When I began the course I did not really work with data in this way. I was always analyzing students grades and making sure they were making progress, but I did not look deeper into what might be causing the issues, if there was one. It really liked working in a team for this class so we were able to see how everyone else analyzed the data and what they used it their classrooms. It was a little difficult because we all lived in different time zone (one of which was a 12 hour difference) but we made that aspect work. It was also difficult because neither of my partners were familiar was Special Ed, which is my focus area. Marcie has never really worked with students with IEPs and Techo actually had to look up what I was talking about because they do not have that in China.

Our exploratory question had to do with homework and Math. Math is not my specialty, I actually am horrible at math. So I relied a lot on my teammates for anything involving that. I also do not really give out homework to my students, overall in with my students I found it more helpful if we completed the homework in class. But after we got into the action plan I realized it was less about math and more about teaching styles.

Our team did meet with our professor in order to make more student center and specific goals. I learned a lot doing this. Making them more student centered still guided the teachers instruction but focused more on student progress. We discussed the importance of being specific, so we are able to measure the growth and to know exactly what type of growth we want to see in the students. I also assumed it was a given that the goals would be given as homework but that was not specific in the goals so when I met with Jennifer in week 5, she did not understand how we were address our exploratory question. I definitely understood what she was saying. We did not really answer our own question. I do feel as though that question would be hard to answer whatever the plan was because there is no way to do so fairly. I do still like the idea of a flipped classroom and that is something I plan to do in my classroom eventually.

I definitely enjoyed this class and learned a lot from it. Here is my Final Data Presentation.

For Data meeting #5 I met with Jennifer from team 1. We met on Tuesday to discuss our teams data projects and meetings we have been holding throughout the semester. It was good to hear about what her team has been doing throughout the semester and how they interpreted the class instructions. They did their Action plan a lot different then we had. Her team seemed to work more independently only working on certain things while our group work collaboratively on everything. She focused on one part of the lesson, students understanding a poem, but that was it. It was a good activity that I can see my students doing, however, there was not really any technology involved in the lesson. I think if you add the tech piece and some timing changes it could really work. I did not see how it related to the teams exploratory questions though. I do discuss this in my presentation.

Data meeting #5 Presentation

Our 4th data meeting took place on July, 20th. Since this was our forth data meeting it seemed to go smoothly. We worked together to fill out out teams Action Plan Tracking Sheet. We used our smart goal developed during data meeting 3 to create plans to implementing the goals. A lot of our goals were teacher related and lesson plan centered in ordered to assign homework and track the progress. We were able to divide the work evenly between us and each do our part of the APTS and Marcie completed the presentation.

After turning in the presentation we met with the professor to review what we had completed and make some corrections. The team created new goals and action plans so it would be more student centered. When working with the professor I was able to more clearly understand the expectations and create a more obtainable and measurable action plan.

Team 3 Data Meeting #4

Data meeting #3 actually took place over 2 nights, 6/7 and 6/7. We were focusing on one exploratory question, should we continue to assign homework to our students and, if not, what other instructional strategies can we use to get students to meet and exceed curriculum benchmarks? We used the information Techo shared with the team using Google docs and looked deeper into the data. Before the meeting we all input learning gaps and instructional gaps on a shared document and began thinking about goals. I was interested to see what each team member saw as gaps.

After reviewing this with the team we put the information into the tables. As a team we put each learning and instructional gap in order of importance. We then decided to meet again to do the SMART goals, instructional implementation, and research independently. When we met on Monday we reviewed that information that we each put into the tables.

Again it was really interesting to see how each team member looked at the learning gaps and instructional gaps. Some of us found things more important while someone else might think it is less. We also all had different ways we wanted to implement the instruction. While Marcie and Techo thought parent involvement was important in completion of homework, I did not. I work in a school with very little parent involvement and parents might not have the ability to help the students with homework if they want to. That is why I started to talk about the flipped classroom approach more. I think for my school environment it might be more successful.

As we continue with the process it will be interesting to see where the team heads and how each of us plan to minimize the learning and instructional gaps.

Here is the Data Meeting #3 Presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=117&v=rcHgwv8WBr0

Our second data meeting happened on Saturday, 6/23. In this data meeting we all reviewed the artifacts each team member shared. We used Google Drive to share all the artifacts and to review our teammates things. We looked at the artifact tracking sheets and discussed the learning gaps and instructional gap ratings.

We all teach different subjects and obviously have different ways of teaching, so it was interesting to see what other teachers are doing. Our lesson plans were all a little different and all focused on something completely different. I focused a lot on differentiation, again the sped background, Marcie’s had a lot of activities with picture references since it is ESOL, and Techo’s was very specific on the teaching but did not have rubrics or differentiation.

After looking at these things we filled out the artifact tracking sheet. We discussed by having a more detailed lesson plan in each subject area would help and might lower the learning gap since that is where teaching really begins. We also looked at everyones individual data and discussed how we each collect it.

Moving forward, we are going to use Techo’s exploratory questions about homework effecting students progress. We will be focussing on 12th grade calculus. He is going to send us some more data and worksheets/homework he assigns so we can start looking at that and see what we can do to minimize the instructional and learning gaps.

Here is the Data Meeting #2 Presentation

https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cq1tVDT9Ua

Our first data meeting was conducted one Saturday, 6/9. It was good to get together as a team and review the data we had to make sure we were all on the same page. We were able to look at each others data, figure out what we all taught, and really discuss how we all interpreted the data.

While we all had the same information, going into it we all noticed very different things. We all looked at the data and got the averages for each students assignments. We did the class average and then dove deeper into the information according to what we saw.

Since my background is in special education (sped), I am the sped coordinator for a high school. I looked at general education (gen ed) students vs. sped students. I noticed that the sped students were progressing a lot slower than the gen ed students. I was wondering if the teacher was following their IEP’s and giving the accommodations needed in order for them to be successful. When looking at the data it looked to me as though the teacher was not. While I looked at this it seemed both my team members had trouble interpreting my data, especially since Techo is in a different country that does not have sped.

Techo teaches 12 grade math and looked at the relationship between attendance, homework , and assessment performance. He noticed that there was not a correlation between these three things and the students performance. He did wonder why homework did not completion does not affect the students performance of assessments.

Marcie teaches ESOL students. She used that information to really dive into the data. She noticed there was a correlation in student scores, students #23 and #24 did very poorly on the interpersonal and presentation assessments. But the same students did better on the interpretive assessment. She wondered why they earned 0s on interpersonal skills. She also wondered if it had anything to do with attendance. I noticed that these students have IEPs so that might have something to do with it.

Overall data meeting #1 went well and we all were able to share our data and learn how the other people in our group interpreted it. I look forward to diving further into the data and eventually using this to look at my classroom data to adjust my own teaching.

Team #3 Data Meeting #1 Presentation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=515&v=OFYRwXPeLzE