An automated system for tracking student progress using Google

Although not necessarily entirely involved in the conversations regarding homework at either Division meeting, I appreciate the focus and thoughtfulness put forth in thinking about the type, length, purpose, and outcomes of the work we want students to complete for class. To spoil the rest of my blog post, I am not going to go into great detail about what I think about homework, but I do wish to put in a word about the overall mechanisms for how we assess student success.

To me those mechanisms need to include process, product, and progress. The first two are common in most classrooms. The degree to which and how they are measured lend themselves to much debate, but it is the third, progress, that I will focus.

Progress is growth. At the beginning of the year I would explain to my eighth graders one overarching goal: to grow as writers. Little did they know that to do this requires insight and practice in six complex facets of writing that only become more complex the greater writing ability you gain, especially if you are like Julie Ball, and you earn your poetic license, which in math terms must equal something similar to an imagery number. I landed upon this singular concept when I was thinking about what I really wanted my students to take away from my class - a desire to learn beyond the classroom, a budding knowledge of what makes good writing, moments where they thought school might actually be okay - and how could I fit these into one or two course goals? Growth.

Keep in mind this is an eighth grade class; I did not need to remedy an AP exam or exposure to a certain number of concepts or any other end of the year force that prompted me to have covered a certain percentage of criteria. So, what I wanted was real growth. Growth where students would have a reliable expectation and a self-knowledge regarding what they knew about writing. Of course, even this is ideal because I have seen students in my tech office who still do not remember/recall many of the things I thought for sure they had taken away from the course. Additionally, with growth comes the necessity to measure and reflect on growth. First, how do I as the teacher know that the student is making progress? And second, how does the student know that he or she is making progress? In the past this used to require mounds of paper and binders, not to mention the time needed to categorize and sort notes then align them with the student work.

Enter technology. It is a beautiful thing when classroom processes can be automated, and what I am sharing with you today is something, that although in its current form is best suited for an English classroom, truly has remarkable capabilities. I present the Writer's Conference Tracking Form - a system that automates, categorizes and shares notes, tracks conference content, and tracks the number of student-teacher conferences you have had with each student. See below for a better break down. (I have also included a video for those who prefer the audio/visual method.)

Writer's Conference Tracking Form's Capabilities

1. As you conference with a student, you take notes in a pre-created form that tracks specific criteria you hope to track for your semester or year long course - think of the elements that you really want your students to walk away from your course knowing.
   
2. After you submit the form, the spreadsheet takes the notes from the conference and does several things:
   
1. It combines the notes and associates them with the student. Each successive conference's notes are mapped horizontally, attributed to that same student.
2. It logs the conference notes under the specific conference target area (year-long goals).
3. One of the selections in the form asks whether or not this conference should be a whole-class mini-lesson. A specific sheet tracks whether or not you have presented that particular topic to the class.
4. The last two sheets track how many conferences each student has had, as well as arranging those students who have not conferenced into a column for easy reference.
   
3. Finally, the google script associated with the form looks through your Google Drive to determine if you have a folder labeled "Writing Conference Notes." If it does exist, a Google Doc of the notes is placed in it, the student is added as an editor, and the Doc is removed from your My Drive so that it only exists in the folder, and if the folder does not exist, same process, but the script first creates the "Writing Conference Notes" folder. As an added reminder, a pdf of the Google Doc with the notes on it is emailed to the student.
   
4. Think about the possibilities - many teachers move around the room and guide students through skill-acquisition, inquiry, understanding concepts, etc. It used to be impossible to track that, but imagine with the ease of a bookmarked form, how you will now be able to track the conversations you have with students and have a record of the conversation for both them and you to look back on.

Here is the video:




I hope that you give this some thought because the possibilities really are significant, particularly if you do track progress. Additionally, I would be more than happy to help or guide you through the process of manipulating this system so that it fits your own classroom needs.

To access the template for this system so that you can copy it into your own Drive, go to Marshall School's Drive Template Gallery -- you can access it by clicking here -- search Writer's Conference -- the template for this system will appear. Once you have opened it, you can rename it whatever you would like and then being to modify it / add student names and emails.

Keep up the good work!

Matt