I've had a very interesting year as a first year teacher. I'm pretty sure if anyone were watching my class everyday they would describe me as a mad scientist. I'm also pretty sure that any other first year teacher who would see the drastic changes I've made to how I deliver information from just the start of the semester to now would think I'm utterly insane. Maybe I am but luckily my insane tactics have seen positive results. I've used data to drastically change how I deliver content to my students, particularly with my AP Calculus Class. Towards the beginning of the semester I probably had 2 B's 1 A and the rest of the grades in my class were D's. This probably went on for about half the semester before I did a complete 180 on how I went about teaching the class. Before I would have some direct instruction followed by a worksheet to have students practice mastering the material along with homework out of the book. All of my students homework grades and worksheets were great but when it came time to took the test it would look as if my students barley learned anything. This was strange because I would review my tests vs the worksheets that I was giving out and it would be the same content, I would just ask different questions or problems than the worksheets. Some questions were directly from the worksheets and I would just change the numbers and the variables that needed to be solved for and yet my students still couldn't seem to figure out what my assessments were asking them. I realized what was happening though. While my students worked on the worksheets and the homework they were mainly just doing it for a grade without retaining the information. I finally realized this when I started to really pay attention to the questions that students were asking me and how often they asked me questions on the worksheets. They would ask me a question on problem one and then ask me another question on problem 3. They also wouldn't stop asking questions until I gave them the secret step or asked them the question that led them to the answer. They were doing this because they just wanted to complete the worksheet to get the grade so that they were at least doing okay in the class. After about halfway through the semester I had a serious talk with my students as a class and basically told them what we are doing obviously is not working. So I let them vote on a new way we were going to run the class. Now I have direct instruction but instead of grading the worksheets and homework we voted to make it completely voluntary. What has replaced the homework grade is a pop quiz on each section after spending a few days of practice on it. Maybe it is not as drastic of a change as it sounds but when we first went down this road after they voted on it there was some seriously negative feedback from the students. They didn't realize what they voted for until it was in action because now they were not getting a grade for simply completing a worksheet, they had to show it on a pop quiz. Something happened though when I made this shift. My students actually spent more time working together or on their own on the homework and the worksheets without asking as many questions. They also took it on themselves to find really difficult problems out of the book to solve on their own without any grade simply just to practice the ideas. Since I've made this switch, I've seen drastic improvements in everyones grade and the students actually like the new method. At this point the grade distribution in my AP calc class looks more like a normal bell curve centered around the high C area rather than a lopsided chi distribution centered on the D area. This is why analyzing data for educators is a very complex and multidimensional problem. It is pretty easy to just look at what answers most students are missing and then to reteach those concepts but it is entirely something else to look for patterns across multiple data to try to find what the cause of the problem is. I think the hardest part for a teacher to realize is when the data is telling them that there is something wrong with how you are delivering information to students. Obviously if everyone does poorly on an assessment then your method of instruction was not received well, but understanding the "why" part is a very complex problem. It requires educators to really pay attention to what their students are doing and it requires educators to really know and understand how their students are absorbing the material.
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December 2019
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