Google Forms for Students’ and Teachers’ Self Reflection Practices

Abstract

The paper looks at how Google docs (forms) were used to collect feedbacks from students in Sociolinguistics classes. Feedbacks collected are on lessons conducted in the classroom. During the set induction and closure of each lesson, students were taught moral values directly through short stories delivered or videos carefully chosen by the lecturer to suit the Kemahiran Insaniah items in Learning Outcomes Kemahiran Insaniah (LOKI) by Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE). Sociolinguistics lessons were conducted as usual. Thirty minutes before classes end, students go to a given link (http://goo.gl/forms/z23Z36YWvZ) using either their laptops or smart phones to answer six (6) questions; one which rates their understanding of the lesson taught, and two questions allow students to reflect on what they have learnt, found most interesting or uninteresting, and they are free to write down their thoughts. Students found typing their responses into Google forms using their smart phones to be easier; and with Google forms, their responses were directly sent to a spreadsheet for easy analysis; and were automatically saved and stored on lecturer’s Google drive. The lecturer gets to monitor students’ understanding and read the summary of responses and reflect on his teaching practices in the classroom. Many decisions can be made from the reflections done by both students and lecturer; for example students reinforced what has been taught to them and lecturer gets to improvise teaching methodology and be aware of students’ differences and accommodate them. After five (5) lessons, it was found that students do remember the moral values inculcated directly to them as most of them wrote about the values in their responses. Additionally, Google forms proved to be a very convenient tool for reflective practices (as compared to students writing their reflections on pieces of paper or diary) in gathering information on what happens in the classroom from the students, as well as it is fast, plus it is free and easy to use web-based application.