You Oughta Know About...

We are so excited to have this opportunity to join in the October You Oughta Know Blog Hop with some fabulous bloggers. A big thank you to Jasmine McClain at http://buzzingwithmrsmcclain.blogspot.comhttp://buzzingwithmrsmcclain.blogspot.com for organizing the hop and bringing all of these great ideas together!

Data, data, data! It is a word we hear every day as educators. We need data to get a baseline, we need data to guide our instruction, we need data to report progress to parents, and some of us even need data to prove our success as a teacher.

Mollie and I decided that we needed to get our kiddos more involved in collecting, organizing, and analyzing data so we set out to find a system to use. We already have two binders for our kids (one for Literacy and one for storing materials for math, science, and social studies) so we really wanted to steer clear of another binder. We decided on a folder and ring system.

Once we knew how we wanted to store everything, we needed to decide on what data to collect. We knew we wanted a section for reading, math, word study, science and social studies. We created a graph for students to track their monthly progress on their word study assessments.

We decided we really wanted a copy of each reading and math assessment so we hole punch the top of each assessment and students will add them to the rings (under the district assessment trackers).

We also wanted a place to put our district assessment scores so students can track their progress. Our students participate in the Scholastic Reading Inventory assessment four times per year to determine their Lexile score and they participate in the iready math assessment three times per year to determine their progress toward fourth grade common core math standards.

We did not feel it was necessary to keep copies of each of the science and social studies assessments but we wanted kids to track their ability to demonstrate their understanding of informational standards so we typed up each of our unit titles and gave students a place to record their rubric score.

And what is data without using it to set and track goals?? So we created a place for students to set SMART goals.

This is our first year with this system so we are excited about the possibilities! We plan to use these data folders to conference with students as well as to use as evidence of progress when reporting to parents. We will keep you posted on how they are working and changes we make over the course of the year!

How do you involve your students in tracking their progress? We would love to hear what is working for you!

BTW, we use a month-by-month word study plan that we posted in our TPT store. If you are looking for something to use with your kiddos that will engage them in playing with words and word parts, check it out!!

Year-Long Word Study Pack

An InLinkz Link-up