Post for January 28, 2009 -

What type of data do you use to make decisions in your classroom?
I tend to use formative assessments daily/weekly and summative assessments at the end of a unit only. I begin each class with the "Question of the Day" and end with a "Journal Question". The former is a review question on the previous day's work and acts as an opening activity to focus the students on the lesson to come. In addition, it provides me with immediate feedback if I should review the previous material again or continue. The latter is an assessment question on new learning. The latter is collected frequently with no warning and is done as a closing activity the last ten minutes of class. In addition, I give frequent quizzes on small "chunks" of instructional material to aid in determining understanding of all aspects of the unit. We do project based learning interlaced into traditional lecture - based physics. The project product is another summative assessment which incorporates a product, testing of the product, and an oral PPT class presentation. This is in addition to the unit written exam. The project also has milestones that are defined steps that the students must accomplish for the successful completion of the product; self -reflection through an engineering log is also incorporated. In addition, in lab based science courses, we have the priviledge of labs that allows us to monitor students working in small groups. Understanding the applied new concept accurately is key. It is immediately apparent if the student understands the concept taught.
Also, Kagin practices are incorporated depending on the content for small group interactions. For reinforcement of new concepts through problem-solving, we work in our small project teams rather than in a large classroom setting.
All these approaches generate data that offers both immediate and long term understanding of students' individual performance.