Em Holliday

The constant call for proof that you are meeting your outcomes can be difficult to meet. This is an experiment I conducted which shows how well the students understood the unit I taught as well as clearly identifiying the areas I need to revisit with the students.

I wrote a maths unit with my mentor teacher (and I was away sick so didn't teach a single lesson of it!!!) and part of this unit was a pre and post unit test. The same test. Now I was very sceptical but I decided to record the results and see what happened.

We gave the pretest and I created an excel sheet with an arbitrary marking scheme. Against each section in the test the student got a mark of 0 -no understanding shown, 0.5 - some understanding shown or 1 - full understanding and correct answers. I then collated this into a graph which you see below...

So from this I know where the children have started from - just by looking where there are half or no lines (representing scores of 0 or 0.5) I can see areas which need work on. We then taught the unit. NOTE: there was to be an observational mid-unit assessment but because I was away and time was restricted it wasn't conducted. At the end of the unit we gave the students the same test again...

Wonderful! By comparing the number of full lines I can clearly see where understanding is complete by the class and what areas they didn't get. NOTE: half the class was away on this day so the data is incomplete but I was more interested in the exercise and this data is at least indicative of areas of continued need. Obviously the children did not understand the grouping section but since they are non-readers we think the wording of the problem was at fault here. So now, before we move onto division next term we will revise those areas that don't show complete understanding by most of the class.

Plus, each colour corresponds to a particular child and I can then identify areas of need for particular children if the need arises.

I also used the same data (same table in excel) to create a line graph which maps the student's improvement over the unit...

I know the quality is dreadful but you can just make out the lines which move dramatically upwards and those that don't. (flat lines are again the students who didn't do the test but some students only showed a 0.5 point improvement over the whole unit!) This graph is simply the total of the arbitrary scores from the previous data table. I can take this out at parent/teacher interviews and show the improvement in understanding and where there is little hopefully work with the parent to help or use the data (I'd have a graph per unit for maths) to support a plea for extra support from the school for the child.

At the very least it helps me plan my next unit and reminds me which children I need to give greater support to when introducing new concepts.