We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
This post may contain affiliate links. You pay the same and I get a small commission. Win Win! (Check out the full disclosure here.)
Even after 11 years of teaching, starting a new school year still feels overwhelming to me. Every year, I add in new systems & processes to make it smoother. In some ways, it gets harder to really get to know each new batch of students. I mean, I always learn their names as quickly as possible. But collecting assessment data is a whole other thing!
I’m talking about getting to know them so I can have the greatest impact on their learning.
When I worked on my National Board Certification, I knew I needed more ways to get to know my students. I wanted to build an understanding about my students’ strengths and areas of growth. I realized I needed a tool to track their growth across assessments throughout the year.
I couldn’t find a good assessment tracker, so I made one!
I went with google sheets. I made a tabbed sheet for each class. Then I created a master sheet that holds all the totals for the other tabbed sheets. Each tab has formulas built out that are divided across benchmark assessments for the year.
Throughout the year, each time my students complete an assessment, I plug in their scores. Immediately I can see their growth in comparison to the baseline assessment data. I can also see comparisons to each of the benchmark assessments throughout the year.
This works for any assessment I implement in my classroom. I track rubric scores, multiple choice tests, or percentages of completion, etc.
Visualize the Data
I also use the data to make fancy-looking (but super simple!) graphs and charts. These have been awesome to use in helping my students set goals. I’ve busted them out as part of my formal evaluations and administrators are always impressed!
I modified it so it can work for any grade level, K-12.
If you’re interested, you can check it out here. I made a video walking through the resource. It includes an explanation of each part which you can check out to the right.
Capturing Qualitative Data
I created another tool to help me keep track of other kinds of information about my students. Think of this as the qualitative data – their likes, dislikes, etc. You can check that out here.
