Each year I sit down with several of the math teachers in my department and we review our Maine High School Assessment results. We conduct a detailed analysis, looking at which students exceeded, met, partially met, or did not meet the standards. We look at which courses the students have completed; some have taken pre calculus while others have only taken Algebra 1. We also look at each question to see where students "went wrong" and where we can strengthen our curriculum to help students be more successful in the future. After looking at the data, we concluded that students who had only taken Algebra 1 by their junior year would not be able to meet the standards and we decided to focus on actions that would help those students who were in the partially met category move to the met category.
In reading the Equity Indicators, I believe that we should have done more investigation on those who were in the lowest category as well. Equity Indicator 1 states "every teacher addresses gaps in mathematics achievement expectations for all student populations". If we had used the Collaborate and Implement criteria of Stage 2 we could have made changes to the instructional strategies used for this student population. As we sit down again to review the MHSA results this year we will be looking at all student populations
The emphasis on "all student populations" is central to implementing NGSS (in Maine, I hope!), and in thinking about the STE-PLC in my building, I've spent quite a bit of time with NGSS Appendix D: "All Standards, All Students." While my school is the middle school for Maureen's high school, I find that our efforts are the most concentrated on the "partially met," as well, but in contrast also on the "does not meet" kids. Once kids have "met" the standards, we do little to engage them through enrichment or "real-life" math and not much for the few who exceed the standards.
ReplyDeleteThis year, we've started a small-group block for remediation and enrichment in ELA or Math. My enrichment group for Probability and Statistics was a real eye-opener for me. For example: students believed that the probability of Heads:Tails in a fair coin flip was 1:1, but not one of them had ever had a class in which they were expected to perform the test! Once they began, they were all over the place in presenting their data, tally marks weren't grouped in fives (or at all) for ease of counting, results weren't presented in charts or tables, but in sentence style [1) heads, 2) tails, 3) tails and so on]. NGSS Appendix D and Equity Indicator 2: "Every teacher provides each student access to relevant and meaningful mathematics experiences" is definitely lacking. As far as Indicator 1, I'd say my school is still at level 1 and needs to move to much more data-based conversation as Maureen describes in her department.