Getting to know your students using a pre-course survey

Dr Emma Campbell
"With such a big class that you're managing, it's tough to know where everyone's coming from, what knowledge they have, what skills they have and that this is particularly tricky because these students hail from a wide variety of backgrounds and span 1st to 4th year cohorts."

ABOUT THE COURSE

  • 1st-year Social Work course covering theories and skills in the Humanities faculty;
  • Class size: Approximately 430;
  • Session types: lectures, tutorials, groupwork, practicals;
  • Includes 1st-year through to 4th-year students, as it is offered as an elective for students outside that discipline (e.g. general degree - Org Psych, Law, etc.).

ENABLE APPLIED

Dr. Emma Campbell saw a need to gather student profiles to get to know her students better. The online pre-course survey was administered at the beginning of the semester.

HOW

Having previously taught 4th years only, Emma wanted to understand the diversity of this first year student group given their varied prior experience, ages-ranges and levels of study. She aimed to shape her teaching approach to be inclusive and also responsive to the unique needs and backgrounds of the students. She created a pre-course survey (a Google Form embedded into her Amathuba course site) asking students about their interests, experiences, knowledge and skills, as well as their preferences and personal constraints. The anonymised survey responses were shared in class to create a sense of community and respond to questions. The survey helped to normalise students’ self-identified areas of under-preparedness, acknowledge their existing knowledge and made them feel more comfortable. The survey and feedback also prompted students to link their prior experience to the course content and to take control of their own learning. Where possible, Emma made adaptations based on the student responses - for example, explaining why the group work that students had rated unpopular in the survey was essential learning for this course. Emma was also able to provide information about specific student support services that related to personal challenges shared in the survey.

Example of pre-course survey questions

LINKS