Using Student Data:Response to Rebecca Alber's Edutopia Blog

Originally written 5/3/2014 for my Master's of Education in Teaching and Learning Classes.

As teachers we are called to adapt our teaching to meet the needs of our learners, and we often do this by collecting data so we can analyze it and draw up a map of where to go.  As Rebecca Alber points out in her blog, there is too much emphasis on standardized testing when really that is just giving us one snapshot of how students are doing.  I think we have to look at is like a doctor would look at an illness.  With those students that are sick (struggling), we may need to dig a little deeper, look more into their educational history (cumulative files) and run more tests (both formative and summative assessments).  While checking through files of all of our students may be ideal, is it always practical when you are looking at teachers that have over 100 students.So, it is not always practical. I also have a few reservations about looking into cumulative files because I feel that it can create preconceived ideas about some students when they really need to come into class with a clean slate. For this reason I have not looked at student files much prior to having them, although I do meet with the grade 5 teacher every year to go through student concerns.  Looking back though, it might actually be better to just look through their files and form my own judgement instead of relying on what the 5th grade teacher may have to say.

To get a better idea of where my students need help I have been trying to be much more purposeful with pre-assessments and then using formative assessments more in my classroom.  I know I have used both in the past, but not always with a clear idea of how I was going to use the data that I collected.  I think one thing I want to look into more moving forward is using those formative assessments more often with struggling students so that I can better pinpoint where they need assistance, while using them less often for students that are doing well, and using more as a check-in.

One thing I questioned in Rebecca Alber's blog is her use of summative assessments.  She made it sound like you use data collected to make adjustments in the future, which I took as the next year.  I don't think that is soon enough sometimes.  While we might be able to gather some small snippets to adjust for the next year, or it may target a concept that students really missed, we might have to readdress that material right away.  We don't want students to miss out on the understanding just because they didn't get it by the time we expected their summative assessment to be complete.  Sometimes students work on a different timeline than we do.