Project Description Final

Educational Need: I want to find a way to improve my instruction so that it is more data-driven. Many times I find myself guilty of not taking enough formative assessment as I am teaching a topic. I use informal “dipsticks” along the way to try and gauge how well my students are grasping a topic. However, I often neglect collecting concrete data until the end. By this time, it can be difficult to go back and re-teach in the areas that need addressing. I believe that if I had a more efficient means of collecting data throughout the instructional period, I could better cater my teaching to the immediate needs of my students. I could catch problems as they emerging, instead of trying to grapple with them after they’re established.

Addressing the Issue: In order to make my teaching more data-driven, I would like to incorporate a “quiz” station into my weekly ELA centers. I would like to find a website (preferable free of charge!) that would allow me to create quizzes, administer them to my students, and learn from the results. My building currently uses a test-prep program called Study Island. I like the concept, but I wish I could somehow manipulate the questions for my own use. In the quiz station I wish to create, I would use websites to create questions that were totally my own. I could gather data that pertained to what we were doing in class that week. Being able to sit down with this information at the end of the week would certainly help me know where instruction was needed next. I could begin to address areas of misconception right away.

Originally I had hoped to collect data daily. It was suggested to me that daily might be too much. I agree. Instead, I think I’d like to collect data only once a week. I could run longer centers that take 3 days for all students to pass through. This way one quiz could be created weekly and therefore only one set of data. I do not want centers to run 4 or 5 days. I believe this would skew my data and make it somewhat unusable. The students who took the quiz on a Monday would not do as well as those who took it on Friday. Ideally I’d like centers to run 3 days, Wednesday through Friday. This is a more compact time frame so the data should be more accurate. On short weeks where we miss a day or have extra activities (assemblies, etc) the data collection window could even be reduced to 2 days.

Having data collection wrap up on a Friday morning would give me the afternoon to look at it (in the past I’ve had a special on Friday afternoon which gives me a nice 25 minute block at least.) All things considered, this sounds a lot more reasonable than my original plan to collect data daily! As Sheila commented, it might be difficult to find the time to analyze it.

Relevant Research & Resources: The idea of data-driven instruction is supported by the Response to Intervention (RTI) model. Research has shown that when teachers make decisions in their classrooms based on data, they are more in tune with the progress of their students and therefore students perform better! (Source: Stecker, P. (2006). Data-based instructional decision making. Center on Instruction, 7.)

Data-driven instruction allows teachers to answer several questions about their students. It gives them insight regarding what the student knows, what they can do, where they are lacking, how easily they learn, and what teaching style works best for them. (Torgesen, J. (2006). The Assessment/instruction connection: what every principal and coach should know. Florida Center for Reading Research, 4.)

Brabec’s article supports the idea of students using data collection tools. This station could also serve as an opportunity for the students themselves to collect data among their own population. Students could pose questions, data would be collected during centers, and then we as a class could interpret the data afterward. This might be a great way to establish demographics in our rooms. We could answer questions such as; How many members do you have in your family? What month is your birthday? We could also ask students to collect scientific data from home, eg: How many coniferous trees do you have in your yard?


My Plan:
DURING THE COURSE OF THIS CLASS: I plan to research educational websites that offer data collection. I will research what several sites such as Classmarker, Quizlet, ProProfs, Quizbox, etc , compare and contrast the features, and ultimately find one that suits the needs of my classroom.

I will model a center by creating a pilot quiz. Since I do not have students during the summer, I will use my niece and her friend (both 2nd graders) as a test sample. I will have them complete the quiz and determine if the functionality of the quiz (the questions and site itself) were accessible and appropriate for their grade level. I will then review the data they created and see which areas I would address in my classroom, if these girls were indeed my students

BEYOND THIS CLASS AND INTO THE SCHOOLYEAR: In preparation for the fall, I will have a website ready. Once my assignment for the year has been establish, I can load a direct link onto the desktop of the computers in my classroom. I will then be able to generate the first round of quizzes based on my classroom’s long-term ELA goals. I imagine the first few weeks of data collection will focus much on determining what knowledge students are entering the classroom with.

Another one of my ‘next steps’ would be to designate a research specialist in my classroom. Like most elementary teachers, my students have class jobs. These change every few weeks. I’d like to create a new job where one student is in charge of all things data. This person would be trained in the functions of the quiz (logging in, answering questions) in case anyone needed help. They might be able to set up the screens at the beginning of center time. Perhaps, this person could even be in charge of printing the results for me (although this might be too much responsibility, I’ll have to think about that one.)

Another question raised— how will I differentiate instruction once this data is collected? I believe the solution also lies within the centers. During centers, I am hosting my own center with a small group of students who have been placed together according to reading level. If I receive data on a Friday, I can plan what I’d like to do with those students in the following week. If my data reveals a big problem, I will have time to address it in a timely fashion when I meet with that/those student(s) during their one-on-one time.

Four Common Places of Teaching: For the purposes of this project, I will really be serving as the learner. I am hoping to learn more about what my students know and how well they are internalizing material. My students would somewhat be acting as the teachers, sharing information. The subject matter will be ELA; more specifically, parts of speech. The setting will be our classroom during ELA centers. During this time students would be working independently on a computer for the duration of the center. The roles will shift once data is collected at the center. After having time to review what the student has learned and where they still need help, I will shift back into the role of the teacher, supplementing in the specified areas.