Bloomsights is the formative assessment tool for school climate and student well-being. It was developed to support school-wide efforts to build high-quality learning environments and create the conditions for effective teaching to occur.
Designed to accurately assess and monitor more innovative definitions and measures of both school success and student achievement than today’s standardized tests, Bloomsights delivers the kind of in-depth insights that help teachers to better know their students and to better understand their blind spots as practitioners.
Our new Distance Learning indicator helps school leaders, educators, and school health professionals gather valuable student feedback on distance learning. Bloomsights questions cover students’ engagement, needs, access to technology, and learning environment.
You can access the survey here. To download, make a copy of the Google Doc, save it, and then download or print.
Get To The Root Of Student Issues
At Bloomsights, we are experts at creating adaptive, responsive, and flexible student well-being and school climate surveys. Reach out to Bloomsights for an in-depth discussion on how to implement a quality school wide assessment plan. Visit https://bloomsights.com/ or call 970.568.8981.
The feeling of being safe is a prerequisite for students’ well-being, development, and learning. When students feel safe, they will have the energy and mental freedom to participate actively in class, acquire new knowledge, and work and socialize with others. It is in such an environment that students are not afraid to take risks, make mistakes and learn from them, and be creative.
The Importance Of A Safe And Positive Learning Environment
Research shows that a safe and positive learning environment that is both caring and constructive is crucial for students’ success and well-being. Safety is an essential element of an encouraging learning environment where they can take risks, make mistakes, and come up with creative solutions to problems. A safe environment also encourages students to talk about potential issues that they might be experiencing in school as well as challenges that they might be facing—whether academic, social, or emotional.
What Can You Do?
One of the most important factors in students feeling safe in school is their relationship with their teachers. Listening and paying close attention to students are powerful tools for a teacher in creating a safe environment for students. As a teacher, make sure to create an inclusive school and classroom environment where all of your students feel welcome. Be sure to recognize that it is acceptable to make mistakes and that it is important to learn from them. Share with students stories of when you have made mistakes and how you dealt with and grew from them. Make it clear that there is a no-tolerance policy in your classroom for hurtful words and behavior. Most importantly, make sure that other teachers, the administrators, and intervention teams are aware of students who show indicators of not feeling safe. Establishing an environment where everyone feels safe and respected should be a team effort. Parents should also be notified and involved.
Here are some other ways that you can help your students feel emotionally safe at school:
Classroom Routines
Be approachable. Let students know of the time during the class period when they can speak with you. Schedule time daily for individual conversations while other students are busy with other activities such as reading or writing.
Have a share out time when students can share a time when they made a mistake and acknowledge what they learned from it. Teach the students in the audience to finger snap, clap, or wave to show their appreciation.
Use cooperative groups to encourage participation. Be intentional about placing students who show signs of not feeling safe with positive, inclusive students.
Classroom Ideas And Activities
Have every student identify one or two adults (it could be anyone from the teacher to the school nurse) to be their go-to person or safe adult in the building. Have students write on an index card their names and who their safe adults are. Remind students that if they are unsure who to pick, you would be happy to be their safe adult.
Teach students the difference between “tattling” (to get someone in trouble) and “telling” ( to get help for self or others).
Emphasize the importance of upstander behavior. Reward students when you see such behavior.
Classroom Environment And Set Up
Be in the halls as often as possible monitoring student behaviors and paying attention to student conversations. Students feel safer when they see adults in the halls.
Move around the room while teaching so that you can be aware of the energy and behaviors of your students.
Encourage the reporting of bullying and hurtful behavior. Clearly post in your room information about how to report these behaviors.
We all recognize classrooms are physical spaces that naturally foster learning, social interaction, and a sense of community for students. Students are assigned to classrooms and learn through their interactions with their teachers and peers. Most teachers intentionally organize space in their classrooms to facilitate the development of interpersonal skills and collaboration. Classroom norms are established to regulate behavior and inform students on how they are expected to treat others.
Recent events have uprooted teachers and students from their traditional classrooms and transplanted them into digital environments that are both unfamiliar and foreign. The “new norm” of online learning has left teachers and students to grapple with ways to mirror the classroom experience in a meaningful and effective way. And while web conferencing tools have made it easier to replicate elements of the classroom experience, the unexpected transition to remote learning has reinforced some myths about online learning. The idea that online learning eliminates the opportunities for students to work collaboratively is one myth, in particular, that needs some rethinking.
Group Work Reduces Feelings of Isolation
Assigning group work to online learners has its advantages, especially in uncertain times. Group assignments create opportunities for peer-to-peer interactions that will help them feel like they are part of a learning community. Moreover, students who feel a sense of community online are less likely to think about being isolated and are more likely to be engaged in their learning.
Students that struggle with social skills or feel socially isolated in the classroom may prefer online learning over traditional learning. For these students, group work done in an environment where they are more comfortable could help to develop social skills and build connections with their peers.
Choose Groups Wisely
One of the biggest challenges collaborative learning presents to teachers is determining which students are best suited to work together. In a traditional classroom, teachers have the opportunity to monitor student groups and if necessary, make changes to groups to ensure the best possible results. Online learning makes observing students more difficult and therefore it is important that teachers have a strong understanding of the social structure of their classroom and the underlying social dynamics that support it. Sociograms are graphs that plot the structure of interpersonal relations in a group situation and are ideal for determining student grouping.
These graphs use student responses to questions about who they feel connected to and the strength of those connections to create a visual representation of the social links that a student has. This information coupled with knowledge around a student’s academic strengths and weaknesses allows teachers to more objectively organize groups.
Examples to Implement in your Virtual Classroom
Implementing collaborative learning into the classroom is no simple task. And for many, the idea of students working together remotely is even more daunting. However, just like web conferencing tools have made it possible for teachers and students to come together while being forced apart, we can look at other technology that can drive collaboration.
Before you venture into the world of online collaboration with your students there are some real-world issues that you will want to ask yourself about/consider. First, it is important to consider technology disparities between your students. You will need to know what your students do and do not have access to before you assign them to groups. It’s also necessary to consider financial and housing disparities. Some students may not want their classmates to see where or how they live during a web conference. Finally, you will want to take some time to create with your students a set of agreed-upon rules that students will follow when working together online.
Here are a couple of examples of group projects that use Google Docs and Slides, and Sheets so students can work together remotely. I’m a former history teacher so some of these are projects that I often used in my teaching. I also recommend going to Google Docs and looking through their set of templates. They have a large selection of templates that you can simply copy and then share with your students. I have included my favorites in the list below.
Now-a-days, your students face complex stressors and pressures in several aspects of their lives.
But with every student in a different place emotionally, it is difficult to provide an environment that both facilitates positive well-being and identifies any signs of emotional distress.
This is where Bloomsights steps in to help. Bloomsights is a formative assessment tool aimed at gauging student well-being and school climate as a way to comprehensively encourage student social and emotional development. Simplify your SEL data to get clarity around your students’ needs and determine what interventions are necessary. Get meaningful and ongoing insights to plan and implement strategies that support improved student and school outcomes.
Bloomsights monthly check-ins make it safe and easy to gauge your students’ well-being whether at school or at home.
Student responses are automatically analyzed to identify your students’ needs across multiple dimensions of healthy well-being and a positive school climate.
No matter what form school takes, we all know the social emotional health of our students must come first. Sign up for an on-demand demo to learn how Bloomsights can provide you with the SEL data you need to get to the root of student issues.
In the meantime, you can start gauging your students’ well-being today with these 50 weekly check-in questions perfect for Google Forms. We will continue to add to the list over time so please feel free to come back for more inspiration!
Personal
[Write-in] What, for you, was the most frustrating part of the week?
[Write-in] What, for you, was the most enjoyable part of the week?
[Write-in] What did you do during your free time this week?
[Write-in] What sports or non-educational activities did you participate in this week?
[Write-in] Reflect on your thinking, learning, and work this week. What are you most proud of?
[Yes/No] Did you spend time helping a sibling with their school work this week?
[Yes/No] Did you get enough sleep each night this week?
[Yes/No] Did you have enough food to eat this week?
[Yes/No] Did you spend some time exercising this week?
[Yes/No] Did you have any stomach aches this week?
[Yes/No] Did you have any headaches this week?
[Yes/No] Did you feel lonely at any time during the week?
[Yes/No] Did you feel anxious at any time during the week?
[Multiple Choice] Not including school time, about how many hours did you spend on screens this week?
[Write-in] Do you speak to someone at home about what is happening in the world today?
[Write in] What was your best accomplishment this week?
[Write-in] Did you have any bad days this week? What did you do to make yourself feel better?
[Write-in] What words would you use to describe this week?
[Write-in] What is one interest of yours that others might not know about?
Technology
[Write-in] Did you have any issues finding a computer/tablet to use this week?
[Write-in] Did you experience any problems with your laptop/tablet this week?
[Write-in] Did you find all of the information easily?
[Yes/No] Did all of the links work?
[Yes/No] Did you experience any problems with submitting assignments this week?
[Yes/No] Did you experience any problems with your Internet connection this week?
[Yes/No] Did you have any audio or visual problems during our web conference calls this week?
[Yes/No] Did you have any problems downloading materials this week?
Schoolwork
[Multiple Choice] How much time did you spend this week on schoolwork?
[Too Easy/Too Hard] Think about this week’s assignments. Do you think the work was too easy or too hard?
[Write-in] Did you access any additional or outside information to help you complete your assignments? If yes, what were they?
[Yes/No] Did I provide enough support this week to help you complete your assignments?
[Write-in] How could I have helped more this week?
[Yes/No] Did you reach out to any classmates for help this week?
[Yes/No] Did you find our online discussions this week interesting?
[Write-in] What was your favorite assignment this week? What did you like about it?
[Write-in] What assignment did you like the least this week? What did you not like about it?
Time Management
[Write-in] Did you have enough time to complete your assignments this week? If you did not have enough time, what would have helped you to get more time?
[Yes/No] Did you use a planner, organizer, or calendar to help you organize and schedule your work?
[Write-in] What time do you usually wake up to start school?
[Write-in] What were some things that distracted you from doing your work this week? How did you get back on task?
Fun
[Write-in] What is your favorite color?
[Write-in] Who was the 23rd president of the United States? (Benjamin Harrison. Don’t feel bad, I had to look it up too 🙂
[Kittens/Puppies] Which do you like more kittens or puppies?
[Write-in] What was your favorite toy growing up
[Write-in] If you could travel in time, when would you go?
[Write-in] What is the most beautiful place you have ever been?
[Cake/Pie] Which do you like more cake or pie?
[Write-in] Which fictional character do you wish you could meet?
[Write-in] What are your three favorite movies?
[Write-in] What are your three favorite books?
[Write-in] If you could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be?
[Write-in] What superpower would you want and why?
When it comes to improving school climate, principals need to have access to meaningful, on-going data about how students experience school life.
A Tale of two principals
Principal 1 utilizes data from the prior year’s annual school climate survey to help identify school needs, set goals, and track progress toward school improvement. The “snapshot” view of his school’s climate and outdated data to drive decision making for the rest of the year. He will have to wait a full year (until the next survey) to identify changes in students’ feelings about their current teachers, peers, and school life.
Principal 2 uses a formative assessment tool for school climate to take measurements on how her students feel about school life every month. She takes advantage of timely reads of school climate to drive improvement efforts and implement pragmatic intervention strategies tailored to her school’s current needs. Her team has access to dynamic, real-time data to inform IEP meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and can adjust strategies to secure success.
This is a short story. Principal 2 can identify key issues at her school in need of reform early, before problems escalate, and track progress over the course of the school year. Principal 2 takes advantage of innovative technology to help support her team’s efforts to make sure students feel safe, supported, connected, and are engaged in learning.
We are seeing this scenario a lot lately. In fact, Brett Larsen, Principal at Boltz Middle School, told us when we first started working together that he “was looking for a more accurate way to assess school climate at his school” and “wanted the data to be longitudinal, not just how his students felt on that one day a year ago.”
Mr. Larsen agreed to pilot Bloomsights with his six grade team for six months and was impressed with the results that he expanded the program to run school-wide for the following school year. “Bloomsights allowed me to take measurements on how my students feel every month and see that data over time.” According to Mr. Larsen, Bloomsights provided his team with valuable insights that were used to “intervene with students who weren’t connected, address bullying, and improve teacher-student relationships.”
More and more, researchers and educators agree that surveys are a critical part of early intervention and school improvement strategies. But the survey tool that you implement must enable you to use best practices while embracing new strategies and technologies.
Bloomsights, an adaptive, responsive, and flexible school climate survey tool can deliver best practices with significant improvements over traditional methods.
From 30,000 ft to Ground Level
From indicators and trends across the school to the individual student, Bloomsights helps you know how your students are doing socially and emotionally. Our adaptive survey technology makes monitoring school climate over the course of the school year easy and automatic, real-time response analysis means less time screening for student needs and more time to intervene before problems escalate.
Monitor student performance over time across multiple dimensions of healthy well-being and positive school climate.
Students Feel Valued When Their Opinions Matter
Bloomsights makes it safe and easy for students to share how they feel about their experiences of school life. The assessment process itself is a learning experience for students. Through the process of answering carefully designed questions that encourages reflection, students learn social and emotional vocabulary that could help them to interact more effectively with others and to express how they are feeling. By giving students agency in school improvement efforts, classrooms transform into personalized learning environments making students feel more connected and cared for.
Bloomsights “My Classmates” lets students share who they feel connected to in their class and across their grade level.
Teachers Need Tools Not Tasks
Bloomsights provides educators and school health professionals with a continuous stream of the data needed to answer the questions “So what?” and “Now what?” Finally, all staff members are able to recognize even the subtlest of indicators of school climate that may normally go unnoticed, but that could serve as a stimulus for early intervention—critical for issues related to feelings of isolation, loneliness, and student well-being as well as bullying. Moreover, they give teachers a way to think about and to clearly communicate survey results to students, school staff, and parents.
Bloomsights sociograms help educators and counselors better understand classroom social structure and underlying social dynamics.
Change Your School’s Climate from Good to Awesome!
Bloomsights is an assessment tool aimed at gauging student well-being and improving school climate as a way to comprehensively encourage student social and emotional development. Simplify your SEL data to get clarity around your students’ needs and determine what interventions are necessary. Get meaningful and ongoing insights to plan and implement strategies that support improved student and school outcomes.
Click here to schedule a free demo and see how Bloomsights can support your efforts to promote student well-being and build a strong, inclusive, and happier school community.
Every parent, teacher, and student knows the word “bullying.” However, its meaning is often misunderstood. Today, the term bullying is often overused, and because of this, the extent and impact of true bullying may be masked. It is critical that we accurately teach what true bullying looks like and what to do about it.
Students need to know that you are consistent with having zero tolerance for bullying in your classroom and in your school. At meetings with other teachers, administrators, or intervention teams, be sure to discuss students who are showing signs of bullying or being bullied. There should be a team plan on how to support these students and how to stop the bullying. Parents should also be informed when their children are showing signs of being bullied.
Writing Prompts
It is important to help students think about the various reasons why people bully others and the potential ramifications of their actions. You want to come up with prompts that encourage students to reflect on their own involvement (passive or active) in bullying situations and build empathy by asking them to consider what it feels like to be bullied. Here are some examples:
Do you know anyone who is being bullied in school? What are some of the things you could do to help this student?
What are some things you are willing to try to prevent bullying from happening?
Why do you think some people bully others?
How do you feel when you see someone else being teased?
Where do you think bullying culture is most prevalent: online, in our classroom, during passing periods, or during extra curricular activities?
What are the consequences for standing up for someone who is being bullied?
In the past month, have you been bullied by someone? How did it make you feel?
In the past month, have you bullied another person? Walk me through the way you felt before, during, and after the situation.
Are you afraid of being laughed at in school? How do you feel when people are laughing at you?
If a student is bullied in school, how difficult is it for him or her to get help from an adult?
Student Check-Ins
Do a quick “five-finger” check-in with students. Have students raise their hands showing up to the number five how they are feeling at school this week (5 = great to 1 = they need support). You could have students put their heads down when they do this to make sure they feel comfortable showing their number. Check-in privately with any student who shows less than a 3.
Be intentional about checking in on students who show indicators of bullying. Find out how they are feeling each day. Personally introduce them to the school counselor and/or another school adult who might be able to provide support.
Classroom Meetings
Create regular classroom meeting times to give students a safe place to talk about issues and to discuss the climate in the classroom(s) and school. Focus on specific topics such as bullying. Help students be solution-focused regarding issues facing them in school. There are many templates online on how to conduct a classroom meeting. A few important tips about how to lead successful meetings are:
Always circle-up (it will set the tone).
Start with compliments and gratitude.
Follow-up with anything from previous meetings.
Have an agenda that includes specific issues that students have proposed.
Use a talking stick or object. Allow all students the opportunity to have the talking stick or object.
Wrap-up with future plans.
Activities
Find time to teach about the differences between rude, mean, and bullying behavior and what to do in, and how to get help for, each scenario. Role-play different scenarios and ask students to identify which scenario is being played out. Revisit these lessons throughout the year.
Rude – usually unintentionally hurtful comment or behavior. Empower students to use their voice to tell the person to stop the hurtful behavior that he or she is doing.
Mean – usually intentionally hurtful comment or behavior done once or twice. Empower students to make eye-contact, use the person’s name, and tell the person to stop the hurtful behavior. Restorative practices can be helpful if the student needs help.
Bullying -Intentionally mean and aggressive behavior, done repeatedly over time, and that involves an imbalance of power. Teach kids how to report a bully. An adult needs to intervene immediately in this situation.
Classroom Set Up
With the help of students, create posters that emphasize the positive behaviors and support you want to see in the classroom. Have all students participate in creating the posters. On the posters, have students sign that they will contribute to the positive classroom environment.
Most current schooling models are heavily focused on rubric-based grading and standardized testing — much to the shared unhappiness of teachers, parents, and students alike. On one hand, these cut-and-dry methods make it “easy” to gauge achievement against one standardized set of metrics. It is, in theory, a way to gauge knowledge and chart improvements year over year. It’s also a way to compare students on the same level, to see that everyone is where they should be according to the metrics.
On a much more important level, though, there is a lot of growth that happens during the school day that is not and cannot be measured by a standardized test. Anyone who has taken one of those tests can attest to how little depth of information actually comes from them. It’s a way to distill a person down to super-basic information, but it’s not the most effective way to gauge a child’s needs or struggles. Enter whole child education.
What Is Whole Child Education?
As the name implies, whole child education is a new approach to education that is intended to do more than just teach children specific tenets of knowledge — it’s a way to teach and nurture growth based on each student’s needs. And while this ideology speaks to teaching based on each child’s needs and learning styles, it also includes a broader scope than traditional models of education. Specifically, whole child education looks at all of a child’s needs and abilities to inform their education plan.
Why Whole Child Education Matters
The idea behind whole child education is to even the playing field, so to speak. The underlying tenets of this methodology include looking at a child’s physical well-being as well as their mental health, and doing as much as possible with that information to create the right learning environment for all students. As a very basic example, a student who is hungry will have a much harder time focusing on the lesson that one who has had a filling, nutritious meal. Also consider that a child who is being bullied is far less likely to perform well if they sit near their bully in the classroom. Whole child education looks at all aspects of a student’s life and how their needs are or are not being met.
The idea behind whole child education is, essentially, to provide better education. But “better education” is a really broad, nebulous term — because “better education” doesn’t just mean cramming students’ minds with even more knowledge, it means teaching them the skills to handle life. Whole child education looks at ways to teach non-cognitive skills (like social skills, civic participation, etc.) alongside other cognitive knowledge.
One ongoing struggle with the whole child educational model is figuring out what each student’s needs are. This is where Bloomsights comes in. Our student assessment tools give students a way to quickly and easily provide insight into their social and emotional wellbeing, which you as teachers and school leaders can then take an work with to gauge class/school culture and make adjustments. Want to learn more? Connect with Bloomsights today!
You don’t have to be a parent to care about each student in your charge. As teachers or school administrators, you understand just how much children will grow and learn under your guidance. It’s not just reading, writing, and arithmetic, either; school is where most of us learned a plethora of life lessons that we carried into adulthood, and that is undoubtedly how it’ll go for your students too.
That’s a lot of responsibility to have on your shoulders day after day. But, as more study and more effort is put into the idea of social and emotional development lessons, there are an increasing variety of lessons and tools to help you bring this theory of education into your classroom — including easy-to-use student assessment tools like Bloomsights. If you’re new to the social emotional development theory, here are the basics:
Understanding Social Emotional Development
Social emotional development is simply a term used to describe a child’s ability to understand and control their emotions/feelings and how they understand others’ feelings. Their social emotional learning is also the basis of how a child builds relationships with friends, parents, other adults, and so on. Basically, a child’s social emotional development is going to be the foundation for how they interact with the world around them. Given that and the fact that children spend so many hours each week at school, you can see how a child’s school experiences can play a major role in shaping and growing their social emotional development.
There is no denying that it’s important to focus on social emotional development, especially during the preschool and elementary years. So far, research suggests that social competence can have an impressively widespread impact on a child’s success in a variety of social and economic areas later in life. For example, “students who exhibit weaker social competency skills may be more likely to drop out of high school, abuse drugs and alcohol and need government assistance” where their more socially competent cohort is likely to not only avoid those situations, but also to meet more measures of success in adulthood, like earning a 4-year degree in early adulthood.
Implementing Social Emotional Learning
More and more research is suggesting the value of two particular steps in order to help children grow their social competency. First, social emotional development should be a primary focus starting when children are young — preschool-aged if possible, but at the very least during kindergarten and elementary education. Second, social emotional learning shouldn’t just happen at home and activities; children spend a good chunk of their days at school, in heavily social situations, so it’s important to bring those lessons into the classroom as much as possible.
With everything on teachers’ plates already, it can sound overwhelming to add yet another layer to your daily responsibilities. This is where Bloomsights steps in to help. Our easy-to-use student assessments help give you a clear picture about what’s going on with each student socially and emotionally. From there, you can use that information to shift your focus or make changes in the classroom to better support your students’ needs. Learn more by connecting with us by email at hello@bloomsights.com or phone 970.568.8981.
New technological advances have made it possible to develop an adaptive, responsive, and flexible survey tool that can deliver to educators more reliable and valuable data than traditional surveys. Moreover, the assessment process itself is a learning experience. By answering research-based questions that encourage reflection over the school year, students have an opportunity to build their emotional skills, process emotions, and improve their social and emotional vocabulary to help them interact more effectively with others and better express how they are feeling.
Building Emotional Skills
Adaptive surveys create the opportunity to include student voice in a community approach to well-being and mental health. For example, using monthly check-ins, students can reflect on their feelings and experiences of school life and share their opinions with their teachers and school counselors. Throughout the school year, adaptive surveys help students develop their emotional skills to better monitor and regulate their behaviors, attitudes, and actions towards their peers and teachers. The results are two-tiered: students are empowered when they see that their voices matter and become more connected to their school community.
Processing Emotions
Emotional regulation is necessary to remember, retrieve, transfer, and connect all new information to what we already know. Unfortunately, children and adolescents who are only beginning to understand what emotions are and how they impact behavior lack the coping skills to properly regulate their feelings.
An adaptive survey that consistently asks students questions about how safe, supported, included, and engaged they feel at school helps them learn about their emotions. By communicating how they feel at school, teachers and school health professionals can use these insights to help their students connect emotions and behaviors, which is essential to assist them in finding the control they need to manage their behavior.
Articulating Views and Feelings
As adults, we sometimes have difficulty articulating our views and feelings in a way that does not invite disconnect in our relationships with others. So how can we help children and adolescents learn how to express what they feel tactfully and meaningfully? We can start by giving them the right words to say.
Routinely answering evidence-based questions that encourage reflection, students learn social and emotional vocabulary that could help them interact more effectively with others and express their feelings. You may think that is what a traditional survey does, but there are advantages to using an adaptive survey when building student vocabulary. Frequently offering a fixed survey where students see the same questions in the same order can lead to assessment fatigue. Questions are answered mindlessly, and vocabulary retention is replaced by just filling in responses. An adaptive survey that uses the same fixed questions but in a different order, at different times, and in smaller batches throughout the school year keeps students engaged and more reflective. It is more important to understand what the question is asking to provide a response. As a result, students learn how to articulate their emotions.
Insights with Bloomsights
Bloomsights is an assessment tool aimed at gauging student well-being and improving school climate to comprehensively encourage student social emotional development. First, simplify your SEL data to clarify your students’ needs and determine necessary interventions. Then, get meaningful and ongoing insights to plan and implement strategies that support improved student and school outcomes.
Reach out to Bloomsights for an in-depth discussion on how to implement a quality social and emotional assessment plan. Visit https://bloomsights.com/ to start your trial of Bloomsights today!
Surveys are a critical part of early intervention and school improvement strategies. But the survey tool that you implement must enable you to use best practices while embracing new strategies and technologies.
An adaptive, responsive, and flexible school climate survey tool can deliver best practices with significant improvements over traditional methods.
Once a year vs. continuous assessment
Online surveys have made it more efficient to assess how students, staff, and parents feel about different aspects of school climate such as school safety, learning and teaching, school environment, and social relationships.
However, a survey that is only administered annually provides school faculty with a mere “snapshot” of a school’s climate. Additionally, the large amount of time that it takes for schools to receive survey results runs counter to the point of early intervention.
An adaptive school climate tool is built upon the idea that data is reliable and useful only if it is collected routinely over the course of the school year.
Fixed vs. adaptive
Traditionally, surveys ask the exact same questions once a year. Simply offering the same fixed survey more frequently isn’t reliable nor useful especially because such practice can lead to assessment fatigue, where questions are answered mindlessly and without reflection.
An adaptive school climate tool pairs a large bank of questions with adaptive technology that identifies and strategically delivers the most relevant questions to each student over the full course of the school year.
Data paralysis vs. data analysis
Teachers today are swimming in data, and it is not enough to show them student responses to questions. We need to provide teachers with data in a way that answers the questions “So what?” and “Now what?”
A digital school climate tool frames data use in new ways so that insights gleaned are seen as augmenting, instead of replacing, teachers’ valuable and intuitive observations in the classroom.
The assessment process itself is a learning experience for both students and teachers. Through the process of answering carefully designed questions that encourages reflection, students learn social and emotional vocabulary that could help them to interact more effectively with others and to express how they are feeling.
Digital school climate tools will help teachers to recognize even the subtlest of indicators of school climate that may normally go unnoticed, but that could serve as a stimulus for early intervention—critical for issues related to feelings of isolation, loneliness, and student well-being as well as bullying. Moreover, they give teachers a way to think about and to clearly communicate survey results to students, school staff, and parents.
Insights with Bloomsights
At Bloomsights, we are experts at creating adaptive, responsive, and flexible school climate surveys. Reach out to Bloomsights for an in-depth discussion on how to implement a quality social and emotional assessment plan. Visit https://bloomsights.com/ or call 970.568.8981.
Bloomsights 