Pre- Assessment

Yesterday, I was student observing and was talking to some teachers about the pre assessment test student's  took. When I asked how the students performed on the assessment, the teacher smiled and said they did terrible which is exactly what we wanted. It's funny to me for teachers to express that they want their students to perform negatively on assessment. I understand the reason and logic behind wanting their students to perform poorly, but how does that affect the students self-esteem. I think administering old regents tests as pre assessment tests means nothing because both the student and the teacher realize that they're going to do bad on it due to the fact they have never taken the subject before. Using NWEA tests as a means of pre assessment is a better alternative to using old Regents. However, I also understand that not district and its staff understand the benefits of this and data a produces. I'm really not sure how to solve the problem but it was just a thought.

Teachers and Data

               As I was talking about before, the data that is formulated from these NWEA test is very extensive. Therefore, I think that it is important for teachers to have time set aside for them to analyze there own data. For example, after students take the NWEA test, teachers should have one school day where they can look over the reports produced from the test and determine where each of their students are struggling. Then the teacher will be better prepared to design their lessons in order to target the needs of each student.
              Teachers should interpret their own data because they are the people who directly work with the students, they are the people who need to use the information in their lessons, and they are the people who can see if the changes are working.

Data and The Race to the Top

According to Wikipedia:
Race to the Top, abbreviated R2T, RTTT or RTT, is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education contest created to spur innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education. It is funded by the ED Recovery Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and was announced by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on July 24, 2009. States were awarded points for satisfying certain educational policies, such as performance-based standards (often referred to as an Annual professional performance review) for teachers and principals, complying with nationwide standards, promoting charter schools and privatization of education, and computerization.

State applications for funding were scored on selection criteria worth a total of 500 points. In order of weight, the criteria were^[1]:

• Great Teachers and Leaders (138 total points)
  • Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance (58 points)
  • Ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals (25 points)
  • Providing high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals (21 points)
  • Providing effective support to teachers and principals (20 points)
  • Improving the effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation programs (14 points)
• State Success Factors (125 total points)
  • Articulating State's education reform agenda and LEAs' participation in it (65 points)
  • Building strong statewide capacity to implement, scale up, and sustain proposed plans (30 points)
  • Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps (30 points)
• Standards and Assessments (70 total points)
  • Developing and adopting common standards (from the Common Core State Standards Initiative) (40 points)
  • Supporting the transition to enhanced standards and high-quality assessments (20 points)
  • Developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments (10 points)
• General Selection Criteria (55 total points)
  • Ensuring successful conditions for high-performing charters and other innovative schools (40 points)
  • Making education funding a priority (10 points)
  • Demonstrating other significant reform conditions (5 points)
• Turning Around the Lowest-Achieving Schools (50 total points)
  • Turning around the lowest-achieving schools (40 points)
  • Intervening in the lowest-achieving schools and LEAs (10 points)
• Data Systems to Support Instruction (47 total points)
  • Fully implementing a statewide longitudinal data system (24 points)
  • Using data to improve instruction (18 points)
  • Accessing and using State data (5 points)

In addition to the 485 possible points from the criteria above, the prioritization of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education is worth another fifteen points for a possible total of 500.^[1]

After viewing this i thought it was interesting that a states effort to include Data systems to support Instruction was only worth 47 points from the totally 500. Also, I was wondering how a state would prove that they were implementing some of these points. For example, how would a state prove that they are Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps? The best is improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance (58 points). How then do you show that teachers are improving. Should this improvement be based on the data? Not all schools are using NWEA so what data are they using. Is this data even useful?

Hanging out with Data

          Have you ever heard about Northwest Evaluation Association commonly known as NWEA? This is a company that tests students knowledge on a desired subject matter and complies the results instantly. Students use the computer to test how well they answer the questions the computer program proposes to them. If the student answers the question correctly they receive a harder question, but if they answer incorrectly, the receive a less difficult question. Over the course of the test, the student will level off and this is how their score is determined.  After the students are finished with the test their results are immediately analyzed and the amount of data that is obtained is astounding and can seem quite overwhelming.

           Tonight I had a Google hangout with my professor and went over some of the many different reports NWEA computes. In his school district they use the data, that was obtained a few weeks ago, to help teachers address the needs of their students. The administrator and each teacher has a meeting to discuss what should be done with the data for their classes.

          When I first wrote about "data" I was not sure how students test scores could be used to measure students performance accurately or help make decisions about instructions but now I am not so sure. After looking at some sample reports, the students are broken down into different score ranges. A teacher can actually see where all students fall on average in comparison to the class. If they wanted they could further look at each individual student and see where they excelled and where they struggled by topic within a subject. Since the teacher has this type of assesses to what the student knows and doesn't know they could better differentiate their lessons. Also, if teachers had this type of knowledge they would be able to pin point what areas to cover more thoroughly with each student.

          I wonder though, when will a teacher have the time to sit down and think about all of this data for each student? Yes, I said earlier  they meet with the administrator, but that just an overall meeting. If a teacher wants to really dive into this data they would have to do it on their own time.  Is this fair to the teacher? Or how then should all of this data be used? 

Discussion Topic:

Let's begin to discuss the practical application of you determining how you will use data when teaching the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State Standards  (CCSS) in the near future. What type of data do you think will be practical to consider, what would you have early access to, will it allow you to plan to differentiate early?

 

Response:

         
          In the near future, I will be in front of a classroom teaching students about science and these students will be assessed in various forms on their performance. The results from these assessments (state testing, in class tests, regents, etc)  is the "data" that will be considered by most.  The questions for me is what is the best type of assessment for all students?

          Personally, I do not think assessments are a one size fits all or even most. In education we are taught that there are different types of learners in the world. Also, within these groups there are learners who have special needs or other conditions that make them either learn slower or faster. Furthermore, not everyone has the same type of family life, social standing, income, gender,  and the list is ongoing such that there are so many factors to considers. How is it then that we can group everyone together, give them a test, and expect everyone to do well?

          You question what type of data will be practical to consider? When I sit here and think about it, I am unsure. However, I do think that analyzing the test results ( test that teachers make for their students in class) of the students does play a significant role in understand if they grasped the material being covered, but only to a certain level. As a teacher, I will consider the test results of my students. If the scores are bad, I will try to figure out a way to better the results for next time. On the other hand, if most students do well does that mean that they understand the material or is it that I, as a teacher, did not challenge them enough?

          How can we trust the data we are considering? Who really knows what a "good" test is to reveal the truth about all students performance? I do not think that standardized test are an appropriate way to measure students. One reason is the amount of stress that is put on students to perform well. When considering people as a population, some can handle stress well and some cannot. The way a person handles stress will eventually play some type of role in their performance on this type of test. Another reason standardized tests are poor is that the data that results takes a long time to compile. Whereas, tests that students get from their teachers in class are immediate and also the stress level for these test is lower. In this situation, the results can be used, in some sense, to determine what lessons worked better for a majority of students by looking at what topics most students performed well on. Also, from this point you might be able to see how you could differentiate and or change lessons to reach even more of the student population.

          If the future of instruction is going to be based on that data we compile from tests our students take, then the tests and assessments we give students need to be ones that can be differentiated among the different learners in the classroom. 

Blog Information

Data Driven Instruction

This blog is for a course at Adelphi University with Aj Hepworth.The book this course will be reading is Driven by Data : A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo.