Collaboration and engagement are now what classrooms strive for in the new economy as the old of rote and lecture still are fully exercised. So, how do you create a collaborative classroom.

A Different Approach

When TQM (Total Quality Management) is applied to a classroom setting, top-down or teacher-driven leadership yields to give-and-take leadership that ultimately results in an open and trusting learning environment for the students. I often ask my students for feedback about what they find right and wrong in their classroom experience. After information is collected and examined, my students and I discuss strategies for improving student learning together.

This approach takes some time to get used to. Sometimes I have a slight apprehension that my students might take advantage of my willingness to please them. I know they’re a little surprised that I even ask them these questions in the first place. After all, that is not the norm in teaching style and behavior. Though, in the end, I’ve learned to trust their answers.

Online Surveys

I’ve created several anonymous surveys using BooRoo, a free online survey tool. With BooRoo, I have assessed:

• The level of happiness in our classroom

• Student understanding of mathematical lessons

• Student opinion of a playground problem

• How well students were prepared for a unit test

• Student ideas for our year-end party

• Student evaluation of my teaching methods

I have also used BooRoo to gather data from parents when they attend parent-teacher meetings. BooRoo not only collects information, it also presents survey results as colorful graphs.

More Uses

Handling classroom disagreements and concerns in a sixth grade classroom can be difficult – it can be nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction. After several parents suggested that there was trouble in my classroom, I created a survey with questions to measure the anxiety level among my students. I asked for their feedback about relational problems, their ability to learn, and their general level of comfort in our classroom.

The survey results told me that my students were quite satisfied with the state of their relationships, but there was a high level of anxiety regarding their homework load. Because this was obviously a concern for my students, I took it to my next team meeting and we discussed how to tackle this issue.