To paraphrase Chris Lehman in his five minute Ignite Philly speech on the Schools We Need:
Good data costs more than we want to spend in this country and the best data is the data that teachers collect every day. The best data is the work kids do every single day.
I agree with this statement. Teachers are constantly collecting qualitative data about their students that is just as valid as any quantitative data collected from tests and quizzes. However, as valid data we need to treat it as such. While every teacher has a vague idea of the academic progress of his/her students, it is the skillful teacher who that data to strategically plan instruction and monitor progress.
I think the best way to use this collected data is to record it. Speaking for myself, in the course of a particular lesson I notice that Sally has trouble with the spelling of long u and Tommy doesn’t know how to rhyme and it’s crystal clear to me in that moment in time. However, by the time I’ve gotten home at night, unless I’ve written this down and made a plan, I’m just kind of praying that Tommy and Sally might practice these skills and come back to me tomorrow “fixed.”
I don’t have any elaborate recording system for these things. However, what I’ve been starting use is a low cost program called MacJournal from Mariner Software. This is a mac only program. I’m sure there is a PC equivelant, please leave a comment if you know of one. This is basically a journaling program (as the name implies). It allows you to create mutliple journals and multiple entries.
What’s different from a program like Word is that each entry is automatically dated and collected with all the others. There’ s a search box so you can search for names of students or particular skills (e.g. search for any reference to Tommy or any reference to rhyming words).
What’s different about this from an online gradebook is that a gradebook is for recording numbers. Numbers have their place but they belong to the less useful category of data. A journal allows us to keep track of what’s between the lines.
I use it very simply, just to make a few notes that are stored and recorded for me to find later to make independent work time groups or plan mini-lessons. I don’t necessarily write in complete sentences and I don’t write about every student every day. I just jot notes down when they occur to me on a post-it and then transfer it to the journal. This is a new thing for me so I’ll let you know how it goes. I am open to suggestions and would love to hear how you keep track of data.
How do you keep track of student data?
I have a binder for each class I teach and I number the students to keep track of text books and for groupings. I buy dividers that are numbered from 1-30 and that is their “file”. I put a whole swack of blank paper in each file.
With different coloured post it notes, I record observations as I see them on the corresponding post- it with the kids number or name and date. For example: blue for discussion participation, pink for oral reading, green for group cooperation, yellow for guided reading,…I put all the post -its on the inside cover of the binder until I have time to sort them.
When I have time, (usually on the weekend), I take all of the post-its and transfer them onto the blank papers in each student’s divider/file. When I want to see how a kids is doing, I just open their file and read my observations.
It also works well if you have people in your classes often like I do (student teachers, administrators, mentees,…). They just grab a set of sticky notes and record observations too and then you get even more data! (The post-its are in a basket with a “key” attached saying what each colour represents).
It works great and I always know who I need to observe and how they are doing just by having a quick look.
Hope this is helpful!
ps I teach middle school humanities.
PC Equivalent of MacJournal would be something like Microsoft OneNote. I quite enjoy using OneNote for taking notes in lectures. You have a main tab for each subject and then create a page for every lecture. Easily modified for taking notes on your students. 🙂
Congrats on taking the time to note and follow-up with students. Many teachers see these things in children and assume they’ll go home and practice because the students can obviously see that their peers are moving forward more quickly. The next day, when there has been no change, many teachers blame the kid or the family without taking time to see that the world has changed. Education is not valued within society as much as it once was, family structures haev changed, etc.
For some of my classes, I teach with a SPED teacher, class within a class style. We also have two additional paras due to ESL and IEPs, not necessarily related. Given that many adults, I have started working with kids one-on-one through any given task. We recently got a flip camera, I record our conversation and solving of a problem. If the students gets it, I delete the footage. If the students struggles my plan is to share the video with all educators it would pertain to; myself, SPED teacher, HR teacher, any specialists, and parents.
I understand this doesn’t work for everyone, in fact it doesn’t work in most of my classes. However, nothing can be more exact than the video itself. And, if collected over time, can truly show growth.
All for the collection of qualitative data. But that data is not normed, comparative or standardized. Meaning, among other things, the data is subjective in what analysis it is subjected to. Meaning that its diagnostic and prognostic value is limited. Not useless, just limited.
@hoody
The fact that qualitative data isn’t normed does not diminish its value in the least. It is comparative in that you have more than one student in your classroom and it is not standardized as the students and their talents are not standard.
I would argue that standardized test data is limited in that there is so little that the correct bubbling on a standardized test tells you about a child’s thinking process or their individual needs.
Their is a place for both kinds of assessment in teaching. If teachers rely solely on either metric we are in trouble. But I would not diminish a teacher’s ability to diagnose student talents and difficulties without the aid of standardized testing. What I would encourage is that teachers use whatever data they collect in drive instruction and plan strategically.