Ms Steel Maths

I love a good spreadsheet and a bit of data analysis so started using them with students to help with reflections. There’s an update here

I’ve seen a few spreadsheets looking at analysis of mock exams and have done a few in the past but mostly they looked like a lot of work for the teacher for minimal student impact. This year I’ve been trying out new versions that the students fill in themselves. I mark the questions with just the number of marks and minimal comments. Then in lesson we have the laptops and each student downloads a copy of the spreadsheet from the VLE. They fill in the marks for each question and everything else automatically updates.

Once the marks are in and they can see how they’ve done they can look at the questions they’ve lost marks on. There’s some examiners feedback, ok it’s really just me. The first time it took some persuading to get students to look at this before asking me but it helped a lot when a particularly loud student said “Oh yeah that’s actually really helpful”. The first time I did it I made a reflections sheet it was pretty and worked well but the students didn’t like having to write when they could be typing. This time I’ve got a reflection sheet for them to fill in on the spreadsheet.

When they send it back I collate everything together into a teachers spreadsheet so I can look for patterns across the classes. After the exams I’m planning on spending some time looking at how I can use all this information in redesigning what we teach.

The system isn’t perfect but so far the other teachers and students quite like it. If you’d like a copy email me Ms.Steel.13@googlemail.com and I’ll send you the current version. I’m constantly tinkering with things and I’m sure you will to. I’d love to hear about any changes or ideas.