Chapter 6

Finding Your Findings: Data Analysis

This chapter is all about how to analyze your data. I have to admit that I am
usually pretty good about gathering evidence, but Im not really sure about what to do
with it.
A large portion of the chapter was devoted to formative data analysis. It gave
several examples of what elementary school teachers do, which is somewhat off-putting
for me. It did talk about analyzing date as you are collecting it, though. This is
something I think most of us do naturally, but not intentionally. We tend to tweak things
as we are going through the day, repeating the lessons we just taught, so the students at
the end of the day get a slightly different (often better) version of the lesson. However,
we dont often think about why things are occurring the way they are or analyze specific
students or behavior as we are teaching.
The next section dealt with summative data analysis. I found this to be the most
interesting portion of the chapter. The authors used the analogy of putting together a
puzzle where there is no picture for reference, plus there are extra pieces and several
pieces are still at the store. You will have to return there once you find out you are
missing pieces. It discussed rearranging your data set (puzzle pieces) and classifying it
into different groupings until you are able to get the information you want. This would
be similar to regrouping puzzle pieces by color or function. They suggested that it is
important to let the data speak for itself and resist trying to force it into your own
prejudiced groupings.
One thing the chapter suggested, which should be obvious but wasnt to me, is to
make sure you write up your findings and discuss it with colleagues. I believe this class
could be a natural way to do this. However, I am not sure if any of us have the time this
semester.