[Assessment 735] Re: Using Data for Program ImprovementCondelli, Larry LCondelli at air.orgTue Apr 17 17:30:33 EDT 2007
Hi Ella, Disaggregating by class can be very effective to understanding of what is going on. I wanted to comment on your last remark about tracking consistency of attendance. Attendance and persistence are a very popular topics these days and most data systems allow for tracking of student attendance and persistence patterns. One thing you might consider looking at learners who "stop out" -- have sporadic attendance patterns, attending for a while and coming back later. Another measure is the percent of time possible that learners attend. You compute this by dividing the attended hours by total possible (e.g., learner attends 8 hours a week for a class scheduled 10 hours a week=80%). Some research I did on ESL students showed that those who attended a higher proportion of possible time learned more, independent of total hours. I think this is so because this measure reflects student motivation to attend. Identifying and studying "stop out" learners might tell you a lot about why these type of students don't attend more regularly and can inform you of needs, which could help in designing classes and programs for them. ________________________________ From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of EllaBogard at cs.com Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 4:47 PM To: assessment at nifl.gov Subject: [Assessment 732] Re: Using Data for Program Improvement Dear Collegues: Here at Franklinton Learning Center, we use data everyday in our program to help us track and improve the end results coming out of our program. We use enrollment data to check the reach of our program, average hours attended data to check the depth of engagement of students, and numbers of students throught he door versus number completeing enrollment to help us improve retention in the crucial orientation period of classes. We have a program called ABLELink here in Ohio that has made it very easy to track some areas. It has also allowedus to compare statistics from one year to another so we know how we are doing in comparison to previous years. By tracking information collected on attendance, educational gain, hours of engagement and accomplishments, we have been able to improve all of these efforts. Tracking and constantly checking this data is what has made it possible to improve. We can easily pull up reports on testing, who has tested, progress made, who hasn't tested, attendance, etc. We can organize that information by class, by teacher, by program, or by site, which allows us to compare effectiveness of programs and staff and assign responsibility for improvement where needed. I would like to be able to track consistency of attendance over time not just total hours attended. I think this might give a better picture of the progress to be expected than the total time attended does. I would also like to understand more about how I can use all of the ABLELink data collected to improve my programs overall effectiveness. Respectfully submitted by, Ella Bogard Ella Bogard, Executive Director Franklinton Learning Center 1003 West Town Street Columbus, Ohio 43222-1438 Phone: (614) 221-9151 Fax: (614) 221-9131 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/assessment/attachments/20070417/4ec82f3f/attachment.html
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