Needs Assessment Tool: Dotmocracy

Every two months, I like to assess what content and activities my students  want to stop, continue and start. 

One way I do this is a "dotmocracy".

My workplace has suggested a consistent yearly thematic sequence to cover. However, we can adjust this, extend it, and skip themes, etc., to meet the needs of our learners. For the topic dotmocracy, I told the students the themes were Travel and Transportation and Family, and if something else was important, we could add it. I love what they added! 

I gave each student five stickers. They had to choose the five most important things for them right now.

For the classroom activities dotmocracy, I started the list with activities that are regular weekly activities, and asked students to brainstorm what we do in class and other activities they would like to do. I gave each student the same number of stickers as items listed. I asked them to choose either “do” or “stop” for each one. Then, students put up their stickers during break.

From this, my students have essentially designed the curriculum for the next two months. I look at the most important items and our time-line and see what we can cover. We will do it again in two months. If something was missed and is very important, the students have the opportunity to express it and vote on it again. Also, students can see how many of their peers share their same opinion, needs and wants.