Using Data for Decision Making – Examples

Read or listen to narration of the following information and discuss or reflect on the questions.

A)Example of Curriculum Embedded Assessment Analysis

Using lesson assessments and analyzing student answers can help teachers to inform individual and group instruction.

Features of lesson assessments include:

  • Students provide individual responses for teachers to determine mastery of skills taught.
  • A set of pre-determined scoring criteria for scoring students’ performances, focusing on the skills and application of the skills taught.
  • Information teachers can use to determine how effective the instruction has been, which students may need additional support, and where gaps exist in understanding the content.

How to use lesson assessments

The chart below lists categories (i.e. comprehension multiple choice, vocabulary, and grammar), which are areas that the assessment would identify as focus skills. The first set of numbers, next to the date list the possible scores for the categories. Within each focus skill area, the benchmark, strategic, and intensive range has been clarified and color coded for ease in analyzing the data.

Legend for table below

Green /
  • Benchmark indicates that a student is on track for success

Yellow /
  • Supplemental Interventions indicates the student is slightly off track for success and may need some additional support to ensure success. This usually comes in the form of scaffolding, which could include pre-teaching or re-teaching parts of the lesson.

Red /
  • Intensive Supplemental Interventions students are those students that are off track and need more immediate and intensive intervention to prevent further reading failure.

Lesson 1 Assessment / Comprehension
Multiple Choice / Comprehension
Written Response / Focus Skill
Character Traits & Motivation / Vocabulary / Synonyms
Antonyms / Grammar / Fluency & Accuracy / Overall
Date:
9/4/09 / 8-6 / 5-4 / 3-0 / 2 / 1 / 0 / 10-8 / 7-5 / 4-0 / 6-5 / 4-3 / 2-0 / 10-8 / 7-5 / 4-0 / 8-6 / 5-4 / 3-0 / ≥ 93 / 71-92 / ≤ 70 / 44 -35 / 29-22 / 16-0
Student 1 / 5 / 1 / 9 / 2 / 5 / 6 / 80 / 28
Student 2 / 7 / 2 / 9 / 5 / 10 / 8 / 112 / 41
Student 3 / 2 / 1 / 4 / 4 / 8 / 6 / 70 / 25

The sample data viewed horizontally identifies which individual students are of concern and in which particular categories.

  1. Student 3, whose overall performance suggests the need for Supplemental Interventions across the board, has three areas that stand out as areas of major concern while two areas need some additional support.
  2. Student 2 is meeting the performance requirements and may need additional challenges.
  3. When analyzing these three students, the teacher also needs to look for patterns of concern like overall difficulty with learning new vocabulary words. The lesson assessments may reflect similar areas of concern or it may reflect an isolated incident.

The sample data viewed vertically identifies areas of strength and weakness. The chart shows grammar instruction as strength for all three students.

  1. Comprehension is an overall weakness.
  2. Looking at both the multiple choice and written response, there is reason for concern.
  3. Reviewing instruction and student engagement would be important.
  4. Several questions could be discussed:
  1. Were there enough practice opportunities provided in the curriculum?
  2. How many practice opportunities did students receive?
  3. Did all students participate in the guided practice and feedback?
  4. Did all students receive specific, corrective feedback?
  5. Were all students actively engaged?
  6. What formative assessments were used during instruction to determine student understanding?

This sample data information was taken from:

B) Example of student classroom data.

Use the following data to answer the questions below:

From Using Data and Grouping to Teach All Students All the Time—Differently PowerPoint by Christie L. Cavanaugh, Ph.D. University of Florida Gainesville, FL

Reflect on and answer the following questions:

  1. Have participants make predictions about the current data.
  2. Which students are on target?
  3. Which students are advanced?
  4. Which students need some supplemental interventions?
  5. Which students need intensive supplemental interventions?
  6. Ask the question, “How are we doing?”

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