I Have the Data...Now What?

We're all familiar with the different forms of assessment:

• diagnostic
• formative
• summative

Many teachers spend a lot of time and effort creating "good" assessments that accurately assess what the students know.  I myself have spent copious amounts of time painstakingly creating exam blueprints to ensure that curricular outcomes are assessed -- and I'm not alone. A large amount of professional development days in schools are devoted to improving assessment techniques.

As such, education is becoming more data focused than ever. Everyone I speak with has their own, usually strong, opinion on whether or not this is a path that they want to head down. However, I would argue that there is one thing that most of us can agree on: the results collected do not always translate into a teaching response in the classroom. There are a variety of reasons for this lack of connection -- over-packed curriculum, lack of time, worn out teachers, a misunderstanding of correlation vs. causation, political initiatives with a separate focus -- the list could go on and on.

The following cartoon illustrates this disconnect beautifully -- we spend so much time and energy focusing on how best to collect data that we often forget the most important component is the follow up.

Courtesy of:

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

www.solidarity.com/hkcartoons

So the question of the decade remains what do you do with the data?  Is it even wise to state that a change in teaching technique might have a direct impact on results or are we simply faced with too many other variable factors (maturity of the students, parental support, funding for education, socioeconomic status, values in the community, etc.)?

What is your school/school division doing with the results teachers collect?   Is the data really analyzed to pinpoint specific areas of strengths and weaknesses or do you even believe in 'measuring' achievement?  This is a hot topic for debate in the education world right now and I'd love to hear your viewpoints!

Vanessa

P.S.  Thanks again to the great people at Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons for giving me permission to use this excellent cartoon on my blog!

Technology and Social Skills

The past few weeks have been crazy! I've done tons of awesome workshops with teachers, both in person as well as via Bridgit & videoconferencing. It's also teacher convention season, which means that every Thursday and Friday I get to hang out with teachers, admin, tech people and our sales guys at our booth.

Alas, this busy season also means that I sometimes don't get the proper time to write a blog post.  Or at least not a blog post that I'm willing to publish on the world wide web!

Since it's mid-week and I know that many teachers are buried in report card season, here's another great tech cartoon that I found.  Obviously, this points out the skepticism that some people have regarding whether or not too much reliance on technology can have a negative impact on social skills:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Steve Greenberg - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon


Have a happy Wednesday!
Vanessa

No One's Safe from Technology -- Not Even Christmas.

There's no disputing that technology has revolutionized nearly every aspect of our lives in the past twenty years, and Christmas is no exception. Being a former Social Studies teacher, I thought I'd use editorial cartoons to comment on this topic for me:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Patrick Corrigan - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Here are some links to funny cartoons that didn't let me embed them directly onto this website!

GPS

Posted using ShareThis


(Scroll down for this one:)
iPhone

Posted using ShareThis

Facebook

Posted using ShareThis

Happy Holidays everyone!
Vanessa