Survey says...?

I gave some anonymous student surveys today to my blended physics section. I asked three questions. Here are some of the responses,

1. What do you like most about the class?
 "I can get work done for this class with a more flexible schedule (library days and brain genie, etc) and if I miss school there are videos available to help me get caught up "
"I like the blended style. It works very well for me, having one day of independent study and then the following day come in for help or a new lesson."
"Braingenie and that in-class time reinforces the concepts we learn online so we are not completely alone in learning new concepts"

2. What do you like least about the class?
"We already have a fair amount of freedom to progress at our own pace in this blended class but, on days of new lessons I would like to be able to move on if it is all making sense, rather than hang back with the others who need further help and explanation."
"to be honest, the videos don't help me as much as i hoped they would - learning things in class is what's really helped me so far"

3. What could we do differently to improve the class?
 "More demonstrations is always good. Also anyway to personalize the learning experience for people to move at their own pace is great too. Not much else to change, all is good."
"i think just doing more experiments sounds good! and maybe more helpful videos? but since we go over it in class i don't really see that as totally necessary"

Here is my takeaway.

• Some students would like to see more self pacing, so I am going to allow more of that next quarter and see how they respond.
• Some students don't necessarily like watching the Khan Academy physics videos. They told me they "take too long". I am going to keep assigning the videos. Maybe when the concepts get more difficult students will respond better to the length of the videos.
• Students want more labs and experiments, so I am going to incorporate more experiment days for second quarter.

Otherwise, my blended section of physics is doing great. Their quarter 1 class average is currently 7% higher than the quarter 1 class average for the traditional physics sections. The work they are doing is the same, so something seems to be working well.