Field Week 12: Data Driven Decision Making

 Week 12: Data Driven Decision Making

Another week has come and gone… and now, only one more week until Thanksgiving Break. Where has this semester gone!!? :( 

This week my class focused on primarily triangle congruencies and proving triangles congruent. I’ve forgotten how much fun it is to prove triangles are congruent… so needless to say I have enjoyed this unit. Monday Goney had the students do a scavenger hunt type activity to emphasize properties of triangles before moving into congruencies. There were 30 problems hung up around the room, asking the students to find the missing angle or length. This got the kids up and moving on a Monday morning, which is always a win. Goney mentioned she liked this activity because it gets students moving, allows them to work with their peers, and those who normally don’t participate in class have a chance to do so. She pointed out a few students who generally don’t ask questions or talk during class that were interacting with their peers as a result of this activity! 

The rest of the week was covering SSS, SAS and ASA. One day my mentor teacher had the students work on some problems on IXL. She showed me her end of IXL and what it looks like, the various statistics/data it provides, and so on. Goney said she likes to use IXL in class sometimes since it allows her to see how the students are doing in real time. IXL will flag students who may need help, show each students ‘smart score,’ what problem they’re working on in real time, and can even show what kinds of problems they’ve struggled with or gotten correct. This aids in data driven decision making since it allows the teacher to see how the students are doing overall on the subject material. Goney stated that if their scores are mainly in the 80s and 90s, it tells her that they’re doing well with the material and she can move on. If the scores are all in the 60’s or so, it tells her that she needs to spend more time on the content before advancing the material. 

Also in terms of data driven decision making, Goney has students turn in their activity worksheets in order to see how the students are doing with the material. If most students seem to do well, she knows that it's not an area of concern and more than likely doesn’t need to spend additional time on it. But, if students all seemed to do poorly on an activity, that tells her that she needs to readdress the content with the class. Since Goney doesn’t have students turn in homework until the day of the test, this (along with IXL)  gives her a more formal way of collecting data.

But, Goney does go over homework in class. This helps to gauge problems among classes and the subject in general. If every class asked about the same problem, this tells her that she needs to work more in that area with them. This is a less formal way of collecting data, and can have its downfalls. As mentioned earlier, some students don’t participate in class, so this has the potential of not being an accurate gauge of readiness for the whole class. But, when students do participate, it does provide some useful data for the teacher. 

Across the years, Goney tends to look at grades if she adjusts something big in her instruction. For example, a few years ago she had moved to allowing students to use their notes on tests and quizzes if they turned in their homework. As a result, the class averages went up. She also started allowing test corrections if students turned in their notes and homework with the test (as an incentive to do their homework, and to help with test anxiety), and again, the grades went up. 

Overall, data is a very important and useful tool in the classroom, and can take place in a variety of ways. It’s not just grades or scores, but can even just be a discussion with the students or asking how they’re doing (which is a common practice in Goneys room). 

Next week, we continue on triangle congruencies, and I continue to plan my unit. This upcoming week, though, I’ll get the chance to add a question to their quiz and give feedback on it for my math methods course. So, that is exciting. My unit plan is coming along slowly, I have essentially ⅔ lessons done, it's just a matter of putting them in the desired template for my methods class. I won’t be teaching until after break though, so it'll be a few weeks until I can write about how it went. 

Until next time!

IYKYK