Ed 558 Assignments

[Assignment 1] [Assignment 2] [Assignment 3 with examples]

Due dates are listed on the course calendar

Assignment 1

Measuring Learning Gains

Our classroom assessment practices have a lot of assumptions in them. When you teach a unit and then give a test, the assumption is that the students learned (or didn't) what you taught them. We give the test and then say they know the material—they have met the standard, whatever that might be. What if the students already knew the material or had the skill? In that case you wouldn't know if your teaching had any impact at all. All you would know is that the students had the required knowledge or skill at the end of the unit. You wouldn't know that you should readjust your teaching to not waste time and to better address what the students need.

In order to know that our teaching helped the students we have to figure out what the students know or can do before we teach. The assessment after the instruction then has a better chance of letting us know if instruction had any impact. We can measure change in the students abilities. There are lots of ways to accomplish this pre-assessment and teachers usually do this with some type of informal formative assessment. I want you to try this formally. Here is what I want you to do:

  1. Pick a unit of instruction that you were about to do anyway.
  2. Figure out how you will assess students at the end of the unit. Your assessment will have to be something that can be turned into interval data.
  3. Before you teach the unit give the students the final assessment.
  4. Teach the unit.
  5. At the end, give the same assessment again.
  6. Use a t-test to figure out if there was a significant gain in student scores.
What to turn in

Build a table to show the learning gain. Write a paragraph or two to describe the data. Last, write a bit about this process. What was it like? What were the problems? Did anything come out of it that you might use again?

 

Be prepared to talk about this later in the semester. What can you say about what you found? Why don't teachers do this all the time? What other interpretations of the data are possible? What problems may make interpretation of the data difficult?

If you don't currently have students with whom you are working here are a couple of alternatives:

Do you have a friend whose assessment data you could use (anonymously, of course)?
Can you imagine some measurement in the place you are working that will allow you to do pre/post assessment?

If you can't think of anything then email me.

 

Here is a preformatted spreadsheet that may be what you want: Excel Spreadsheet.

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Assignment 2

Advanced Uses of Excel (Microsoft Office)

Microsoft Office is an incredibly large and complex set of software. More things are possible than any of us could imagine. Certainly most of us don’t have the time to explore all of the possibilities even if it was something we wanted to do.

Since we are using Excel extensively in this course, I want you to focus predominantly on this part of Office. Your task is to study some section of Excel functionality that you have never worked with before and to understand it to the point that you can develop a set of instructions to help others in the class use this component of the software. Here are some examples of things that you might study:

Step 1: Find something that you think might have a practical application for you or others in the class. This means you may have to do some exploring based on the above suggestions or others. Study whatever you choose. Look up what people on the web have said about how to use this. Practice and become accomplished doing whatever you are learning.

Step 2: Design some way to transfer your new knowledge to others. That might be a Word document of instructions, or PowerPoint, or web page, or screen recording, or whatever comes to mind as an effective way to present training.

Step 3: Send me whatever you produced. The more you put into this the more you and others will get out of it.

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Assignment 3

Fact Checking

Often in the press, reports based on statistical evidence make assumptions or conclusions that are unwarranted based on the research from which the reports are drawn. These are difficult to check because reporters are not consistent in providing the access path to the original research (something of which you understand the importance).

Step 1: Identify a press report that uses statistical data. This can be from an internet news source, a TV or radio news report, or something you have read in a popular magazine or any other reputable source in which you have come in contact. It doesn’t have to be education related; but since that is of interest to all of us, that might be a good choice.

Step 2: Trace back to the original data source or research report that is being quoted. Sometimes this is difficult to do, so it could require some detective work where you may have to work with a couple of different press reports before you find one that you can access.

Step 3: Examine the original report with the same critical criteria you would use with a research paper for your literature review. Understand what the study and its methodology, look for limitations, and examine the conclusions relative to the data. Write a short paper (2-3 pages) that discusses your analysis of the original research in comparison to what was said in the press. Include the references to the news article and to the data behind it. Send the paper to me before the due date. Be prepared to discuss your findings with the class.

 

Examples from Previous Classes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H)

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