Collecting and Using Data

This week our focus is on data collection and interpretation. Not only do we, as teachers need to check our students' progress, but we also need to know how to change our plans to address what we learn from the data.

Data is all around us. Every observation that we make about our students is data that we are gathering, if we notate and record it. Many times, however, we focus on student behavior rather than academic noticings, or we collect the academic data, but do not change our planned lessons to meet the needs of our students.

This year, at Lake Shore Middle School, we are very fortunate to have the NWEA testing data to help guide us toward lesson planning decisions. Here are some questions that will assist when planning instruction:

1. What is the reading requirement for this lesson? How much reading will you have the students do? If this lesson is reading intensive and your students scored low on using the reading process, you will need to provide them with some level of assistance.
2. Is this lesson vocabulary intensive? If students have a low level of vocabulary knowledge, you may need to do more with the vocabulary ahead of time so that time spent on the lesson is effective.
3. What are you asking the students to produce? If you are asking your students to take notes or summarize, be aware that students on the lower spectrum of the RIT score have difficulty with these tasks. Be prepared to provide them with assistance so that they will be able to be successful.
4. How will you assess student learning? First, you have to create an assessment. This can be something as simple as an exit slip or can be as complicated as a written report. Regardless of the format, the assessment should tell you whether or not the students understood what you were trying to convey. Once you know how to tell if your students "got it" determine what to do if they didn't. Sometimes, you may have a student who flies through the work because the work the rest of the class is doing is too easy. What can you plan ahead of time to keep him or her busy? After every lesson, the process starts all over again.

Here are some links to visit to read more about assessments:

http://www.foridahoteachers.org/instructional_strategies.htm

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/askquest.htm

http://science.uniserve.edu.au/school/support/strategy.html

http://www.idecorp.com/assessrubric.pdf