A Data-Driven Get-To-Know-You Form

Introductions

The beginning of a new semester is always an exciting period for a teacher. You encounter familiar students who have grown a few inches since the previous year and meet new ones who are eager to excel in your class. Get-to-know-you forms are a great way to get some insight into these students' interests so that I can tailor my lessons to them.

One teaching practice I've found to be tremendously helpful in accelerating connections with students is to send each student a personalized email based on their get-to-know-you form. I point out shared interests, emphasize topics that might interest them this term, and share anecdotes that resonate with them.

Getting Data-Driven

That being said, my history as a data scientist has left me with some curiosity and desire to push these get-to-know-you forms a bit further. This past semester, I added some preference questions to my Google Form so that I could gather some aggregate data about my classroom preferences. I then had these answers populate a Google Sheet so that I could build a dashboard to visualize my findings.

Visualizing the student responses

Above, you can see my dashboard that can show us their preferences for individual vs. group work, their topics of interest, and how they think they're best able to demonstrate their learning. I show the class this dashboard on the second day of school and we go through the analysis together.

Truthfully, I'm not currently happy with the questions that I had asked this semester. I've been following Peter Liljedahl's practice of random groups for learning, so ended up making my students do group work most of the time, even though the survey suggests they'd prefer otherwise. If you have any ideas for more insightful questions, please let me know with a comment!

As for the topics for learning, I appreciate this question due to the nature of the computer studies curriculum. As our curriculum is largely focused on project planning and modular design, we have flexibility with the different applications of these skills. Every year, my students select game design as their top choice, but I'm optimistic that data will win eventually!

For assessments, I like to have students report to me their preferred ways of demonstrating their learning. I've become increasingly aware of math anxiety and want to get some insight ahead of time to help prepare assessments appropriately. I'm very open with my class that this survey doesn't dictate everything, but I am sure to refer back to their preferences when it makes sense with the unit.

Lastly, the students always get excited about my Two Truths and A Lie question. I have some logic that lets me reveal it to the class when I click on the option. If you're interested, leave your best guesses in a comment below! Here are my three from last semester:

1. I was once stranded on an island in Indonesia for 3 days

2. I didn't know how to properly pronounce my name until I was 20

3. I was born on a Boeing 747

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you find helpful or if you have any recommendations!