Using Data to Drive Instruction // A Whoo-hoo!

We've all heard it before... "use data to help drive your instruction". Sounds pretty simple, right? Well actually, it takes a lot of time and extra effort in order to really use your data for the benefit of your students (and without driving yourself crazy).

One of my personal goals this year as an educator is to really sit down after each assessment and take a look at what the scores are telling me in regards to student proficiency. My outcome (unit) tests or quizzes are all organized by common core state standards and learning targets. I use standards based grading and students are given a score of 0-5 on each learning target.  After grading the tests, I was able to look at each class period and pinpoint which targets students seem to be grasping better than others.

It's one thing to just take note of the proficiency or lack thereof for each class period. However, it's something totally different when you actually use that information to change your next lesson plan(s). For instance, in my freshman level class no student scored a 3 or above on domain and range. Therefore, something wasn't clicking and/or I should change the way I approach my teaching of this topic. I knew there would not be time for me to take multiple class periods going back over this material. So for the next week, we spent a couple of minutes during the warm-up looking at different domain and range situations. Students were encouraged to ask for help from both myself and their classmates during this time. On Friday of that same week, students were given a very short warm-up assessment on domain and range. To my surprise, scores increased dramatically after spending this extra time going a little deeper into these concepts.  (cue whoo-hoo!)

Using data to drive your instruction doesn't necessarily have to take away from class time you've already prepared for. Use the 5-10 minutes as class is starting to look back over some concepts students aren't proficient on (yet!). You'd be amazed at what those few minutes can do for not only their scores but also for their confidence!

How do you use data to drive your instruction? What hesitations do you have?