CEDO 540 - Week 4

I was really intrigued this week watching the videos on Bill Tancer.  As I stated in my discussion post I never thought about the data that could be collected by analyzing internet searches.  I do think that this type of data could have a great impact on retail and other businesses.  I do think that there is a limit to the accuracy of this type of data, but it is still useful.  I would like to read Bill's book and find out more about this topic.

I have also been enjoying reading the futurist jobs that people are creating.  I think the idea that we are educating children for jobs that don't exist is one of the hardest things for educators to grasp.  We can do everything in our power to get them ready for the workforce, but will we ever be able to accurately prepare them for the job they will seek?  I think not.  I think, as educators, we need to focus on giving our students life skills that they could use for any job. Examples, working with others, taking responsibility, completing assignments on time, etc.  We also need to teach them the basic skills in reading, math, technology, etc, but unless they obtain the essential skills needed to excel in a work environment they won't be successful at their job.  We also need to be ready to adapt our curriculum and teaching methods to better equip these students for the ever changing job market.  We can no longer ignore how important technology skills are for our students.  In order to do most jobs they will need technology skills.  Technology is becoming as important and reading and math.  I can only imagine what job my 2 year old son will be doing 20 years from now.

Finally, after completing the Guided Practice homework this week I realized how poor of a job we are doing with data analysis in our school.  We do a lot of data driven decisions, but we don't look at the whole picture.  We might take a group of test scores and just look at the mean instead of thinking about the standard deviation and z score.  After doing the assignments this week I realized that is a very naive way to analyze data and if, as a district, we are going to continue with data driven decisions we need to work harder at analyzing our data accurately. 

CEDO 540 - Week 3

This week we talked about standard deviation and Z - scores.  Again these topics are things I have used before, but not something I usually use when analyzing my students test scores.  After revisiting these topics it made me realize I should be doing more of an anzlysis of my students scores.  It is important to look at the students scores as a whole and evaluate where they are according to the mean.

We also took a look at surveys this week.  This is something I have been doing more and more with my students.  It is a great way to quickly gather information.  After taking a look at some of the other survey tools available last week I am hoping to start using more surveys with my parents.  For our group project we are going to survey the student's knowledge of internet safety.  This is a topic I cover with my kids in computer class and I have been surprised at the lack of knowledge some of them have.  I am excited to analyze the data we gather.

CEDO 540 - Week 2

Well this week we spent more time on mean, median, and mode.  It is kind of ironic to me because this is something I work on with my sixth graders every year.  Even though they are easy concepts to compute it has been a long time since I have actually analyzed the data and computations.  I do analyze student data frequently, but not necessarily to the extent we are doing in class.  Overall, I think I have a descent understanding of using these averages to analyze student data.

We also took a look at survey tools.  These tools are becoming more and more popular in my district.  Our superintendent sends out surveys using online survey tools frequently to both staff and the community.  He then uses that data to drive some of our decisions.  I have used surveys with my students as well, but most of the time we just use the online survey tool that is built into our blog.  I like this survey tool because it is easy to use, but it doesn't allow for easy data analysis.  If I want to really analyze their responses I have to import it into Excel and go from there.  I am excited about some of the new survey tools I have found this week and hope to try some of them in my classroom the next few months. 

CEDO 540 - Week 1

My first statistics course ever.... how am I feeling..... actually pretty good!   I can't say that I totally understand all of the topics we are covering this week, but I feel confident so far! 

Even though I have never taken a statistics course I do use statistics all of the time in my job.  Our district is working hard to make data driven decisions when it comes to our students and our curriculum.  We are constantly analyzing our students tests scores to see if what we are doing is helping them improve their scores or if we need to change our curriculum.  I like having data to back up the decisions we are making.  We have had a lot of parents comment that they enjoy getting progress reports on their child and being able to see the progress they are making.

I am excited to learn more about statistics and hopefully apply these new skills and terms to what we are already doing.