Student input in the classroom can look like a wide range of verbal and non-verbal responses. As such, there are many strategies to gather student input in the classroom that should be useful moving forward in the class. This section will draw heavily from Alison Cook-Sather’s book Learning from the Student’s Perspective A Sourcebook for Effective Teaching because it utilizes student narratives to talk about the ways in which students engage in various dialogues with their teachers and organizes the tools that teachers can use to engage their students. According to Cook-Sather, there are three forms of consultation: direct consultation, prompted consultation, and mediated consultation (75) (See Image 1). Direct consultation “asks students directly about their experiences or views of teaching and learning, usually through questions posed in interviews or group discussions, questionnaires, or checklists. The questions that lend themselves to direct consultations are ones where students are likely to have something to say and want to say it: for instance, the things that help them learn and that get in the way of their learning, how they might improve teaching and learning, or support for teaching and learning” (75). Examples of this include questionnaires, discussions, interviews, logs and diaries, and suggestion boxes (See Image 2 for a sample questionnaire). The second form of consultation is prompted consultation, “where students are not used to expressing an opinion or where the topic to be explored is one that they might feel uneasy about or not know where to start, it can be helpful to encourage - and legitimate - their comments by starting with things that other students have said about the topic” (75). Examples of this include utilizing video footage, picture stories, evaluations. The final form is mediated consultation in which students “communicate feelings or summarize experiences through drawings taking photographs, making a videotape, or creating and performing a role play” (76). All three forms of consultation can be useful depending on the material that one is intending to gather and the culture of transparency and honesty in the classroom.

 

Based on these forms of student consultation, my ideal classroom would look more heavily utilize direct consultation through questionnaires, discussions, and one on one conversations/interviews. This would most likely be useful at the beginning of the semester to get a sense of what students are bringing into the classroom and as regular check ins for for both the teacher and students to see where the student is in the class. Especially at the beginning of the year, my Subject Area Supervisor (SAS) also recommended, and used this example within our group, asking the students of an example or an experience in which they felt like they learned something or really enjoyed learning whether it be inside or outside of the classroom. An example of a questionnaire that might be given at the beginning of the year is provided below (See Image 2 Below). Similar questionnaires could be given after each major unit to assess how comfortable students feel with the information that they are learning and how they feel they have done as well as ho they might improve moving forward. It might also prove useful to have these conversations as a larger class so that students can get a sense of what other strategies are being utilized by their peers and who they might be able to talk to in order to get advice or help. However, in classrooms where there may be a little bit of hesitation to share honest feedback, I would more heavily use anonymous suggestion boxes or tolls within prompted consultation that may allow students to share their own experiences if they find that they are similar to those that are being shared.

 

One of the most important aspects of student consultation that Cook-Sather emphasizes is that the information gathered in the consultation is respected and followed up with. She writes that “even well intentioned efforts to increase student voice and participation can ‘reinforce a hierarchy of power and privilege among students and undermine attempted reforms’ when student voice is not genuinely attended to and when students are not, or do not feel, part of the change process” (11). With this in mind, it is really important to not only respond to the information that is provided in these consultations, but also highlight where student feedback is being utilized in the classroom. This might look like changing from frequently engaging in large group discussions to smaller group discussions if many students express their inability to feel comfortable participating in the larger group or having enough time to gather their thoughts. This also means checking in regularly to see whether the changes are useful to the students and helpful to their learning and not cosmetic changes that were made in a haste.