what was most important to them, and also how they wanted their learning to be assessed. I liked the idea of an open syllabus, but I wondered how I could attempt to be more open and transparent in an environment that is usually very closed and opaque (traditional secondary education). While there are unique school models that promote more student agency and inquiry, traditional schooling positions teachers as experts and students as learners. I wondered if I could ever create a space where students felt comfortable challenging this traditional model.
As I listened to the conversation, I also realized that there was a difference between an “open” class as it was described that day, and my understanding of a “transparent” class. Open classrooms rely much more on students’ intrinsic motivations and desire to take more control over their learning experiences, while transparent classrooms have a set curriculum for the year, but there is flexibility, and the teacher gives students the opportunity to develop intrinsic motivation and invites student feedback and input, but doesn’t require it. I think teacher transparency that encourages student opinions and suggestions is more feasible in traditional secondary schooling environments, because not all students will want to take so much control over their learning or they may not feel comfortable expressing their ideas.
During this presentation I began to think about how I could provide space for my students to share their opinions and criticisms. I knew that I wanted to get their feedback on our new unit and novel, Invisible Man, but I was not sure what questions I wanted to ask or what feedback I was really looking for . . .
Student Feedback
On Tuesday this past week, inspired by the presentation I had seen, I gave my students a mid-unit survey to get a sense of their feelings on the text and on class. This evaluation sheet had several questions about what they did and did not like about the novel, and what they thought was and was not working well in class. I also left space at the bottom of the survey for their suggestions. The questions are below:
Invisible Man Evaluation
1. What topics from the novel or from class discussions interest you so far? What are you interested in investigating further?
2. What don’t you like about the novel or what has been difficult so far?
3. What activities and assignments with the novel have worked well in class?
4. What has not worked well in class? What would help you become more interested or engaged in the novel or in class discussions?
5. Other comments, or suggestions for future classes, discussion topics, activities related to the novel
I was nervous about giving the survey because while I knew that many students were enjoying the book, I also knew that just as many were not enjoying it, or found the reading to be too intensive, or did not want to participate in class. During out previous discussions about the novel, the same group of students would always carry the conversation, and occasionally a quieter student would speak.
It was important that to me that I allow them to candidly share their opinions because I wanted them to have input in the direction of the class, and I did not think they often got the opportunity to do that. I also wanted to get a sense of what was working so that I could continue to incorporate those things in class.
Questions and Student Responses
The first two questions focused directly on the novel and what topics students found interesting and worth pursuing, or on the other side, what was frustrating about the novel. Because the book is so long and each chapter presents new points for exploration and questioning, I wanted to know what students liked thinking and talking about.
With the first question (“What topics from the novel or from class discussions interest you so far? What are you interested in investigating further?”), there were a variety of responses including image and identity, the narrator’s progress throughout the novel, the metaphor of blindness, and general symbolism. I had 48 survey responses and of those, 19 mentioned the narrator’s growth and progress in each chapter or his journey to becoming invisible. Eleven wrote, in some variation, about the social and racial inequalities presented in the novel. Those were the two most frequent responses with interest in blindness, and other symbolism in the novel having the next highest numbers of responses.
The next question (“What don’t you like about the novel or what has been difficult so far?”) asked about what students did not like about the novel, and there were three different broad responses: Length of reading, pacing of reading, and overall content of the novel. Fourteen responses specifically mentioned disliking the length of the chapters assigned for reading each night, six responses focused more on the quick pace of the reading, and twenty-two responses were in some way related to the content of the reading. This last response varied however, from frustration over the characters, to confusion about language or the series of events, to disliking the novel all together.
Before handing out the survey, I was most worried about the forth question which asked “What has not worked well in class? What would help you become more interested or engaged in the novel or in class discussions?” because I assumed most students would write that the class discussions were not working and would be very critical about this aspect of the class. Even as I quickly flipped through the surveys the first time, I noticed that many students did write down “class discussion” for that question. However when I later looked though the responses more closely, I saw that about half of the students actually wrote that class discussions helped them understand the novel better, and only half of the students said that they did not like full class discussion.
Because this particular item had an initial question and a follow-up, a few responses only referred to the second question and did not mention something that was not working well. Overall, only 12 responses specifically mentioned that full class discussions were not working, and several other responses mentioned the lack of participation or the focus of the discussion. In response to “What activities and assignments have worked well in class?” 15 students wrote class discussion, and 20 answered with some variety of group work or small group discussions.
Student Survey Summary and Reflections
With this survey, I was really trying to figure out what direction I should take in class as we begin to read the second half of the novel. Many students responded positively to the different group activities that I have incorporated into class because they are better able to understand the novel when they can discuss their ideas in smaller groups. I now have a better idea of which topics students are interested in pursuing further, and I can create group assignments surrounding those topics to try to meet the needs of, hopefully, a majority of the class. I would like to plan assignments that allow for more creativity because several students asked for more visually-based or artistic projects.
It is important to me to not only ask for students’ opinions on the class, but to actually incorporate their feedback and suggestions into my plans because I want them to feel like they do have a voice in the direction of their learning. The open syllabus presentation focused a lot on student agency as being a driving force of the success of these types of courses, and I hope that I can at least provide small opportunities for my students to develop a sense of agency in their education.