Kristen Jackson Field Seminar Artifact 7: Survey 2 Analysis I administered the second survey to my world history pickup on January

24. This was done primarily as a response to my students behavior while there was a substitute teacher in the class. I had expressed to them that I would be watching, and left explicit instructions for the sub to give them the assignment, and to let me know if there were any students who misbehaved, left the class without permission, or did not do their work. I also asked the sub to collect everyones work regardless if they finished. The directions that I asked the sub to read to students are below.

I had high hopes for my class. I had spoken with them as a group as well as individually, and I just knew they would be on their best behavior. However, when I returned, the message from the sub was less than positive. He expressed that very few students did their work, they were loud, many students were in and out of the classroom, and he had to ask several of them to stop playfighting. I was disappointed, to say the least, but I wanted to use that moment as a teaching moment. I wanted them to examine their own behavior and to assess whether they behaved appropriately and if I would have approved of their actions.

The first several questions of the survey ask about their behavior while the substitute was in the class. Out of the 15 surveys collected, 8 students completed the section asking about the substitute teacher. 5 of the 8 students rates themselves highly on the first question, which asked how would you rate your behavior when the substitute was here? Some of the responses surprised me: although they were aware that their behavior was not the best and they were probably talking a lot and not doing much work, most of them did not see this as a reason to score themselves low.

I find their responses interesting: they are able to accurately describe their behavior, but still struggle to assess it. Assessment requires an evaluation, and although all of them are aware of their behaviors, they do not seem to be able to score it accordingly. If they feel they were talking too much (given that all of them referenced talking), then perhaps they should have scored themselves below a 7, which is the lowest score shown. Moreover, only one of the three examples says I would not have approved of their behavior or would not have thought they were well-behaved. The answers on this question were mixed in general, which shows me that many students are either using cognitive dissonance to justify their behavior, or are completely unaware of what I would find acceptable. The answers on this survey were extremely telling. My students were well on their way to being able to self-assess, in that the following questions (after the ones about the sub) asked them

to rate and explain their effort, and I saw an overall increase in their ability to not only rate their behavior but describe the correlation between their ranking and their perceived actions.

She gives herself a 9-10 given that she completes and submits all of her work (true) but does not get her work from when shes absent (also true). At this point, however, I cannot get away from the fact that there is a right and wrong answer. In essence, I am not asking them to give me what they think I want to see, but instead, to be able to rate their behavior accurately. So if a student expresses that they are often off task, talking too much, and do not submit their assignments, I would not expect to see them rate their effort anywhere above a 6 or 7 because they have distinctly expressed a lack of effort. I want to see my students correlate their descriptions with a numerical value that depicts their effort clearly. Overall, on the second survey, my students were much more candid about their mishaps, and also much more honest in the score they would give themselves. The student below, on the first survey, gave himself mostly high scores on his effort and behavior, but unfortunately, he is one of the students that I often have to speak to the most often during class. However, his scores on this survey are lower, which do not indicate that he has gotten worse, but instead that he is more aware of his behaviors and more willing to be honest

about them on the survey. This I would consider is another example of the significant progress witnessed on this specific survey.

Students are more open about their behaviors, and also their potential to improve. When I

look at the survey holistically, I see a stronger sense of honesty and candor, which is fundamental to the ability to self-asses. The skills I am beginning to see emerge in this segment are clear: the ability to not only be honest with me (their teacher) but with themselves. Self-

assessment serves a much greater purpose than to show the teacher you know your own strengths and weaknesses, but demands an internal realization that you have potential you may or may not be tapping into. As this continues to emerge in my students, I continue to see the value in instilling self-assessment skills in order to take ownership over ones academics.