Assessment Reflection

Last year was the first year our district used new math curriculum and so it was a crazy year creating new material and new tests and everything to go along with the new curriculum.  As I went through the new year, I created some great tests and I'm sure a few not so great tests.  Grades on some were good, on others, not so good.  We did spend some time looking over the tests in class, but I really want to do a better job of having the kids reflect on how they did on their tests and of course be able to capture that data.  I do have my class averages for each test, which gives me a little information.

What I really want though is data on each question, but who has time to go through all tests after grading and write down how each student did on each question.  Valuable data, but impossible to collect by myself.  In the past I have had students fill out a reflection sheet after a test and then collect those sheets, but again, if I want to pull any data about each individual question, I would have to go through each of those papers and pull that out myself.

There has to be a better way, and maybe some of you all already have a great way of doing this that I haven't stumbled upon yet!

As I sat this week preparing my materials for a Google Apps PD session I'm facilitating for the teachers in our district in a few weeks,  I started thinking about how I could use Google Forms to collect this data.

I'm envisioning that on the day I hand back tests each student will access this Google Form to enter their reflection and data on their own test.  The data will be collected in a Google Sheet that will allow me to sort by question to see exactly how my kids did on a specific question and why they thought they might have missed the question.  Here's picture of what the form will look like, what do you think?  Would love any ideas or feedback that you think might improve upon what I have here.

I'd be glad to share if this is something you might find useful.  Just send me a note and I'll provide the link since sharing Google forms can be tricky.

#MTBoS12days - What I Want to Improve On this Coming Semester

Oh where do I begin?  I always feel like there's a ton I can improve on, to the point that I get overwhelmed when I begin to think about all of the areas that could use some improvement.  So let me try not to send myself into a state of inadequacy the day before I return to work.  I'll try to focus on a few areas.

Homework - 

I'm going to start using a Stamp system for homework checks.  I'm using a version that came from a friend in the district, Leah Cramer, but I'm revamping it a bit.  I love how Pam Wilson (@pamjwilson) uses a color coding method for student feedback, so want to incorporate that idea.  I also plan to have a reflection area on the back of the stamp sheet so that students can jot down important things from the lesson that they will need to remember for tests and quizzes.  Here's what I've come up with so far.

I only give 5-8 problems at a time, and the grade area is for students to keep track of their own progress.  I don't actually take the grade in the grade column, its for their own record of how they are did on that lesson.  I plan to collect these stamp sheets on test days and use these when discussing with a student the opportunity to retest or do corrections if they do poorly on the test.

Planning -

Another area that I would like to improve upon is timely planning.  I typically start out the semester way ahead, but within a few weeks I always feel like I'm scrambling to put things together for lessons.  I want to stay on top of this more this semester.  I'd like to get my assessments done before we even start the unit, which is always a goal, but by mid semester it falls by the wayside.

Relationships -

I think I have pretty good relationships with my students in my classroom, but I want to make an effort to be involved with them outside of my classroom.  I want to get better at attending some of their extracurricular things like band concerts, sporting events, theater, etc.  I always have good intentions of attending these types of activities, but when the event finally comes around, I can find some excuse to go home and not stay around to attend.  I know how much it means to the kids for their teachers to be there, so I want to really make an effort to do this.

I'm sure there are a lot more areas I could improve upon, but I'm going to focus on these three for now.