The school I am currently at primarily uses Aeries and EDU 2.0 for data management. Additionally, each student has a cumulative file, but these are hardcopies, so are accessed on more specific occasions.
Aeries has data on the following for each student: attendance, discipline history, family, grades, medical, testing, and interventions. Each teacher can access this information about any student in his/her classes.
EDU 2.0 allows teachers to search for any student in the school; however, there is less information available to find. EDU 2.0 is used primarily by teachers to manage their own classes and it does handle data management in this way very well. It allows teachers to clearly see how their students are performing in each class both overall and specifically on each assignment.
I think it would be useful to collect additional data about interests, extracurricular activities, and achievements. The majority of the present data seems to be either be very quantitative (ie: grades) or negative (ie: interventions). It might be a little extra work, but I think it would be extremely valuable for teachers to know positives about each student as well. Additionally, knowing about extracurriculars and interests could help teachers find new ways to engage their students. This data could be organized and stored very similarly, so it would not require an overhaul of the system, just data entry.
It should be noted that having access to data like this can have both a positive and a negative effect on our relationships with our students. I am wary of becoming too reliant or trusting of data on a student because it could easily lead to assumptions. For example, I worry that assumptions about a student, which are unsupported by the student's current behavior, may continue to be perpetuated because of a data management system.
However, I think that having this information can be invaluable, if used cautiously, because it can provide a more big picture view of each student. This can mean understanding what I can do as a teacher to make my classroom a better learning environment and experience for a particular student. It can also mean, as I mentioned, finding ways to make my subject matter connect to a student's interests.
Hi Mary,
ReplyDeleteExcellent and insightful blog post. You have described many important points related to data collection. I think that it is critical for teachers to approach data cautiously and not make any assumptions. I also agree that the data that is collected seems to be mostly negative. How can teachers change this?