Data Collection Pt. 5 - Charting YOUR Progress

Collecting data on students is a very important aspect of establishing a system to improve student learning, but just as important is creating a system to assess yourself as a teacher! This concept was somewhat mind blowing to me because I just assumed based upon how I felt my class was going, I could determine their success.  I have come in contact with a better idea!

Charting Your Progress:
Chris Biffle states in his book Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids,

"You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior."

The two features to evaluate yourself on are:
1. Controlling emotions and tone of voice.
2. Consistently following through with the classroom management plan.

On top of personal reflection, you are going to chart student behavior progress!

This information will provide you with undeniable evidence about growth in your classroom!  First, what you need to do is give yourself a score each week between 1-10 on your ability to control your emotions, then give yourself a score between 1-10 on how consistently you followed through with your expectations and procedures. Add these two scores together, be honest, this is your baseline score.  Write this down somewhere and each week you can write your new score.  Don't expect yourself to immediately score perfect.  The school year is not a sprint, but a marathon.  Reflect upon what areas you need to work on and then hit the ground running on Monday being the awesome teacher that you are!

Now for the second portion of charting progress: student behavior.  I love this idea and am eager to implement it into my room.  I have uploaded the form I am going to use for this on TeachersPayTeachers.  You can get it for FREE on my page: Click Here!

Evaluate your students on a scale of 1-5.  Be brutally honest, no one is going to see this, but you!

5 points = Leader: This score is very difficult and likely you will have NO leaders at the beginning of the year.  They can 100% self-manage themselves.

4 points = Alpha: These students follow directions and stay on task.  They do everything you would want them to do.

3 points = Go-Alongs: These students go-along with what is asked, but sometime make mistakes. They may occasionally be off task or not turn in their work.

2 points = Fence Sitter: These students could go either way and may begin talking if others are talking or get off task.

1 point = Challenging Students: These students cause disruptions in class, do not do their work, get off task, and about any other number of things that make you want to pull your hair out!

Total your entire class and find the average.  This is your baseline for student behavior.  Each week evaluate your students.  I know this may take some time, but it will be worth it to see the progress!  I think a great goal would be to move every student up one level by the end of the year.  If that is the case, you'd hope to see a .1 change each month.  Remember: a marathon NOT a sprint.  Obviously, if students jumped a full level, then you as a teacher have succeeded in helping mold those students' behavior.  You can then give yourself a pat on the back! :)

Good luck!  Remember to document, document, document. For the rest of the school year, I won't be posting as much.  I will try to post at least once a week, so be on the lookout!

Data Collection Pt. 4 - Spreadsheets

Alright, we are now to the portion of my data collection series that I have been dreading, not because I don't think it is important information for you to use, but because it's very hard to explain without showing you.  Please know that you can contact me through email, Facebook, or a comment on here for clarification or if you would like me to send you my spreadsheet format to reference.

Okay, so let's get started!  Spreadsheets are the easiest method to keep all of your data in one place.  When you need to access information to show student growth to your administrator, you can pull up one document with several pages within that document. 

Here are some examples of student data I collected last year:

To clarify, the cells that are highlighted in blue mean that the students took the opportunity to request to retest (a form from Data Collection Pt. 3 - Student Analysis) in order to improve their original score.

For those who are not strong in working spreadsheet this may seem overwhelming, but I assure you with a little playing around you can do this too!  Here are some tips to help you organize your data in spreadsheet:

1. Keep the format similar for each page. Once you have typed in all of your student information in one page, you can copy and paste to new pages.
2. You can add new pages at the bottom.  They look like little tabs.3. In order to provide meaning to the data, you will likely need to use a formula.  To get formula options you can type the "=". 
4.  Once you have your "=" you can highlight the cells you want and use the +/- signs. You can also look in the upper right corner and you have further options such as sum, average, etc.
5.  In the center of the spreadsheet formatting tools there is a symbol that is "fx" If you click this symbol you can also create your formulas and it gives you more options. 

I hope those are some small tips that can help you get started on keeping your data organized in one place.  Remember, feel free to play around with spreadsheet.  If you are completely lost, you can contact me and I will try to work you through it.  Good luck, and make today amazing! :)

Data Collection Pt. 3 - Student Analysis

While it is important for us, as teachers, to analyze the data collected during an assignment, it is just as important that students are learning to analyze their results.  In order to do this, I created standard graphing sheets.  These sheets are separated into the units that I teach.  The standards for each unit are listed and a labeled graph is below.

When I hand back tests, I have my students look at their percentage of proficiency for each standard.  They then fill in the chart with a different color for each standard. By doing this, students are taking time to see their where they did well and where they did poorly.  They can visually see what their scores really mean.

Once the students fill out the graphs, I have my students write a five sentence reflection over what they learned about their knowledge about that unit.  I give them writing prompts such as:


1. My score was _________. I believe I scored that score because _____________.
2. One of my strengths was ______________ because _____________________.
3. One of my weaknesses was _____________ because __________________.
4. One thing I could do to improve would be _______________________________.

Once the students have completed their reflections of their work, I allow them to complete a Request to Retest form. This year I have changed the form in a way, that I feel will help students process and come to a conclusion about what they need to do to improve in science.  You can download this document for FREE at TPT. Click here to download!

I hope this helps!  Let me know if you implement any of the student analysis and how it works for you.  Make it an awesome day!

 

 

Data Collection Pt. 2 - Test Formatting

A major trend in education is standard-based grading, and why not?  Why not grade students on how well they have mastered a standard?  Wouldn't that give grades meaning?  In order to create a test format that would allow me to easily see the proficiency of my students in each standard, I created a template that I use for each test.

The template is very straightforward.  Each standard is in a separate box.  That box is separated into sections.  The first section states the standard. I believe it is important to allow students to see the standard and what they are expected to know.  The second section has the standard summarized to help students understand what they need to be able to do. This also helps me really think about what needs to be addressed in that standard. The last box is where I place the questions that I want my students to answer. 

It is important when you create questions for your test that you do not only have one question for the standard because if a student misses it, then they will receive 0% proficiency which is probably not accurate.  I try to make each standard worth at least 8 points.  Then if they miss one point, I can see that they still understand a majority of what the standard addresses.

When I am grading the tests, each standard receives a score.  I write the percentage off to the left.  I then average the points to give students an overall grade for the unit.  Tomorrow I will discuss how I help students dig deeper into their own understanding and help them to analyze their data. 

Have a great day!

Data Collection Pt. 1 - Grading

Today marks Day 1 of a follower requested series on data collection.  More and more data collection is becoming an integral part of the teacher workload.  Due to the teacher evaluation process, national policy, and parent expectations, it is important that teachers have techniques put in place in order to successfully manage all of the information they are taking each day. Throughout the week, I will cover five different topics that I think will be helpful for managing the data in your classroom.

Monday -1/2 Sheet Grading
Tuesday - Standard Based Test Format
Wednesday- Student Graphing and Reflection
Thursday - Excel Spreadsheets
Friday - Self Reflection and Class Behavior Growth

So, today's focus is going to be on this wonderful idea that I stumbled upon and then modified it to work in my classroom.  I have attached an example to the blog.  You can find the sample template for FREE at TPT.  Click here to download the document!

 

You will use this half sheet each time you have students turn in papers.  When a student turns in a paper, you simply mark an "x" in the turned in column.  This allows you to quickly see who has not turned in the assignment.  I, then, highlight those boxes so that they stand out.   You can also put a note on the right side of why it is missing.  For example, the student may have been absent or forgot it at home.  I use "A" for absent, "NF" for not finished, "H" for if they forgot it at home, and "CP" for call parent. 

When you have time to grade, which we all know is never, but when you do, you put the grades in the middle column.  I then clip this half sheet onto the stack of graded papers until I have time to put it in the electronic gradebook.  All half sheets are then filed in a binder just in case I need them for something else.

One thing I like about the 1/2 sheets relates to interventions and tracking behavior.  Because you can prepare these 1/2 sheets in advance you can have one for each day if you'd like. (QUICK TIP: purchase the small clipboards so that you can walk around a mark on the sheet throughout the day.)  In the notes section you can tally how many times you corrected a challenging student or mark how you used an intervention for a student you are documenting for RTI.  The half sheet can be your go to sheet for monitoring all those little requirements that are tough to remember to do and organize.

I hope this takes a little stress out of monitoring student data.  Tomorrow: Standards Based Test Format.  Have an awesome day!