Positively Learning: Happy 1st Day & NWEA Data Day!

Happy Monday!

Are you headed back to school today?

We are have a full Professional Development day today and students return tomorrow.

Although I would prefer to stay in my new cozy pink robe and fuzzy slippers all day, I'm actually looking forward to getting back to my healthy routine. I workout before going to school

(on vacation? not so much) and we stay so busy during the

school day, so there's no time for snacking! My waistline is

happy to get back to work!

I just updated my Happy New Year! Packet

to represent 2015 (plus I added 2016)!

This will be my 3rd year using this packet! This was exactly what I was hoping for when I began creating a few years ago... rather than always creating new products, I was hoping to be able to update existing activities each year. It's my virtual filing cabinet (which needs to be cleaned out!). My goal is to have fewer files, but at the highest quality so I always have what I need within reach.

Today is full of meetings (entire staff, 1st grade team, SpEd team, leadership team) with a major focus on our NWEA data.

We just wrapped up our NWEA testing window the week before winter break. Today we will be looking at trends and regrouping our small group focus (both intervention and advanced) to target students' needs.

I have super-mixed feelings about analyzing the data. As a special educator, I proctor the test individually for every student I'm working closely with...this means I've had the pleasure of observing each Primary Math and Reading test at least 40+ times!

After the test, each student's performance is represented in RIT bands. The spreadsheet is impressive and highlights both strengths and areas of growth. However, after observing each test individually, I've noticed that the RIT bands don't display an entirely accurate presentation of students' content of mastery.

Instead, I feel like the language of the test is where my students ~~sometimes~~ often get tripped. Thus, I feel that the results represent my students' test-taking abilities and language skills, rather than academic content.

Does anyone else notice this?

I mentioned all of this to co-workers last year and it wasn't incredibly well-received ;) People didn't really want to hear what I thought about the accuracy of the data!

Another special educator did see where I was coming from and helped me understand that although the RIT bands possibly need to be interpreted with a grain of salt, it's still valuable because language IS a key aspect of our students' learning. The test also helps measure growth (from one testing window to another - we test three times per school year), which helps guide our instruction. I appreciated this outlook and it helped me refocus on what's important - my students!!

Last year, I created practice cards for my students based on the language used with NWEA (also aligned with Common Core). I saw a significant increase in scores (last Winter to Spring & this Fall to Winter). The questions are based on Common Core standards, but the tricky question wording is based on NWEA:

I made over 400 math and 400 reading cards to use for warm-ups, practice, check-for-understandings, and everything in between! Initially, I printed the cards on assorted cardstock to store on book rings sort by RIT band range. Now, I'm simply printing the pages to insert in independent journals and homework packets!