Just gave my D&D group a survey

[MessiahMoose]

See my previous posts for my story, which I'll update. But the short version is that I'm a high school math teacher that started a D&D Club in my school this year, which I DMed. 

I just gave a survey, here are some of the answers. Feel free to comment and critique. I hope you find it interesting. 

Some questions edited for carpal tunnel. 

1) 1-10, how much fun did you have? Average: 9.4
2) This game was fun, EXCEPT for: ____________
-going blind because I'm stupid
-failing wild magic rolls
-lack of a beholder
-not knowing most of the group **(most telling, because I assume the kids know each other)**
-not enough time!! :
-I'm a noob
-not sure, it was pretty fun
3) Most important to you 1-5?
Story: average 2
RP/Combat: both average 2.7
Exploration: average 3.1
Puzzles: average 3.8
4) Pacing of sessions: All "okay"
5) Your character paid attention to? All "yes"
6) Combat pacing? Half/Half slow/okay (7-9 players at any given time)
7) Danger level of encounters? (This surprised me.) Most "too easy". One wanted more of a mix.
8) You want more of? 
-Smaller quests **(Makes sense. We have an hour a week so getting more senses of accomplishment would be a good thing, rather then waiting two months.)**
-Wizards!
-NPC interactions **(My fault. We did a lot of dungeon crawls, but because I thought it what they wanted.)
9) Did you feel you were effective? Mostly "yes," one "sorta"
10) We were mixed, but voted to start new characters next year at level one again. Mostly due to having new members.
11) Adventures next year should be... rank 1-4
Open-world exploration: 1.16 **(clashes with the answer in number 3 but makes sense as this is a video-game mentality [not a bad thing, I'm a total explorer in games])**
Riddles: 1.83
Politics: 3.16
Ready-made adventures: 3.3

[DaggerDaggerDagger]

I think Matthew Colville summed it up well when he was asked if he enjoyed DMing by one of his players. Instead of answering he asked the player "did you have fun?". When the player said yes he said "well then I had fun". As the DM you don't know if you enjoyed a session until you know for sure your players had fun. Whatever you're doing is working, so keep doing it. :-)

I'm interested in how you pace your sessions. One hour is not very long, so how do you make sure enough interesting things happen that don't eat away your allotted time? Pacing is something I'm always working on, and often don't get right.

[MessiahMoose]

There is a lot of "So what do you do?"

Most of it is actually combat. With 8 players of low level the encounters take a while. I've experimented with an initiative board as well as liberal use of "you're on deck". Mostly though, I've gone to theater of the mind over miniatures (setup and movement take a while), as well as cutting corners in other ways (the remaining two goblins get away, you'll hit three peope with that lighting bolt, random encounters were nonexistent).