How do you get parents, community members, and employers involved in student feedback?

Bringing in parents, community members, and employers help to build community around the raising of a student. The old adage that I takes a village is true but we must be willing to open our schools to let in the billiard. They bring a different view of the world that we as educators may not have experience with. If we are to educate for the future and to be career ready then it’s best to bring in different careers that can either reinforce the importance of what students are learning or give feedback so we can better prepare our students.

Stakeholder feedback has several benefits. Reduces feedback bias. Multiple stakeholders' perspectives and experiences might help assess the learner's development objectively. This guarantees impartial feedback. Stakeholder participation encourages honest feedback. Stakeholder feedback helps learners assess their strengths and flaws more accurately. This helps pupils understand and focus. Stakeholder involvement improves learners. Stakeholder feedback aids learning. This helps students start and plan their studies. It aids in goal-setting and development. Finally, stakeholder feedback eliminates prejudice, encourages honesty, and helps learners understand themselves. Multiple perspectives help students evaluate and improve.

Parent pupil and school, feedback is vital in being able to set future targets in teaching and, or support. I involve all 3 from the start; I identify areas of weakness and set academic and if necessary, behaviour targets. I ask parents what they see as the most pressing area of support needed for themselves and, or their child, I ask the child/learner what they feel is the most frustrating/difficult thing for them at home, or in school and I ask the school for their perspective. We come up with ways to tackle these and put them in place in termly targets and then review and adjust as needed. The document is fluid however and is adjusted, as and when targets have been met, or if as occasionally happens a more pressing need comes arises.

One strategy to identify employers that students have a high interest in developing a relationship with is encouraging participation in an orientation workshop. Participatory activities like engaging in a word cloud and submitting anonymous survey responses can help staff members identify areas of high interest that will result in greater attendance by students and positive networking experiences for both students and employers.

One way that I've found very helpful is to ask for 'constructive feedback' from the stakeholders. Focusing on the areas of improvement in a positive manner not only makes the feedback more relevant but also adds value to the eventual recipient of the feedback.

I've usually observed that a lot of people tend to fill feedback forms just because they're asked to, and they feel obliged to do so! Such responses add very little value, since they're either rushed or half-hearted or both. Avoiding this is an important aspect of feedback collection, which requires that the feedback forms/questionnaires are functionally well-designed yet not too laborious nor overly technical to to fill.