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The instructional leadership team at Neuqua has made it priority this year to clearly post class objectives for the day in the classroom. This project is still in its infancy, I want to add the ability for teachers to save their goals/messages and upload their own custom frames.

Some staff members use powerpoint, some use the whiteboard/chalkboard. However, I wanted to create a quick tool accessible from our intranet page to simplify the process, and make use of the mounted projectors in some classrooms. Teachers can simply type directly on our splash page and get back a full-framed powerpoint like slide to display at the beginning of class. It beats the heck out of Times New Roman 64pt in a Word document or for that matter Comic Sans. Added bonus, with the collection of this data, we get to see how clear our collective instructional objectives really are!

Thanks to Dr. Lance Fuhrer our AP for curriculum and instruction for his design prowess.

This year we have modified the original academic advisory attendance system I created using increased access to data that fosters self-advocacy among students that enter our building each and everyday.

Our approach is three-fold: communicate via e-mail with parents on a daily basis about their specific students, provide educational leaders in the building the up-to-the minute data necessary to shape the stream of students using academic resource centers, and allow classroom teachers the ability to seamlessly recommend students to an academic advisory center for additional help outside the classroom. These tasks can be difficult without the use of technology.

Academic advisory is an important part of what we do at Neuqua Valley. During student free periods, department specific rooms with subject area teachers are available for students to seek additional assistance with their classes. Through the use of an in-house, custom-built web application, academic advisory teachers scan the barcodes on student id’s, which triggers a series of events to notify parents about their child’s attendance. This email is sent out daily and commends the student for making a good choice to seek additional help.

The collection and subsequent communication of this data point has shown to be powerful in helping students make good choices. Parents have been extremely grateful for the positive communication. In addition, the data provides them the tools and information to partner with the school while encouraging students to seek the help they need.

In addition, building leaders have real-time access to a data dashboard to parse the information and data gathered from student usage of the academic advisory centers. The access includes data that combines student standardized test scores, GPA, usage by time of day and day of week, and the course that a student is seeking help with. This information has proved extremely valuable in targeting smaller groups of students by encouraging them to seek additional help.

Finally, classroom teachers have the opportunity to recommend students to the academic resource centers when they feel a student requires additional help. This event also triggers a series of events that include automated parent communication regarding the teacher’s recommendation, as well as, whether the student has attended as recommended.

Neuqua Valley is a school of 4100 students, custom web applications built specifically to collect and analyze data have been a part of how we educate. Many collection points both traditional in manner and newly created have changed the way we look at data. Data at Neuqua Valley is not just a series of passive collection points about student achievement. Everything we gather enlightens how we teach and informs us about those who we are teaching.  There is that Template Again :(

I have created a few web applications that address some of the common teaching and learning themes prevalent at Neuqua Valley. NVHSclouds is one that came from some discussions with fellow teachers, I built it in a night and we used it shortly thereafter for some staff development as well as in classrooms within Neuqua.

NVHSclouds is simple. Word clouds became really popular last year, so I created a way for teachers to leverage the power and “coolness” factor to a collaborative learning activity. NVHSclouds allows a class to enter words or a statement on a topic or discussion question, the application counts common words to see where the class sentiment lies, and what words are used more than others. It has served as an informal, formative assessment tool and has shaped the path for discussions in quite a few classes. In addition it uses the open interface of WORDLE to create more visually appealing word clouds.

I really need to switch up the HTML template I am using for many of these projects. 

This is the Neuqua Early Warning System. It allows administrators, department chairs, and teachers the ability to view research-based indicators of high school success in 8th graders. From a series of data points, a “40” score is developed. This composite score allows us to the chance to intervene in a students path before they reach official RTI status. The data is fluid, as we hope to continue to update quarterly points of reference. This will show growth and give us the opportunity to see a possible speed bump before it flattens our tires.