Week 7 & 8 Statistics (combined)

 During week 7, we learned a the basics of statistics. I reviewed a lot of vocabulary previously learned in my statistics course. With the information I learned, I can better understand assessments and grading scales. Here are a few terms that we learned in week 7...

Population- Entire group of people

Sample- group of people who participate in the study

Norming- refers to the process of constructing norms or the typical performance of a group of individuals on achievement. 

Validity- Whether the assessment measures what it is supposed to measure. 

Reliability- whether the results can be reproduced under the same conditions.

Mean- the average of a set of numbers 

Median- The middle number in a set of numbers ranging from lowest to highest.

Mode- The number that appears most often within a set of numbers.

Normal curve- A bell shaped curve that represents a set of data. 

Standard Deviation- A set of data where the distant scores depart from the mean.

During week 8, we put used some of the vocabulary from the previous week to learn new things in excel. We learned how to find the mean, median, and mode just by clicking a few buttons and creating a formula for excel to solve for us. I found this very helpful for creating grade books and assessing student data. It will save me a lot of time by not having to mentally solve the problems. We also learned how to find the standard deviation of a set of numbers just by setting up a formula for excel to read. We used the set of data points to create several different types of graphs. Creating the graphs helped visually see the data set out. 

Week 6 Alignment and Lesson Planning

 During week six, I learned all about lesson planning and aligning the standards to the objectives. As I begin writing my lesson plans, it is important that the standard, objective, and assessment all align. If they do not align, you as the teacher need to make any changes to get them to align. I noticed that if you follow  a lesson plan starting with the standard, then objective, and the the assessment. It is easier to make sure that they all align before you start writing the procedures down.  If your lesson plan is not aligned then you are wasting not only your time but the students time. They are not going to be very confused and they are not going to grasp the information that you want them too. 

After writing my own lesson plan for the first time, I have already learned so much information that I can use in my own classroom. I think whenever I have my own classroom, I will not include so much detail within it. It is important to differentiate your lesson plans and sometimes the only way to do that is during instruction as you notice that changes are needed. Once you make one change to your lesson plan, more than likely, you will have to change the whole thing or a good section of it. This is why I think lesson plans should not be stuffed with procedures and step by steps but rather having just a general idea of what you plan to do with your students.