Educators' experiences with student voice: how teachers understand, solicit, and use student voice in their classrooms.

Jerusha O. Conner, Villanova University

This research paper explores how teachers understand, solicit, and use student input in their classrooms. The author defines 'student voice' as 'strategy that engageds youth in sharing their views on their experiences as students...' but discuss variety of definitions being used, and whether or not 'student voice' necessarily implies student engagement in decision making or even is restricted to opinions concerning school. They provide brief reviews of literature documenting activities used by teachers to solicit student voice about learning experiences and literature documenting teachers' experiences, making the distinction between student-choice activities and activities that actually create conversations allowing students to have imput into pedagogical strategies from content choice to assessment design. The focus of the paper is on their survey (qualitative and quantitative) to assess how teachers (K-12) use student voice at the classroom levels, with the goal of guiding professional development and institutional policy development.

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Suggested Citation

Conner, J. O. (2022) Educators' experiences with student voice: how teachers understand, solicit, and use student voice in their classrooms. Teachers and Teaching, 28:1, 12-25, DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2021.2016689