Using Data
Yesterday, I gave a workshop for teachers on using data to improve student achievement. This is something that is going to become an increasing part of my work, so I may be blogging about it from time to time. The idea is to cull information about students from a variety of sources, systematically analyze that information in order to identify areas of improvement, and then create an action plan for targeting those areas.
In some cases, the results of careful data analysis can be surprising. So often we jump to conclusions about why students aren’t achieving, or we depend on underlying assumptions that may be based on our own pre-conceived notions. Consider for a moment this piece of student work:
Laugh if you must, but it’s easy to get the wrong idea from only a cursory examination. Further investigation revealed that the child’s mother works at Home Depot, and is here depicted selling snow shovels. And if you only relied on your initial observations and didn’t investigate further, you could be lead astray.
Hopefully, the systematic use of data will allow us to avoid such snap judgements and take a more scientific approach to improving student achievement.
December 17th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I’d like to see the hard data on the theory that the picture so clearly identifying a stripper is actually a Home Depot, unless there’s a magical Home Depot where men who may be in the military rush to a woman selling snow shovels with dollar bills out.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I have no idea if this is even legitimate. It’s just a piece of Internet flotsam that I used to illustrate my point.
But if it is real, I think it’s much more likely to be an innocent drawing that’s being taken out of context than it is a child’s image of what Mommy does after hours.
Snopes is silent on the matter. My best guess is that it’s real. I see inadvertently funny student work all the time. And if it’s not real, then my point is even stronger: without enough data, it’s easy to jump the wrong conclusions.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Point taken – EXCELLENT (and hilarious) example!! I look forward to your updates on this very important work….
January 17th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
The elipsis gives it away. Definitely fake. Pity.
January 18th, 2012 at 7:25 am
Well, I assume the ellipsis would have been part of the original prompt.
I honestly can’t say if it’s real or fake, but the ellipsis makes it more credible for me, not less.
Thanks for your comment!
November 21st, 2013 at 9:30 am
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