Courtney Eisenmann Professor Rubio October 17, 2013 Tech Assessment #1 District Results In the first portion of the

technology assessment, I looked at a variety of grade take from a District over the past 5 years. The students were divided into 4 categories based on their proficiency at the end of the year. The student were labeled as either Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, or Advanced. While looking at the individual grades we can look at the level of proficiency within the 5 years. At the 6th grade level proficiency was reached each year by displaying 51% or greater proficiency each year. At the 7th grade level there was a little more difficulty reaching proficiency each year. The district was only able to achieve above 50% proficiency in the years 2008-2009 and 2010-2011. Out of data from 5 years this could signify problem with student learning or maybe even concerns with certain teachers. At the 8th grade level there are even more warning signs as the grade only reached 50% proficiency one time which occurred in the 2008-2009 school year. It seems that the 6th grade level has more history with success in terms of reaching proficiency by the end of the year.

Grade Six
2011-2012 2010-2011 2009-2010 2008-2009 2007-2008 49% 42% 48% 46% 41% 51% 58% 52% 54% 59% Proficient 2011-2012 2010-2011 2009-2010 2008-2009 2007-2008

Grade Seven
57% 50% 52% 45% 55% Not Proficient 43% 50% 48% 55% 45% Proficient 2011-2012 2010-2011 2009-2010 2008-2009 2007-2008

Grade 8
63% 51% 51% 49% 54% 37% 49% 49% 51% 46% Proficient

Not Proficient

Not Proficient

Looking at each grade throughout the 5 school year period doesnt tell us much about the students themselves though because it doesnt put them into groups where we can see their progress each year. The second assessment compares data based on the grouping of cohorts. By creating cohorts of the data, I ended up with 3 complete cohorts and 4 incomplete cohorts. This means I have 3 separate groups of student data which includes all three grades of proficiency results. I also have 4 other groups of partial middle school experience. The data concludes that for all 3 complete cohorts the proficiency decreases. We can see this on the graph because the color bars indicate not proficient and the black indicate proficiency. As we read the graph from left to right
Percent
120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 Class Class 5 6 Class 7 Proficient

Cohort Classes Proficiency

the color bars are rising slightly in height which is not good in terms of student proficiency. Cohort

Cohort Class

1 (Class 1) was able to accomplish 50% proficiency the first two years but then was not able to maintain 50% for the last year. Cohort 2 (Class 2) only demonstrated proficiency within the first year of middle school and then seemed to lag as well. Cohort 3 (Class 3) took a pretty dramatic fall in proficiency in their final year of middle school during the 2011-12 school year. This was surprising to me because of their abilities to be above 50% in the two previous years. I think this type of data could be very important in the district because it can be easily seen which specific time the students showed either

success or difficulties. By comparing the data you can draw some conclusions about the curriculum to try something new or perhaps keep materials the same. Grade Level Results The next set of data represents the grades of students within a particular grade. I plan to teach upper elementary or middle school so I worked with the score results rather than the skills. The students are also specified by their teacher, ethnicity, gender and whether or not they are English proficient. At first, I looked at the data of all the students as a whole. I did this by organizing them into their proficiency areas and determining the percentages of proficiency by dividing each group by 50, the total number of students in the data set. The data is represented in the chart seen below:

Students

Below Basic 8

Basic 21 42%

Proficient Advanced Proficient? Proficient? NO YES 13 8 58% 42% 26% 16%

Percentage 16%

I conclude from this data that out of the 50 students, 58% of them did not demonstrate proficiency in this particular assessment while 42% did. As we tend to prefer at least 50% proficiency within assessments, the goal was therefore not met. There are individual factors that can affect assessment results of students. In this particular exercise, I first looked at the difference in proficiency percentages between Teacher A and Teacher B. I expected
TEACHER A 57% 43% TEACHER B 59% 41%

Teacher A and Teacher B Proficiency

NO

YES

there to be more variety between the two teachers in the data but there really wasnt. The students of both teachers had proficiency under 50% for this assessment. This isnt demonstrating true proficiency so the students of both teachers have not yet met their goal. There is more than 1 way to categorize the student data because we are given addition information about each student. So aside from the difference in teachers, I compared the results of males and females in the grade as well. The results were somewhat surprising to me because of the large difference between the 2 genders. Male students in the grade demonstrated a 52% proficiency which is significantly higher than the female proficiency of 29%. Because of the large discrepancy between the 2 genders, the teachers might want to try some sort of differentiation in order for female students to be able to demonstrate proficiency. These 2 data sets are extremely helpful to schools districts as a whole and for individual teachers. Its important to know before the school year starts the past proficiencies of the students you are receiving. Using technology allows us to easily record and chart our data in order to interpret it. In addition, by categorizing your students it becomes easier to see if your methods of teaching arent as effective for certain groups of students. This tangible data can change the way a school continues to help their students and besides that, it an interesting and important practice.
MALE FEMALE

MALE AND FEMALE PROFICIENCY

No Yes

71%

29%

48%

52%