A request for assistance from teachers in secondary/higher education

[stever85ulster]

Good afternoon all.

My name is Steve, I'm a final year student studying software engineering at Ulster University, Northern Ireland.

I'm hoping to ask any teachers in secondary/higher education for a few minutes of your time. I am currently undertaking requirements analysis for my final project. A brief overview of my proposal:

In short, the idea is to develop a web application that would facilitate consistent, meaningful and positive engagement between teachers, students and parents/guardians (generally those with role of parental responsibility).

To that end, the minimum functionality of the app will allow:

1. Teachers to input results of any testing/assessment for students. This can include any feedback/advice and notes on class participation. These notes may be viewed by either the student & parent, or only the parent (the option for both will be available to the teacher). There is also consideration for functionality that would allow for teacher initiated and managed messaging between teacher & parents.

2. Students can see their results and feedback from Teacher but not any notes the teacher has added that are specifically for the parent

3. Parents will see the same information as the student but with any notes addressed specifically to them from the teacher.

The point of the app, would be to encourage parent engagement with their child’s education which, research has shown, can have a positive impact on academic attainment. Moreover, in cases where students are struggling, it would encourage early recognition and identification of problem areas and, in theory, give each student a good support network.

So, my request is this:

As I have no real understanding of the needs and wants of teachers as a potential user base for the app, I have put together a questionnaire that will give me some insight to the teacher's perspective.

If you would like to take a moment to fill this out, it can be done very quickly, please follow this link:

BEng Software Engineering - Secondary School research

Just to note: you will not be asked for any personal information.

I would also appreciate feedback on the questionnaire. So, if you complete it and feel I am missing something, or if you would be willing to occasionally lend me your ear as an expert please feel free to contact me at: [email protected]

Thanks very much for your time and have a great day

This all sounds really time consuming (the app, not the questionnaire). Have you read any documentation about managing workload, or spoken to any teachers about how they would fit this level of communication into their already busy days?

Thanks for your response. Yes, it's a conversation I've had with 3 teachers. The response, as I'm sure you can imagine, was mixed.

One teacher, who noted that they teach over 200 students, pointed it would be a nightmare. As you mentioned, the potential for additional workload would be a burden.

Another, who works in tuition, saw some value in it, but then their student base is much smaller.

I will definitely have a look into documentation about managing workload, it's something I hadn't considered.

At this stage of requirements gathering, the functions I'm querying are from analysis of similar solutions, and not set in stone. It's to help me understand if something, from the teacher's perspective, is a good idea or bad, as I simply don't have that real world experience.

From this, and a similar questionnaire completed by parents. I'll hopefully get a better picture of what the app should and shouldn't do.

You sound well intentioned, but the app sounds like a secondary teacher’s worst nightmare.

This is a good starting point:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/reducing-school-workload

That's fair, good practice includes reflection on failures when critiquing an app. I certainly won't be the first student to finish their project and have to admit it is heavily flawed! As I mentioned, the proposal and design are at a very high level, so feedback and interactions like this are essential for helping put me on the right track.

Thanks for the link too, I appreciate you taking the time!

I’m glad others feel the same as me.
This is the sort of thing that a Quality department would love but teachers would struggle with.
It’s like Promonitor, but with parents too. I have 200 students and have to input any information and chase students on there. It takes up a huge proportion of my day, I need to plan and mark too. I’m in class 26.5 hours and am paid for 34 a week. I have 3 hours a departmental meetings which leaves 4.5 hours for me to do EHCPs, normal way of working forms, promonitor, planning, writing power points and marking x200.
Teams chat is also a communication link. I have students messaging me all through the night, asking if I’ve marked their work yet, asking for help as they missed the lesson. Honestly, lovely idea but reality would add too much pressure.

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment, real insight like this really helps highlight the flaws and provide good information for the retrospective of my project.

That level of workload is really shocking. More so that it's been common among every teacher I've spoken to.

If you don't mind me asking, as a teacher, and if it was possible, what sort of things would you like to see that would make your job easier?

@stever85ulster

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment, real insight like this really helps highlight the flaws and provide good information for the retrospective of my project.

That level of workload is really shocking. More so that it's been common among every teacher I've spoken to.

If you don't mind me asking, as a teacher, and if it was possible, what sort of things would you like to see that would make your job easier?

Not a tutor or teacher but this is something my aunt wants. She wants a first aid kit in every school as she has had to deal with her fair share of accidents over the years.