Using the PAT reading data to find interventions

After our PLD with literacy expert Mele Suipi-Latu, I set about applying our discussions to my inquiry on finding data that related to the learning needs of my year 9 Social Studies class.  

On the NZCER PAT site I found my class and found the item report on the test questions that were assigned different text types. 

I then noticed that 3 of the text types were relevant to Social Studies:

• Explanation (Questions 7 - 10)
  
• Report (Questions 21 - 25)
  
• Persuasive (Questions 37 - 42)

I then had a look at a few of the questions and found that for each question, the report showed for each question, what each student had selected.  The interesting thing was that it showed it highlighted certain students this way: 

The key showed that based on student's overall result

• has high expectancy to correctly answer this question
  
• was not expected to correctly answer this question
  
• was not expected to incorrectly answer this question
  

Then I noticed that out of the 3 text types, persuasive language had the lowest percentage of questions correctly answered.

Why persuasive writing and language is important in social studies:

This text type can be incorporated into the talanoa as a debate topic and current issues when you have to argue why your perspective should be believed.  

Politicians use persuasive writing and language, advertisers and media people.

On closer examination of the questions, I found that question 38 ‘what is the main reason…’ only 21.4% of students got it right, question 40 only 17.9% could answer ‘according to the author, why…’, question 41, what is the main argument the author is trying to make only 21.4% got it right and question 42 ‘Which statement makes the strongest attempt to appeal to the reader's emotions?, 32.1% got it correct.

The last column above compares us to the national norm and it highlights which question in particular students struggled with.

What’s next?

Discuss the steps more purposefully with my department.

At the bottom of the report, I clicked on ‘more resources’.

Looking at the Recycling is Essential (level 5)

Understanding STAR and PAT data PLD

One of our school goals is to raise student reading and writing literacy levels in our junior school by the time they get to the end of year 10.  As a department, we have developed some good strategies to engage students in their learning but on reflection, we identified the need to find more effective ways to support our junior students better.  

One of the aspects that we use to know our learners is data.  Students are tested at the start of the year and again at the end and between both tests, we try our best to shift student achievement.  But just knowing the results of their tests is not enough as it limits the depth of the support that we could offer to each student who have different learning needs.  To understand how to interpret the data better and use if more effectively, I asked Mele Suipi-Latu if she could take my department through some PLD to share her learnings and research with us in order to better understand what data is important to know, what it means and how to create some actionable steps.

Below is the recording of our PLD and the powerpoint used for the presentation.

As a department we will sit down with the data and brainstorm ways we can utilise it better in our planning for teaching.  Our goal is to ensure we design differentiated tasks to suit the learners but also challenge them to shift in their achievement.  Watch this space!