STUDENT SURVEYS ANALYSIS 2

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Student Surveys Part 2

Demographics
I administered the student surveys to my 3rd block 6th Grade Language Arts Honors class again
for my second part of the survey. There have been some changes in the demographics of the class
because one of our students moved to a different class. In this Language Arts class, 5% of the students
are African American, 5% of them are multiracial, 10% of them are Hispanic, and 90% are White. The
gender breakdown of the class is 60% female and 40% male. Among the 20, students, 10% of the
students are identified as gifted, 5% are identified with special disabilities, as well as 10% that seem to
have special disabilities, but are not yet identified. One student (5% of the class) who was in Read 180,
remediation-reading class, tested out of it with an SRI that matched 6th grade level or higher after two
months of hard work. There is still one student in the (5%) class who needs to be tested for Read 180
because of a probable reading disability because when quizzed orally, she can answer all the questions
but when she actually takes tests, she cannot answer a lot of the questions. Also, a note to make is that
one of the students in the class was out sick when the survey was administered. He was out sick for two
weeks and when he was back in the class, he would always leave early. Thus, I only gave out 19 surveys
because one of the students was missing.
Influencing Factors
The students worked on the surveys before independent work time. This is the week that the
students had to work on three projects. Two were due before the break (a science creative story and their
first formal essay) and the other (their final project for the literature circle unit) was due after the break.
Most of the students were done with the first two and were working on their final project. The pressure
and the amount of workload they had that week might have influenced the survey results.

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Some other factors that may have influenced the survey results could be that the kids knew I was
leaving them soon. They might have given me good scores as a good-bye gift.
Knowledge of the subject
Looking at the results, my students still seem to think that I know my content pretty well, 84.2%
of them strongly agree to the statement My teacher knows and understands the subject being taught
and the other 15.8% agree with it. Again, I think that teaching 6th grade or middle school English is
easier in terms of the content area material because it is very basic things that all of us college students
already know. The hard part is more of the pedagogical area where I would have to find different ways
to engage the students and also how I set up my classroom behavior management. The material and
content may be easy, but sometimes it is really hard to find ways to reach the students. Different students
have different ways in which they connect better to the content. Teachers have to get to know each
student in order to be able to find the best way to help him or her learn.
Pedagogical knowledge
In this second part of the survey, I found that using different materials and activities to help the
students learn seems to be my weakest area this time around. While 65% of the students strongly agree
or agree that I find different materials and activities to help them learn, 30% of the students still
answered that they were not sure if I used different materials to help them learn. I think I did use a lot of
different materials and activities to help the students learn their Greek and Latin for word study, but
maybe because that is a routine we do all the time so the students did not realize that different strategies
were being used. I think I could also have tired to use other strategies and activities when we did
literature circles. We usually just did role sheets and discussed. Aside from that I also assigned a body
biography project for the students to practice character analysis. For most of the other classes, we

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usually just have mini lessons on different contents before we the students do independent work for
practice. I think I could have tried to come up with more activities for the students.
Aside from this, I think I can also do better with creating real world connections to the content
because 25% of the students still picked not sure for my teacher relates lessons to other subjects or the
real world. Looking back now, I think I could have made more connections to the real world, maybe
actually make Real World Connections a part of every class, or if not, a part of every unit that we do.
In addition, I also think that it is a possibility that I may not have been as explicit about using
different things. Students sometimes dont realize what we do if we do not tell them outright about what
we do. I think that in the future, I would have to be more explicit about my teaching strategies.
Caring and effective teacher
Overall, the students still perceive me as a caring and effective teacher. All of the students
strongly agreed that I am a good teacher. I also had one student wrote on the survey beside the statement
so much (and I am flattered). I think the students have really bonded with me over time. I have been
able to develop very strong relationships with them. It is good to know that the huge final project I
challenged them with did not affect their overall view on whether or not I am a good teacher.
Looking further into the aspects that contribute to making a teacher caring and effective, I am
glad to see that 85% of the students strongly agree or agree that I provide helpful feedback to them. The
survey results also show that 85% of the students agree that I allow and respect different opinions. I
know that a lot of my students are really eager to participate in class and share with the class their
opinions on many different things. I am glad to see that even though I have had to cut down the amount
of sharing a lot because we usually dont have enough time for everyone, the students still feel like they
have had enough chance to share. I think I still did a pretty good job with telling students that all of their
opinions are respected.
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Improvement Plan
Based on the responses, I think that the students think I am an effective teacher overall. I did not
have any 4s or 5s except for one. The one disagree I got was for the statement was my teacher treats
everyone fairly. I am not sure why one of the students disagreed with that, gut I think that it might be
because some students get more candy than others because they are better behaved than others. I think
that I can set more rules and guidelines for the class and enforce them so that all the students will feel
like they are treated fairly.
I also think that I could work more on trying to be more explicit on the pedagogical strategies
that I use as mentioned earlier in the paper. Maybe when I use different activities for word study
everyday, I can tell them, Today we are doing Word Picture Activity because this will help you
associate words with visuals. I think I need to state each skill I target in every activity with them
because that would definitely help them be more aware of things. Thinking back on what my mentor
teacher has said before, she is absolutely right when she said that students are constantly doing and using
the different skills that we teach them, analyzing, inferring, and drawing conclusions, however, they are
not aware of the cognitive processes that they are going through. As teachers, it is our job to help the
students become aware of their abilities and help them develop them even further. One method my
mentor teacher uses when she teaches them is she uses the SOL vocabularies or targeted skills on over
and over again, for example, words like recall, infer, analyze, and compare.
Lastly, I think that I should also tell students that I am available to help them outside of class
because 25% of the students said not sure to the statement My teacher is available to help me outside
of the classroom. Compared to the previous survey where 15% students said not sure, this is 10%
increase, thus it is something I would really have to work on. I have not been really explicit in telling the
students to email me if they have any questions. In addition, I have also had to use my mentor teachers

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Gmail account in giving them feedback on their assignments, so maybe theyve been thinking all this
time that my mentor teacher has been giving them feedback on their work.