Schools are awash in data, but have limited ways to visualize and make sense of it. Here we have a distribution of grades for students on a 1 to 7 scale for Grades 7 through 12. It’s useful information and an excellent baseline for the kinds of data services I can offer.
This type of graph is a Sankey chart, and it shows the flow of students’ grades as a single cohort of students progresses from Grade 6 through 12. Notice how each diagram shows both the distribution of grades for a grade level, and where students moved from one score to another as they moved from one grade to another.
From this Sankey chart, we can see that students who obtain a low score tend to keep that low score, at least for this cohort of students. We can also see that students are less likely to score a 7 in Grade 6 than any other grade. These insights about student performance are obvious when we visualize the data.
Your school may also collect NWEA MAP data or a similar source of external assessment data, but how do those results compare to your internal sources of data? How stable are your results over time?
In the chart above, we can see that there is a near perfect fit with the average RIT score for each grade. This means that as students progress, they are learning, on average, a consistent amount.
I can also compare your external assessment data with your internal grades for students. This can allow you to determine what factors may influence your grades for students or if there are any hidden areas of concern.
Contact me if you want to learn more from your school’s data.