With the buzz around data in education, the focus has been around teachers, administrators, and data professionals to measure program effectiveness. For years though – I think we are getting it wrong. We should put data in the hands of students so they can measure the effectiveness of their learning.
With my proclivity towards visualizing data, and my Masters Thesis on student self-reflection, I have been using various resources to allow students to dig into their own learning data. I’ve finally landed on my favorite iteration.
I decided to build student data portfolios. A place for students to track their progress and reflect. This isn’t by any means new or revolutionary, but I’ve added in a few of my own wrinkles.
A video by EL Education shows student data portfolios in action : https://eleducation.org/resources/using-data-engaging-students
My first change was to use a visualization engine so kids would make infographics of their learning. There are many good ones out there like piktochart or canva. You can even use a document or spreadsheet editor. I chose visme to use with my eighth grade students students and had them visualize their Unit Progress.
I then decided to use Seesaw as the home to student reflections. If you haven’t seen Seesaw in action, it’s a student-portfolio site where kids have a feed of uploads (which can be photos, files, videos, and more) and parents can watch, like, and comment.
The result has been the creation of a routine by which students take stock of their learning, reflect, make adjustments, and celebrate with their families. Oh, and I also have them post the end results of their performance tasks. It’s ownership of learning using digital mediums more suited for our students.
Disclaimer: The data and graphics used on this site are simulated re-creations intended to protect the privacy of the original data sources.