My last two posts about the uselessness of the STAR result reports given to teachers by my district got me all worked up. So I wrote a frank missive to my school's STAR administrator, who passed it up/across the food chain to the district person who prepares the reports. She was able to generate exactly the reports I wanted!
Report 1: Standards Performance
Report 2: Student Performance Levels
These reports, especially Report 1, can be used to inform instructional decisions.
My administrator put in an order for reports in these formats for the other teachers at my school.
I'll score it as good news. It knocked a chip off the boulder that is my cynicism.
2 comments:
It's interesting that the two subjects that we characterize as easier for students to grasp, visualize, and conceptualize (mechanics, COE and COM) had the lowest ratings. Are the standards comparatively higher for these topics, in your opinion? Does out teaching reflect the fact the *we* think that these are 'easier' topics, shorting the students of some understanding? Is it just that our perception about accessibility/ease of understanding isn't accurate?
I think my students learned all standard sets equally well. The drop-off arises from the passage of time. If I stack the standard sets from highest student performance to lowest, I get a perfect temporal arrangement:
Waves - 80% - the topic we were in the midst of when the Physics CST was administered.
Electricity and Magnetism - 76% - the topic we had covered just before waves.
Heat and Thermo - 69% - the topic covered before E&M.
Energy and Momentum - 65% - just before Heat and Thermo.
Motion and Forces - 65% - first topic of the year.
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