Use Last Year's Data to Drive the First Month of School

For some of you this may be a little late, but the start of this school year has been unique, to say the least.  Because of this, there is little time to ease into instruction.  From now to Christmas Break, we need to be operating at a full sprint. With that in mind here are two suggestions that will allow teachers to review and reteach critical concepts while moving forward with this year’s curriculum.

1. Take a look at the related course End of Year Exam or final that the students took last year.  Identify the three or four concepts that the class, as a whole, did the worst on.  Then for the first three to four weeks of the school year, purposefully review, reteach and practice those concepts during the warm-up, every class, every day.  By the end of four weeks, teachers have provided 100 minutes of focused review while teaching a month of this year’s curriculum.  That is a win for everyone: students, teachers, and the school as a whole.

2. Again, take a look at the related course End of Year Exam or final that the students took last year.  Also look at their final grade in the course.  Any student that did not meet the passing standard for the exams or the course, should be referred to tutoring, starting the first week of school.  These are the students at greatest risk of failing this year and we all know that regression over the summer is a given. So, don’t wait.  Provide these students extra support, now.  To wait isn’t being prudent, it actually borders on professional malpractice.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...