Jennifer Foster, Bethel Elementary School: First-graders Impacting Achievement Through Data

Within the last two years, I have seen six year olds’ struggles with understanding the importance of their learning turn to successes as they have become accountable for their own learning. My students, being engaged in their own learning process, have become motivated and successful learners. They actively track their own data, both academically and behaviorally, on a daily and/or weekly basis. Tracking everything from spelling test scores to daily behavior, data becomes ingrained into my first graders’ “sponge-like” minds. Two types of data tracking that I have found to be most beneficial and impactful to my students are weekly Essential Facts quizzes and daily behavior using “Elmer’s Expectations.”

Essential Facts are vocabulary words and their definitions written as standards-based statements in developmentally appropriate terms. Through a random sampling process, Essential Facts are used to review and preview student knowledge and understanding of all or most content areas. I allow 30 minutes of our weekly schedule to complete devotion of assessing and tracking Essential Facts. Reading one at a time, I choose five Essential Fact definitions to read aloud. The students write the terms from the word bank in the corresponding blanks labeled 1-5. Having a color-coded word bank allows the children to ask, “What is the yellow word” from their seats instead of getting up to point to a word from the list on the promethean board. We do this process twice (language arts and math) weekly. After 10 answers (5 for math and 5 for LA) are written on each student’s paper, we review the Essential Facts that were quizzed on that day and check our answers. Each child writes his/her scores on his/her quiz. The students then record their data individually on two separate bar graphs in their data notebooks on the appropriate bar graph. The class as a whole then adds up the classes’ scores for both subjects and records the data on a line graph within our class data station. We celebrate our “all time bests,” and we challenge one another to “beat” even the highest scores. By seeing the “all time bests,” we know what number we have to exceed the following week.

The next and most beneficial data tracking system that I implement daily in my classroom is called “Elmer’s Expectations”. The name originates from Elmer the Elephant, a fictional character in children’s literature. In Elmer’s stories, he enjoys being very colorful like patchwork. Students have a behavior graph representing Elmer’s body which is divided into numbered squares corresponding to days in the month. At the end of each day, the students color the square from that day any color that they please if their behavior card is still on green. If their card is not on green, he/she receives a “dot” corresponding to the color card that he/she flipped to on that day. On that dot, I place an insect sticker symbolizing the reason for the flipped card. If a child was talking too much, I place a “bee” for buzzing on that dot. If a child was “fluttering” around the room instead of working, I place a “butterfly” on the dot for that day. (Thank you to Greenbrier Elementary for that idea). At the end of each month, after all of Elmer’s squares are colored, we add up how many days each student remained on “green,” representing “Elmer Earnings.” The students practice spending their earnings at our class store (AKA: Elmer’s Trunk).

Statements such as “Yes, I scored five for the first time ever!” or “I got a yellow card two times this month for buzzing” translate into my students are taking ownership in their learning as well as their behavior. I have seen the impact that these two data tracking systems have had helping six year olds understand the purposes, challenges and successes of learning and assessment, which sets the stage for future employment and adult life. Keeping track of their own data motivates students to challenge themselves to constantly be the best that they can be!

For more information on these ideas and other Quality tools and strategies in her first-grade classroom, please contact Jennifer Foster at Bethel Elementary School.