Guiding Question: How can data collection and analysis improve my practice?
Data collection and analysis are key tools in fully understanding everything that happens and how your students are learning. While I was using these tools in my dance teaching classroom and not in a school classroom, I found it important to try using these tools in this environment because it is so much harder to collect data in a dance classroom where the students often do little to no writing.
What I was able to look at was keeping more reflection journals and including more analytical notes as well as more notes on specific dancers in those journals allowed me to keep track of their progress more easily, particularly in a classroom where there were so many students, it can be hard to remember who is making which mistakes and what each individual needed to work on most. Having an ongoing notebook allowed me to remember more easily who needed to work on what, particularly when meeting with students after class.
Stopping and analyzing the data every once and awhile also allows me to see how the class as a whole is doing and where efforts need to be concentrated for the whole class and their learning.
These are also notes to remember for spilling over into the general classroom. As a licensed social studies teacher, remembering to take time to take those notes about students abilities is highly important for having information at your fingertips when talking with parents about students. It also helps to improve practice as you can look at what lessons are working and which lessons are not working at all.
I also enjoyed that in this class we were able to cover different types of data collection methods and what could work in different scenarios. Many of us were writing papers of such different research strategies that having those available to us was extremely helpful. The more types of data you can include in your research the more data points you have for knowing exactly where your students stand in their learning.
It also allows you to advocate for any individual student you teach. If you have the data to back you up when advocating for a particular student, then it helps make a stronger case for that student.