The end of the year is here and it’s time to reflect on successes and opportunities. This year I am especially motivated by Abby Wambach who recently said, “Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it's something to be POWERED by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel.”
Some years I’ve felt like a superhero teacher. Some years I’ve feel like an absolute failure. This year I want those reflections to be more generous to myself and to actually improve my craft. To do this, I will collect the right data to help me celebrate success and identify areas for growth.
To do this I made a plan:
1. What were the goals?
I sat down with my school’s mission statement and our vision for math instruction. This was a good reminder that my work is about so much more than test scores.
School Mission:
Inspiring Minds, Unleashing a World of Possibilities
Math Vision:
Students will be able to think creatively about mathematics and make sense of mathematics in different contexts. We will support them in this with instruction that builds strong fluency and number sense skills, allows for students to communicate their thinking, and makes mathematical connections.
I broke that down into the following buckets:
Many of these are not goals I can (or should) measure in traditional ways. What I want for my students is for our classroom to a place where these qualities can be pursued.
2. What information do I have to assess these goals?
From the standard end of year tests given by the district I will have data for fluency and number sense (math fact assessments), mathematical reasoning (constructed response tasks), and grade-level mastery (end of year grade-level assessment).
3. What information is missing and how will I collect it?
Half my goals were not measured by data I’d normally collect! Since it’s the end of the year and time is short, I will try to incorporate it into our current work where possible.
Curiosity - Dice tower problem. Anecdotal notes of questions asked and strategies attempted.
Empowerment - Daily reflections and choice stations. Track feedback provided to the teacher, reflections on learning, and work completed.
Creativity - Leo the Rabbit activity. Anecdotal notes of questions asked and student work to show strategies attempted.
Connections - Forces and motion unit project. Anecdotal notes of connections made to math ideas and student work to show appropriateness of connections.
Surveys - Student and parent survey.
4. What is my timeline for data collection?
3-4 weeks before the end of the year
All school and district level testing done. First round of data collected for Empowerment. Curiosity task completed.
2-4 weeks before the end of year
Surveys sent out and (hopefully) returned. Usefulness project started.
1-2 weeks before the end of year
Usefulness project completed. Creativity task completed.
5. What are my next steps?
Create a system for collecting information.
Plan time to reflect on the data.
Create a plan for analyzing non-traditional data. For now, here’s the tracker I’m using.
Every year I am both excited and terrified about what I might learn from end of year data. But this year will be different. This year I will celebrate my successes, find power in my failure, and both will make me a better teacher.