Student Voice in School Leadership: Promoting Dialogue about Students’ Views on Teaching

Abstract

What is an “ideal teacher”? To what extent do teachers meet this ideal? What recommendations do students have for their teachers? How can the dialogue between teachers and students be stimulated? These questions were posed by a secondary school in the Netherlands to its students. The school wanted to more actively involve students in the evaluation of teaching and wanted to improve communication between students and teachers. The results of our study of this effort highlighted the need for information about students’ views about teachers, teaching, and schooling; for the development of instruments for recording the students’ views; and for procedures with which communication between teachers and students might be improved.

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