FRYEBURG, Maine — A rural Maine school district is asking students for advice on how to improve their learning experience.
MSAD 72, which includes Fryeburg and six surrounding western Maine towns, has its students respond to surveys to gauge how they feel about their teachers, the support of their school and more. The school uses that information to inform teachers how they can improve and adapt to help students be more engaged and successful, according to Superintendent Jay Robinson.
In 2014, the district hired Panorama Education, a Boston-based company that conducts surveys and provides data collection services for 220 school districts across the country.
“We have been trying to move as a district to a more learner-centered approach,” one in which the students play more of a role in deciding how learning happens, said Robinson.
The surveys are administered twice each school year and ask questions that seek to elicit thoughtful responses from students. Rather than asking, “Do you like this teacher,” the survey might ask, “If you came to visit this teacher in three years, how excited would they be to see you?” Or, “If you came into class upset, would this teacher talk to you about it?”
The results of the surveys are gathered by Panorama, and the information is passed on to administrators and teachers. Robinson said the school doesn’t intend to use the results to be punitive, but rather to spark a conversation about how a teacher with less-than-favorable results can change their classroom or teaching style to better serve students.
These surveys could play a role in future teacher evaluations, Robinson said. In 2012, lawmakers passed a law requiring school districts to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers, and Maine districts have been looking for tools and methods to perform those evaluations.
Robinson said the partnership costs the district about $2,000 per year for conducting surveys of up to 2,000 students in grades three through eight.
This is the first school district that Panorama has partnered with in Maine, according to co-founder Aaron Feuer. MSAD 72 also is among the smallest districts that the company has worked with. Some of the larger departments are Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle.
Feuer said he started the company because he believed students should be “active participants in school, rather than just going through the motions,” and they’d be more apt to participate if they knew their teachers were engaged and interested.
“Relationships are so critical to learning,” said Cyndi Broyer, a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher in the district. “The data is useful to me because it lets me learn more about whether my class feels connected to me or not.”
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