Data Collection, Organization & Analysis
Why it's important to educators & the students . . .
Data collection and analysis is extremely important to teaching. With the rate at which people change, the world and society changes, education inevitably changes as well. Teachers need to make decisions each year and even each day. The data collected from the past better helps teachers make those decisions for the present and potential future. Multiple forms of data collection and analysis exist. I believe it is most helpful to implement a few different ways in order to provide a better perspective that then helps to making more effective decisions.
At the end of each school year, I ask students to complete a Google Form survey about me as their teacher, the academics, what they liked and disliked, what they learned, and what they would change or keep (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, p. 130). I believe it is important for teachers to receive feedback from their students in addition to their colleagues. At my school, we use a software program that automatically tracks data for us like the textbook highlights (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, p. 130). Teachers simply have to choose how they would like to view the data--individual students, an entire class or subject or grade, according to standards, etc. My school also has access to a concept mapping software that allows multiple teachers across disciplines and grade levels to see what the students are learning.
Currently, my students primarily focus on identifying sources of data (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, p. 130). Our school has an account with EBSCO Host, so I teach them how to use the search engine with specific wording like "and," "or," or "no." I also teach them how to maneuver the database, read the abstract first, check to see if the article is peer reviewed, and other such tasks that may vary specifically to each task.
One method of teaching students how to organize data that worked especially well for my students was the bubble map. Researchers in various subjects and grade levels have proven that teaching the students how to organize a plethora of information with a mind map helps them because they gain greater context and relational connection between facts or details (Fauzi et. al., 2018). Instead of providing the students with a strictly pre-made graphic organizer, I simply had them look at all of their sources on their annotated bibliography first. For their particular paper, I required that they at least have 10-15 to start with. They were then required to match up the ones that could make their own subtopic to their overall research topic. Those 3-5 articles went into one circle on their piece of paper. Once they found another grouping, those went into another circle. And with each circle they created, I asked them to give it a word or phrase to describe those sources. For example, one student researched the Civil Rights Movement. She found 7 sources related to women's rights, 5 to African-American's rights, and 3 related to religious rights. Other students had similar success for their topics. I told them then that those subtopics would function as their body paragraphs to support their overall topic. They really found the exercise productive because until that point they just had a list of 10-15 sources that were related to their topic, but they needed help organizing the data.
Recently, I have read a lot about the benefits of students creating their own portfolio, whether hard copy or digital. In English class especially, I believe a portfolio would help students how their writing developed over the course of the school year. For high school, I believe it would also help them create a sense of ownership for their work. One teacher I know requires the students to bring their portfolio with them to parent-teacher conferences and explain to their parents themselves why they received a certain grade on a paper.
References
Roblyer, . & Hughes, . (2019). Integrating educational technology into teaching. Pearson.
Fauzi, Z., Degeng, N. & Akbar, S. (2018). Implementation of mind mapping learning model to improve learning outcomes of civil education subject. Jurnal Internasional K6 Education 1, 3.
