Week 7 & 8 Reflection

 Using Data to Drive Instruction

    This week, we worked with excel to interpret student assessment data. I liked that we went over this, not only because we are going to have to do this in field, but also because excel is something that is confusing overall and is used all the time in real-world application. We completed graphs and calculated the sum, mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the assessment results. We also went over some basics of using excel, like copy and pasting results.

We also talked about statistics concepts during week 7. We went over score reports and how we have to understand these for things like teacher-parent conferences and so on. Some terms we went over regarding statistic assessment concepts are defined below:

Population: the entire group of people for whom the typical performance is estimated by.

                       ex) All five year-olds

Sample: group of people actually included in the testing or study.

Norming: the process of constructing norms or the typical performance of a group and testers are ranked in relation to other testers. 

Criterion-referenced tests: test results are compared to a set of standard, and testers are ranked in relation to the body of tested knowledge. 

*We first learned this concepts to apply later when working in excel and doing future learning and projects. 

Reflection #6

 This week, we learned even more about assessments and how to explore different assessments/elaborate on the ones that we have already created. We went over observational learning, formative assessments, and DAP, which is 'developmentally appropriate practice'.

DAP requires meeting students where they are and enabling students to reach their goals. The main ideas of DAP are shown on this infographic.

On Wednesday's class, we discussed how we must align our objectives to the standards for best teaching results. We talked about specific steps we have to take in order to meet objectives with the standards. they go as following:

Step 1) Start with the standard. 

-The standard is what you are supposed to teach, so picking a standard to be taught is the first step and working the curriculum to the objectives and said standard is important. 

Step 2) Create an objective.

-Your objective must come from the standard. You may adapt to fit students needs.

Step 3) Creating the assessment

-Use your objective as your assessment.

These three steps are outlined to work together to adhere to lesson planning; aligning our standards, making objectives, and providing assessments for our students. 

I like how we discussed this, because we are lesson planning right now. I like how we met with a partner to critique each others work. When we do this, we get an idea as to who is on the same page and who isn't. When meeting with another student, it may be better then a teacher providing feedback because students are more likely to make common mistakes and build off of eachother.