I have students grade themselves, grade the class and grade me regularly (see Here Are Forms My Students Are Using To Evaluate Themselves & Me).

You can see various other versions of forms I’ve used over the years at Best Resources On Grading Practices and The Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers).

The Harvard Business Review has just published an interesting article about the use of opinion surveys in the workplace.  It’s headlined Employee Surveys Are Still One of the Best Ways to Measure Engagement.

The article points out three main advantages of these kinds of surveys, and I believe the same hold true for the student assessments that I have my classes complete:

1. Surveys are still great predictors of behavior.

2. Surveys give employees the chance to feel heard.

3. Surveys are a vehicle for changing behavior.

 

It’s really worth reading the entire article, which is not very long.  What it has to say about the third point – a survey’s role in changing behavior – is particularly interesting.