Student Profile: All-in-One Dynamic Dashboard for Academic Data

Unifying Academic Insights: The All-in-One Dashboard Approach

As educators, our understanding of students’ academic performance is paramount. Yet, in the realm of elementary education where we teach a multitude of subjects, tracking each student’s progress comprehensively can be a daunting task. From daily check-ins to formal assessments, the data comes in many forms, demanding a unified approach.

Simplifying Assessment Management: Building a Complete Picture of Student Progress

Apart from our regular check-ins, we also have bigger tests that count a lot toward understanding how students are doing. These tests cover various subjects and can include things like final essays, big social studies projects, math tests, and detailed reading assessments. We also keep track of outside tests like reading records or standardized tests such as MAP or Aims Web. With classes of around 20 to 30 students, keeping track of all this can be overwhelming. That’s why having a good way to record and organize this information is important for talking to parents and reporting on how students are doing.

At our elementary school, we realized we needed a better way to handle all this information. We started by focusing on collecting smaller, day-to-day assessment data. But we didn’t have a good way to put it all together with the bigger tests. So, we decided to combine everything into one big spreadsheet.

Setting up this spreadsheet might sound scary, but if you plan it out, it’s not so bad. The trick is to make sure it can collect data automatically using special formulas. We began with each teacher having their own sheet, and then we put everything together in one main sheet. Using simple formulas like ‘query’ and ‘vlookup’, we made sure that when we updated our roster, all the other information would update too. These simple steps might seem obvious, but they really helped us keep everything organized and accurate.

Color coding the spreadsheet was also helpful for teachers to know where to input data. In this example, columns in blue are coming from the Roster tab. Columns in orange are where teachers directly enter data. Columns in gray are calculated fields that convert letters and words, otherwise known as strings, to numbers. Setting this up in the spreadsheet is helpful for calculating qualitative data. The purple columns are imported external data sets.

Streamlining Data Interpretation: Transitioning to Visual Insights

While spreadsheets are handy for gathering data in one place, many teachers find it cumbersome to sift through rows and columns of numbers to understand their students’ progress. Recognizing this, we sought a more visual approach.

When embarking on any visualization project at our school, I engage in discussions with teachers and administrators to identify our exact needs. Having data is one thing, but making it understandable and usable is a different ballgame. For this initiative, I started by gathering thoughts and ideas from fellow teachers, and sketching out potential solutions. These sketches were then shared and refined based on feedback before transitioning to a digital format.

Opting for Looker Studio was a natural choice due to its accessibility and compatibility within our secure school domain. We imported our data into Looker Studio and began crafting student profiles, addressing critical questions like where students are struggling, where they excel, and their overall growth compared to peers. By answering these questions, we aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of student progress, ensuring alignment with both internal and external assessments.

For math units, we measure growth with percentages. We can also compare to the overall grade level averages. For writing, we use a rubric. We expect students to grow one grade level or 1.0 on the scale we use. Therefore, when measuring student growth for writing, we do not use percentages but rather points for growth. Similarly, we can measure growth by comparing pre and post-assessments for a unit. We also made sure to have the average scores and average growth for the grade level to provide some baseline data.

For reading assessments, we use the Columbia Teacher’s College Reading Workshop reading levels. Depending on the grade level the expected growth is different. We use the recommended levels of growth chart to represent whether a student is considered to be Concern, Progressing, or Secure. If a student shows more than one grade level above the end-of-year level, they are considered Above. Finally, we add in the information for external assessments.

The reason I prefer to use dashboards for these types of exploratory data is to allow teachers the ability to choose what they want to see when they want to see it. In the case of the student profile, a teacher can choose any student’s data to look at at any time. Whenever new assessment information is added to the spreadsheet, the dashboard will update automatically. Through the use of filters, students can be selected. In addition, if working with multiple classes, teachers can be selected to narrow down the choice of students. Other filters could be set up, for example, if you wanted to see information for only the first semester or first quarter of the school year.

If you are curious about how all this works, download the student profile data set and the student profile template. It will look a bit messy at first, so feel free to watch a demo video I did for the #GEGUK Google Innovator group. If you would like help setting up a specific project for your school or organization, please feel free to contact me.