Thing Seventeen: Evaluation & Assessment
This Thing was all about assessment and data collection in the classroom. There are laws that govern how data can be collected and stored in terms of students and teachers in the classroom. This is very important information, especially with virtual data and assessment tools. While collecting data is essential to helping teachers track progress and make adjustments to their teaching, it is also a point of controversy and concern for parents (and rightfully so). This Thing taught me about these laws and how to be ethical in the classroom.
FERPA/HIPPA
According to the 21 Things for Teachers website, there are four types of data collected in education. These data include demographics, student academics, perceptions, and school processes. All of this data is necessary and useful to teachers in decision making, planning, differentiation, and support. However, protecting this data is also important. I was asked to complete a quiz that asked what I knew (pre) and learned (post) about the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. I definitely learned a lot of things when taking this quiz and reading the materials. For example, I didn't know that teachers may post grades by student name or social security number. That seems crazy to me! I also didn't know that medical records that are exempt from FERPA’s definition of education records are also exempt from coverage by HIPAA. These are very important things to know for my future.
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Types of Data and Assessment
As stated before, there are four types of data to be collected for education: demographics, student academics, perceptions, and school processes. The 21 Things website had a great source for examples of how data is collected in schools. Unfortunately, without having a classroom of my own, I don't have students to currently collect data for. However, in the future there are certain types of data that I believe will be more useful for my classroom. Demographics for my students (especially things such as extracurricular participation, attendance, and parent involvement information) will help me create a better image of who my students, their families, and the school community are. Student academics will also be important for my in the future. Lastly, perception data is incredibly important to me. I need to know how other staff, parents, and students feel about different things in my classroom.
Example Data CollectionFor a previous course, Education 282, I was able to make a parent involvement survey. I made a pretend literacy night and created a survey for parents to take to give their feedback. I would be able to use documents like these to collect information about parent perceptions, one of the four types of data collected in education. You can view the complete file by clicking the link, or get the general idea by looking at the screenshot to the side.
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