How can we better involve students in active reflection of their own learning?

One of the topics I have been thinking about a lot lately is how we can foster an environment that encourages students to be reflective about their own learning? When I was a classroom teacher, I tried various things to encourage my students to both set goals, and then monitor their own progress toward those goals. I did a lot of cooperative learning in my classroom, and also explored variations that encouraged teams to set and monitor group learning goals.

It seems that a lot of the focus on the analysis of assessment data has been focused on teachers and administrators. That’s appropriate, because those audiences obviously need to be able to make meaningful decisions based on the data at hand. Still, I wonder if there are things we could be doing to facilitate conversations between teachers and students, among families, and by students themselves, around a more active reflection of student learning?

I’d like to hear your ideas about what we might do within the current Edusoft or DataDirector systems to encourage this type of thinking on the part of our students. Thoughts?

Helping educators use data analytics

Smart scoring and reporting represents a key area of thinking with regard to what Riverside Publishing sees for the future. “Next generation” systems ultimately must move beyond simply providing access to test data and scores to helping users derive deeper meaning from their information.

Over time, such systems will begin to help users interpret their data. These systems will begin to utilize data mining techniques to highlight patterns in a user’s data. Future systems will push such data to users via dashboard reports, and visualize the data for the user to enable a richer understanding of the information. Over time, such systems will provide recommendations to the user (suggested paths of optimization) based on the reported results. This movement from simple reporting of and access to test results, toward a deeper analysis of assessment data will allow educators to turn information into institutional wisdom. Riverside’s new assessment platform will help educators move from the lower half of the chart below to the upper half – an area of true analytical use of data.

Smart applications, such as the type Riverside envisions for a  “next generation” system, evolve over time to adapt the changing needs of its users. Our ultimate goal is provide educators with an almost ambient technology that quite simply, yet completely, satisfies their data and assessment needs.