Screenshot of LPS Mental Math Data
LPS students complete mental math exercises at the beginning of class. This is a sample of the data teachers collect and analyze.
August 10, 2016
Tag: Growth Oriented
NWEA MAP Data at LPS Richmond
Entry into the academic numeracy classes is determined by student readiness for high school math. Sophia Thomas, teacher, talks about how LPS uses MAP assessments to assess students.
Sophia Thomas: At the start of the school year, it’s a part of what they have to do to enter the school. They have to take the MAP. A lot of kids, based on their placement, end up in my room. At the start of the year I have them set a goal based on their GLE, wherever you’re at. We are working as a class to make sure that, on average, we are all at the ninth grade level because they’re at varying places. When they started out, on average, we were in the middle of fifth grade. So, we’re working to, by the end of the ninth grade, have an average of ninth grade. That doesn’t mean that all kids are going to be at the ninth grade level but we’re really pushing for that. A lot of times when we’re starting, reference is made to that because they take it three times. They’ve done it twice already. They’re going to do it one more time at the end of the year to see where they’re finally ending up. I’ll make reference to that. We want to be at the ninth grade level. That is according to the MAP. We also want to improve on numerous skills at the same time.
August 10, 2016
Summative and Formative Assessments at LPS Richmond
Sophia Thomas, teacher, discusses how the team uses different types of assessment to gauge mastery and retention of skills.
Sophia Thomas: I was involved in creating the summative assessment. We, as a team, came together. At first, we realized that there was not a lot of rigor or depth. So, we changed all of those. There’s more writing and pushing going back to some of the things that we’re asking them to do in the writing tasks. As a team we create summative assessments. They’re not online. So, kids don’t have access to them. The same is true for the diagnostic. The formative assessments are sometimes Khan Academy missions or they’re School Yourself missions. We have a couple exit tickets admitted in [unintelligible]. Those are all our quizzes. There is one that is at the end of the unit. It’s just a cumulative quiz that goes back from all the units picking things, just to see where retention is at. One of the things that we recognized was that sometimes kids can hold on to the information for so long. Forcing them to do a cumulative quiz every time is just reminding them that they are accountable for this information.
August 10, 2016
LPS Work Evidence Assessment
This is a sample work evidence assessment for LPS Navigate Math. Students complete this when they have progressed through a unit at the 50% and 100% marks. This allows teachers to see student work and make sure it matches with their completion and mastery data for that unit.
August 9, 2016
Student Choice of Assignments at LPS Richmond
Sophia Thomas, teacher, shares how she supports students in their self-paced learning by monitoring progress against goals in the dashboard and checking in on assignments as they work.
Transcript: Sophia Thomas: After our warm up, kids use their dashboard and where they were previously to identify what they want to focus on for the day. Generally, I encourage kids to move through the dashboard in a linear fashion. There are some students who don’t do that. But most students actually do that. They’ll identify at least two things that they want to work on. They’ll put that on the to-do list. Then they have to go through the to-do list and move it over to the planner and make at least one of those items current. So that shows up on my teacher dashboard. That gives me an idea of what exactly the student is working on or is planning to work on in class that day. […] Some students have this tendency to feel that the writing tasks are really hard. It’s going to require me to stop and do a team check. I’m going to leave those until the end. A lot of times I’m able to catch up on that. I’m able to say I noticed you skipped this assignment. Talk to me about what’s happening here. Why haven’t you done this? Bring the assignment. Let’s look at it together. Let me get a feeling of where you’re at. Once we have that talk they recognize it’s not as hard as I thought it was. So they’ll go ahead and do it.
August 9, 2016
Student Choice at LPS Richmond
Sophia Thomas, teacher, explains the parameters of choice available to students, which include what to work on, in which order, at what pace, and when to attempt to demonstrate mastery.
Transcript: Sophia Thomas: They choose what they’re learning, what time they’re learning. They go at their own pace for the most part. The biggest thing is they choose when they take their summative assessment. Every unit has a unit exam that accompanies that unit. There’s also a diagnostic at the start. We make them take a diagnostic to identify the foundation. This is where you’re starting. I want them to compare how much they’ve grown over the course of that unit. How much time they spent and how much their knowledge has increased. So, kids choose what they’re working on. They choose how they want to learn that. There are different resources that are embedded within the dashboard. Some you’ve got to read. Some you’ve got to watch. Some are interactive ILO stuff. So, they have that choice. They are required to take notes whichever learning resource they’re using. Then they take the assessment. They choose their homework. There are a minimum number of tasks you can do but you get to choose what you want to do for homework. Just the idea of choice around those things helps personalize their learning and gives them a greater sense of ownership about what they’re learning, when they’re learning it, and how they’re going prove mastery on this thing.
August 9, 2016
Viewing Students’ Daily Goals at LPS Richmond
Sophia Thomas, teacher, discusses the benefit of being able to view daily goals on her dashboard.
Transcript: Sophia Thomas: So that shows up on my teacher dashboard. That gives me an idea of what exactly the student is working on or is planning to work on in class that day. It also allows me to see what students are actually in the same place. So, if I need to pull groups together, that’s a possibility from that as well.
August 9, 2016
Using Data to Improve Small Group Instruction at LPS
Using Data to Improve Small Group Instruction at LPS.
LPS initially built and tested their Academic Numeracy course in Google Sheets, and many of those practices have been captured as Blended and Personalized Learning Strategies. LPS has worked with Gooru to create Navigate Math, a free tool any school can use. These screencasts cover strategies that can be applied through both Google Sheets and Navigate Math, though the latter is used in screencasts for demonstration purposes.
August 9, 2016
Example: Helping Teammates at LPS Richmond
In this audio clip, you’ll hear students discuss how they support each other in class.
Transcript:
Student: Try it. Yeah. But like the factor that are numbers you multiply to get the answer.
Teacher: I ask what was – what interest…
Student: Yes. Oh, I was trying to explain to him the greatest common factor, like how do you find the greatest common factor.
Student: See, I told you.
Teacher: How did you know he was working on that? Or how did he know you knew that?
Student: I’m already past this unit. So we have units and he’s on Unit Three and I’m already finished with Unit Three.
Teacher: And how did you know she was already done with Unit Three?
Student: Because we’re all in a group and we like – we basically know what unit we’re in.
Teacher: You check in with each other?
Student: Yeah.
Student: Trying to help each other out.
Student: We usually first ask our peers that are close to us to see if they can help us. Today, I needed help on my writing task and I asked Daphne. She really helped out. I understood it.
Interviewer: How did you know she could give you the right help?
Student: I knew she could give it because she’s more advanced in the unit than me. She’s in unit five and I’m in unit three.
Interviewer: How do you know she’s on unit five?
Student: Every time I grade her writing task I see what unit she’s in and how she’s working on it.
August 9, 2016
Leveraging Data to Improve Instruction at LPS
Leveraging Data to Improve Instruction at LPS.
LPS initially built and tested their Academic Numeracy course in Google Sheets, and many of those practices have been captured as Blended and Personalized Learning Strategies. LPS has worked with Gooru to create Navigate Math, a free tool any school can use. These screencasts cover strategies that can be applied through both Google Sheets and Navigate Math, though the latter is used in screencasts for demonstration purposes.
August 9, 2016