Quantitative

Introduction

This quantitative data section examines my Math District Benchmark Assessments. As detailed earlier in this portfolio on the District Benchmark Math Assessment page, this assessment is given four times throughout the year and covers the math topics teachers are expected to have taught each quarter. The assessment is created by our school district and teachers are not aware fo the content of the assessment until it is implemented.

In this section, I examine my students' results on Benchmarks 1-3 and analyze how this data provides evidence that students have reached our learning goals. I also discuss what instructional decisions I have made throughout the year to support my students with their learning.

Class Results

On this chart, pink denotes Unsatisfactory scores, yellow are Approaching Basic, light green are Basic, dark green are Mastery, and blue are Advanced. When comparing my class overall on our district benchmarks, it is clear that most students performed significantly better on our third assessment than on the previous two.

Here are some of the steps I took between each benchmark to inform my instruction. Following each benchmark, I also communicated areas for growth with parents, engaging them as partners in their child's education. This is a crucial step for student growth in all subjects.

Benchmark 1: I noticed that my class results were distributed in a way that worked well for homogenous grouping. I then focused math centers for two weeks on leveled groups - one for students who scored Unsatisfactory, one Approaching Basic, one Basic, and one Mastery. These small groups each had 5-7 students, which allowed me to focus instruction on the specific skills students in these groups needed. One of the areas that most of the class struggled with was multi-step addition word problems. To address this, I focused on this area during the application problem time of our whole group math instruction.
Benchmark 2: This assessment focused on shapes, as well as value comparisons such as more than/less than. One concept that my students struggled the most on was identifying which group had fewer objects (for example, are there more circles or more triangles in a given picture). After reviewing the test results, I created a new math center to help students practice this skill where they could compare groups of objects and label them as fewer or greater. This helped them practice their terminology while also considering careful 1:1 object counting. A second question the class as a whole struggled with was identifying a hexagon when shown a hexagon, pentagon, and octagon. To review this skill, we practiced crossing out sides on a shape while counting them during a few days of our morning review time.
Benchmark 3: Because of school closures due to COVID 19, I have not had a chance to continue direct instruction with my students since they completed the Benchmark 3. However, when looking at their data online I can see that one area students had some trouble with was completing all steps of an addition number story (drawing a picture, filling in a number bond, creating an addition equation, and explaining what they did). This four point question on the test was meant to make students prove deeper understanding of what addition is, how it is done, and why it is used. One common error I noticed when administering the test was that students struggled to put numbers in the correct location on the addition equation. I intended to review this with students by taking an extra week to go back and discuss the steps and order of an addition equation. I began this before school closed by making an anchor chart of each step (seen below) and reviewing it with students before we practiced more addition sentences and throughout the lesson.

Data Analysis

There are several conclusions I draw when looking at this data and considering student growth overall. My scores indicate clear student progress as my class percentage correct scores increased from 61.5%, to 75%, to 80.4%. But what does that mean for individuals and for the class as a whole? In this section I examine class and individual data more closely to draw conclusions about overall progress.

At the beginning of the year, on our math Benchmark 1, 29% of my students achieved Mastery on the assessment and 54.2% achieved Basic or above. By March on our Benchmark 3, 61% of my students achieved Mastery on this assessment and 78.25% achieved Basic or above. This fulfills our school goal, which was for at least 70% of students to achieve Basic or above. Additionally on Benchmark 3, 7 out of 23 of my students achieved Advanced, indicating that 30% of my students scored above a Mastery score.

Here is my annual Student Learning Target (SLT) which relates to this benchmark. This goal, which was set by our administration and approved by the district, was for 70% or more of students to achieve Basic or above in order to best prepare them for first grade. On the Benchmark 3 test, I surpassed this goal by 8% with a total of 78.25% of students achieving Basic or above.

One additional student made her personal goal by increasing her score from 12% to 50%. While she did not reach Basic on our scoring scale, the 38% increase in her score still passes the 7 points of growth goal.

This puts the class percentage of students passing their learning target at 82.6%, or 19 out of 23 students.

Benchmark 1-2 Growth

Student growth levels between Benchmarks 1 and 2 were varied. 67% of students demonstrated growth, and 33% did not. 29% demonstrated typical to high growth. With this in mind, after Benchmark 2, I reviewed some of the specific skills students struggled with as outlined above to help increase growth on Benchmark 3.

Benchmark 2-3 Growth

While some students scores decreased between Benchmark 2 and 3, 11 students (48% of those represented here) showed high growth between these two tests. This demonstrated a significant increase in the number of students making high growth.

Benchmark 1-3 Overall Growth

When looking at growth data between Benchmark 1 and Benchmark 3, only 9% of students did not make growth. The other 91% (21/23) students demonstrated growth, and 52% of these students demonstrated high growth.

Individual Results

Here, I analyze the results of two students who made significant progress on our assessments. I also detail how I used this data to make instructional choices within the classroom to help these and other students reach our learning goals.

Math Benchmarks 1-3 A

Math Benchmark Student A Growth

Student A's Benchmark 1 score was 62.5%, which is Below Basic. On Benchmark 2, he achieved a 75% or Basic. On Benchmark 3, his score was 100% or Mastery. This is an overall increase of 37.5% from Benchmarks 1-3 and an overall score increase from Below Basic to Mastery. In this slideshow I explain instructional decisions I made throughout the year considering these scores to support this student's growth.

Math Benchmarks 1-3 B

Math Benchmark Student B Growth

Student B's Benchmark 1 score was Unsatisfactory at 12.5%. On Benchmark 2 he increased to Basic at 68.75%. On Benchmark 3 his score went up to Mastery at 87.5%. This was an overall increase of 75% from Unsatisfactory to Mastery, indicating exceptional growth. Here I dive deeper into this students' data to explain what choices I made that supported him with his growth.

Conclusion

When looking at my class' quantitative District Math Benchmark data, it is clear that the majority of my class made extraordinary growth this year. 19 out of 23 students, or 82.6% of my class, already met our school learning target of Basic or above on the Benchmark 3 assessment. When our school reopens, I will pull the 4 students who have not yet made our goal for additional small group instruction that focuses on their areas of growth. I will provide them with the additional supports necessary to help them be on level. Of these 4 students, 2 have also missed a significant number of instructional days (26 and 36 days, respectively) so part of their intervention will also be speaking with their families about the importance of attendance and how missing a serious amount of school impacts their child's learning. Until then, I will continue to work with their families on our distance learning platform to recommend individualized activities and worksheets to help strengthen these skills.

I believe that all of my students will be adequately prepared for first grade math by the end of the year. 91% of my students have demonstrated growth from Benchmark 1 to Benchmark 3, and 52% of my students have demonstrated high growth during that time. The content I have taught directly, as well as the additional opportunities I have created for students to review independently and with partners, has directly impacted their learning and will continue to for the rest of the year.

Return to Dramatic Academic Growth Continue to Qualitative

Page updated

Report abuse