Friday I had my students take our state's only EOC practice test that they have available for Chemistry. You can see the test HERE.
In the few years we have been implementing the chemistry EOC (it began in 2013), I have always found the actual EOC to be much easier than the practice test. Which is a good thing, because my students scores are always depressingly dreadful on the practice test. Their scores end up being okay on the actual EOC.
I really liked how I created a Biology EOC data tracker last semester, so I did the same for chemistry. I had them complete the test on Scantron, and then entered their scores into an excel spread sheet:
Obviously I left the student names out of the screen shot. Each question is color-coded by Unit 1-8. A "0" indicates they answered incorrectly, "1" for a correct answer.
Entering in this manner allows me to not only see the students' raw scores, but also determine their strongest and weakest units:
A group of students raw scores are at the lefthand side of the photo above. The color coding indicates below basic, basic, proficient, or advanced based on the state's criteria of # of questions correct. Yellow indicates the student did not complete the entire practice test. The "curved" is my own curve-- I factored out the questions I felt that I did not sufficiently cover to give the students the ability to answer them correctly. The red text color is for me to see who was still failing. To the right, you can see the students performance by unit. Also, the number of questions that I classified to be from each unit is listed.
Tracking the test in this manner also allows me to see the percent of students who answered each question correctly, so I can see where students are collectively making mistakes:
For example, in the questions shown above, only 13 students or 22% answered question #12 correctly. Question #12 had students predicting the products of the following reaction:
Al + Cl2 -> _____ (I can't seem to get subscripts to work on Blogger)
Almost all of the students chose "AlCl2" as the answer, because that would be a balanced equation. So we revisited ionic compounds and how the subscript tells you how many of each atom you need to cancel the charges.
The breakdown of scores is terrifying. If I wasn't so burned out from this group of students and this semester, I'd be in panic mode. Although I've hit the point where I just can't care anymore.
The results show that only 9 of my students scored in the "advanced" range. 18 scored in the "proficient" range. 26 were in the "basic" range and while 5 were "below basic," only 2 of those 5 actually finished the test.
I have serious concerns that 3 of my students will not pass the EOC. Those 3 students all happen to be minorities, which makes me kick myself even harder. I hate to think that I'm contributing to the "education gap" on paper. Unfortunately, there is pretty much nothing I can do now. These students have struggled ALL year. I've tried to get them to come in for extra help. I've tried to pull them aside, or group them with a peer tutor. I've emailed their parents and coaches. No luck.
The nice thing about data tracking students in this manner is that it allows me to tailor the review material over the past few days. Instead of making my students review EVERYTHING, we go over the most missed questions in class... then they each have their own set of review material they need to complete. In reality, I just make a review packet for each unit and the students need to complete the material for each unit that they scored below 75%.
The test is Thursday. I hopefully will get scores back before the end of the year!
I have enjoyed reading your blog and how modeling has worked out in your classroom. I've had similar experiences. I will continue to hold out hope that I will make this program work for me. :) That said, I am very curious about the eoc data tracking file that you have created and was wondering if you would be willing to share that. Thanks for all that you have created here.
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