Exploring students' perceptions of teacher help
Anna Spruhan is a design and technology teacher at Tabor Science College in Essex.
Tabor Science College is a semi-rural comprehensive school with 1 044 students and 72 teaching staff. In trying to promote positive behaviours for learning, Anna decided to explore her students’ expectations about the help they receive. She wanted to use the evidence about expectations of help to develop strategies for more independent learning.
What did Anna learn about how her students thought about help in the classroom?
In order to explore their existing understanding of what ‘help’ meant, Anna surveyed a group of Year 9 students and asked them to identify the types of help they expected. She also asked them to say whether they felt they had received each type of help. The students reported that they expected teachers to:
- provide step-by-step instructions
- provide information
- help them develop their knowledge and understanding
- help them to complete a practical task
- help them solve problems
- help them to use software
- help them to complete coursework; and
- help them to revise for exams.
The students reported that on the majority of occasions they received the help they expected, although sometimes they felt that the help they needed wasn’t given or wasn’t clear. Anna found that when she encouraged them to reflect on the help their teacher gave them, they noticed they got more help than they first realised.
Anna shared her findings with others by discussing them with her department, including the mentor for newly qualified teachers and graduate trainees.
How will these findings help Anna develop her practice?
Anna concluded that it was important for her students to be aware of the different types of help available within the classroom. She plans to support her students to recognise this help, and develop their skills for independent learning, by:
- ensuring they are clear about the lesson objectives
- helping them to understand the types of help they can expect from the teacher
- evaluating each lesson with them
- providing them with their own targets
- encouraging them to ask each other for help; and
- encouraging them to keep a record of what happened during each lesson.
Anna is planning to implement these strategies in her classroom and then survey her students again to find what impact they have had on her students’ perceptions of the help available within the classroom.
How could this inform your practice?
Would you find it useful to explore how your students think about the help available to them? What kinds of help are they able to give to each other? What do they and you think only teachers can do? Do you plan and create opportunities for students to help each other?
Find out more
You can find out more by reading the following RoM taster:
- How can we help pupils to become active learners through the feedback we give them?
in the Assessment for learning taster pack (PDF, 102kb).
