Responding to student voice

The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) articulates a shared vision of “Young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners” (page 8). One of the characteristics of effective assessment identified is that it “involves students – they discuss, clarify, and reflect on their goals, strategies, and progress with their teachers, their parents, and one another. This develops students’ capacity for self- and peer assessment, which lead in turn to increased self-direction” (page 40).

It is important that educators inquire into how they can deepen their understanding of students’ perspectives and engage with students in school and classroom communities where everyone is a learner. Typical strategies include conferencing, student surveys, focus groups, and collaborative storying. When talking with students, it is important for educators to explain why they are gathering their views and how they will use the information the students share with them. This is an opportunity for the educators to model their own approaches to learning and to show that they are responding to what the students value and need.

ISTEs may find the following questions useful for gathering student voice. They were among those that students were asked as part of the curriculum review. (See The New Zealand Curriculum Online – Student views.)

Older students were asked:

• What helps you learn?
• What advice would you give to teachers?
• What makes a good teacher?
• When your schoolwork gets hard, what do you do?
• Who do you ask?
• Do you feel able to ask your teacher or your friends questions?
• What do you do if they can’t help you?

Younger students were asked:

• Do you like learning new things?
• How do you learn new things?
• What’s your teacher like?
• What does your teacher do with you in the classroom?
• If you don’t know how to do something, what do you do next?
• Do you ask your teacher questions?

Case 1: Dissonance as a Catalyst for Improvement

Delwynne describes the response of the teachers at Waiharara School when they began to ask the students what they thought the focus of a lesson was and what they had learned (see video Clip 9). Often, the mismatch between the teachers’ perceptions and those of the students was challenging for the teachers. The teachers have learned from this and are now more actively seeking the students’ perceptions and engaging them in discussions about what they need to do to improve. This is enabling the students to become more self-regulated in their learning (see video Clip 10).

Recommended reading

Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai, S., and Richardson, C. (2003). Te Kōtahitanga: The Experiences of Year 9 and 10 Māori Students in Mainstream Classrooms. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Bishop et al. used a collaborative storying technique to get the perspectives of Māori students about how best to improve their educational achievement. (See pages 141–142.) The students’ stories have challenged teachers in the research and professional development project Te Kōtahitanga to recognise the impact of their beliefs and values on their Māori students. As a result, teachers are changing their teaching strategies, and students’ attendance, engagement, and achievement levels are rising.

Hill, J. and Hawk, K. (1998). "Aiming for Better Achievement: How Teachers Can Understand and Better Meet the Needs of Pacific Island and Māori Students". Set: Research Information for Teachers, no. 2 item 4.
Hill and Hawk examined the development of the AimHi project and the accompanying research project. They explored the links between the different worlds that students experience and how the collision between these worlds, especially those of home and school, can impact on student learning and achievement. Their research included the perspectives of over 900 students who participated in group discussions.

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