September 17, 2009

I would use the surveys from Fulfilling the Promise to get to know my students, both personally and academically. I believe it is important for us to know who are students are outside of the classroom if we hope to achieve anything within the classroom. The use of these inventories will allow me to do just that.

I liked that the first survey asked the students to describe themselves using the words that sounded like them or didn't. However, the one thing I would change on this particular survey would be to represent the questions as something other than opposites. For example, I would find the inbetweens when asking "Need quiet when I work" and "Need noise when I work." Instead of asking one or the other, I would ask one and then "Need a little noise when I work sometimes" or something to that effect.

Furthermore, I thought the Student Interest survey was great. It may be hard for students to answer some of the questions, but just as you did at the beginning of the semester, I would ask them to answer all of those that they would like to. I especially liked the question "What else should I know about you as a person and a student that could help me teach you better?".

I will definitely be using some of the inventories from BlackBoard in my classroom during Student Teaching. I feel that although we do have the 3 week field experience, it will be difficult to be thrown into a classroom during the middle of the school year and have to take over the class for several weeks.
I would be interested in using the Attitudes and Interests Survey and some of the others during my teaching experience. We actually had to complete one similar to this in Literacy last semester that had Garfield portraying the different emotions as to how they feel concerning reading. I enjoyed the open-ended questions in a different part of the survey and feel the benefits would be great.
Obtaining a writing sample shows so much more than writing skills. The students are able to open up through writing the tell what they are really thinking about. "What is the prettiest thing you have ever seen?" expressed without limitations on how to format the sample would give some of the greatest information a student would never tell you. During my Student Teaching, I could use this for a math lesson even. The possibilities are endless!
As I stated above, these inventories will allow me to get to know the students I will be working with. I can be prepared to teach the specific levels I need to and will be able to go in with confidence that I know a little about who I am working with. I will not only be able to assess my students' knowledge and readiness levels, but I will also be able to get to know them a little more. The Student Inventory, along with the Readiness Survey, and Desire Forms provide countless numbers of useful information I will need to sucessfully reach each student.