I have been working with a lot of school teams this winter. Most of their teams were able (finally) to get SMART Goals set after all our storm disruptions in the Northeast, and have been busy with mid-year benchmark assessment. This is a good time, after the January round of testing, to re-evaluate our way of looking at student data. This article will show you an easy-to-use, powerful tool to help you dig deeper beyond the numbers, to really determine the root cause of student learning difficulties. In this way, you are better able to develop an instructional plan that addresses specific student needs, giving you better results. It is all about strategy!  Tip of the Week:The Five "Whys" The Toyota Motor Corporation made popular a reflective tool that many companies now use to problem-solve around challenges in their industry. This tool uses a series of probing questions to dig down below surface issues, to determine the root cause of a dilemma in the business or department. It is a highly effective tool for teachers, as well. ----------------------------------------------------- Consider this open-ended assessment item, from a grade 4 formative assessment for English language arts, which was scored with a 0-2 rubric: What does it mean to be "determined?" Identify someone in your life who has been determined. Use evidence from the text to show how that person was like the main character in this story. The team begins with their dilemma. Out of 36 students taking the assessment, only 50% scored a 2 on the open-ended questions. Another 25% scored a 1 for a partial response, and 25% scored a 0, for no response, at all. So, here's their dilemma, in a simple statement: The students didn't do well on the open-ended question on the assessment. #1. Write the dilemma on chart paper, on the SMART Board, or a piece of paper. Then write and ask the question, "Why?" (that's one...) One-quarter of the students only partially answered the question. #2: Why? They made a connection to the story instead of addressing the central theme, "determination". #3: Why? They didn't answer the first part of the question, "What is 'determination?' Identify someone in your life who has been determined." They just answered the last part. #4. Why? They didn't know what the word, "determined," meant. [As evidenced by... ?] They asked what the word meant during the assessment. #5. Why? It wasn't explicitly taught as a vocabulary word, but was only reviewed in class. __________________________________________________________ Here's the power of this process: The team quickly selected three strategies:
How does this fit the data team process?  The next step the grade four team could take would be to revisit their scored assessments, and determine which student responses reflected that they understood the word "determination," and which did not (this will not be exact, but you can make some pretty good guesses -- these might be the students who appeared to answer a different question than the one you asked). All you need is a quick sort of the assessments. These numbers would then be used for your data collection.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In other news...  Here are some other articles and resources that you might find handy this week: Winter Bird Feeding- Our most recent nature study blog entry on feeding our feathered friends in the winter. A little on cooking with kids, a little on identifying evergreen trees, a little on using your class or home bird feeder as a "spine" for integrated learning. Building a Snowman, Part 1: Snowman Observations - Want to make good use of winter weather in your K-2 classroom? In this first part of a three-part series, you will learn how to create an integrated unit of study for a kindergarten classroom, using snowman building as a central activity. Major topics in the unit include matter and its attributes, order and magnitude, the concepts "bigger/smaller" and "more/less" and outdoor play rules and routines. Callum's Addition Pyramid - This fun math game helps your students practice their addition facts, and reinforces mental math strategies. Students can choose from three levels of play, and the program is adaptive, so the problems increase or decrease in difficulty with the students' responses. An excellent computer center game, or a nice suggestion for facts practice at home. There is still time to join Project Feederwatch if you want a great nature activity that reinforces animal studies while providing real-life opportunities for collecting, charting and using data and data tables.Classrooms or individuals may participate. I have done this at home for nearly 20 years, and it is a terrific learning opportunity. Even if you don't decide to sign up, the project has an excellent data collection form which is helpful for connecting the weather conditions or food sources to bird activity at your feeder -- a good opportunity to do some experimentation or to talk about cause and effect. The Great Backyard Bird Count is happening soon! If you have not ever participated, and are not sure you can participate in the longer FeederWatch project, this is a fun opportunity to practice your birding skills and participate in a research project, as well. Free -- free -- free! |
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