I could almost hear to collective grown from parents as the news of Frozen 2 came out. The fear has set in. Just as “Let it Go” was fading from your brain, what new song will stuck in your head hours on end? The good folks at Disney are following a model that every teacher should be using. They used the data from the first movie to determine if there would be a second movie.
I know the moment we hear data, our teacher brain shuts down. We can sum up the reasons we don’t want to use data in just a few sentences.
“I didn’t get into teaching to fill out a spreadsheet.”
“I know what my kids need.”
“I know how to teach.”
It’s important to realize that data is a tool that we can use to effectively educate our students. The data lets us know what areas we need to remediate. Disney didn’t say to themselves “We just know people will like the movie so let’s make it.” They looked at the data from the first Frozen movie. Disney was able to see the popularity of the movie and which characters moviegoers enjoyed the best. From this data Disney then set forth to create Frozen 2. They will now be able to predict with some accuracy, that the second Frozen movie will be a success.
We think that we just know what our students need. Often times our memory fails us and we only remember the last time and not every other time. Keeping accurate data on our students allow us to see everything even when our brains fail. With data we are able to create customized lessons that fully address our student’s needs.
Collecting data can seem overwhelming, however there are a few tricks to make it easy for you. Below are just a few ways to collect data.
- Use Flubaroo: Create an assessment in Google Forms and then use the addon Flubaroo to grade the assignment. Not only will the assignment be graded in just a few seconds but you will also get an item analysis. The item analysis allows you to see which concepts you may need to go over again.
- Use Plickers: Plickers stands for paper clickers. You can ask multiple choice questions and have students choose an answer by holding up a sheet of paper. With just a scan of your smartphone you can see which students got the answer correct.
- Use Exit Tickets: Just a simple quick question as the lesson is ending will give you plenty of data on a child.
Disney looks at the data before they create movies. This ensures that they produce movies that are successful and people will love. Data drives their business and they have been extremely successful. Data can drive our business of education as well. Using data to drive our instruction will ensure our students’ success.
