Assesing the Situation

                  Data can be a very useful tool for teachers to asses if there students are learning the material being covered. However, data does't always have to be test with number results. Data can be any type of feed back the teacher receives by assessing the students. One great way for teachers to asses their students in class is to ask questions and gauge the responses of the students. This type of feed back is immediate and allows the teacher to see what students are getting it and what students are not. This way the teacher can either continue to cover the topic and or move on. Another great type of assessment are handout during class. Data can be produced from these handouts in a number of ways. Firstly, the teacher can again have the students give the answers a loud in class and see who is answering the question correctly. Another way the teacher can collect data can be to collect the handout, not for a grade, but just to see which students answered correctly. This would be a great tool because the teacher can quickly go through the handouts and then focus the the next days lesson on some of the things the students were having troubles with on the handout. 

                    While in the field, I feel like some teacher are great at naturally including these styles of data collection into their lesson and utilizing them effectively. However, I have also seen many teachers use these styles of assessment, but never return to the topic when they know that many of the students are struggling. I think that teachers need to understand not only the importance of data collection, but also the proper use of the information it provides.