I Am The Queen Of Data Analysis
Apr. 23rd, 2004 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaHee hee . . . RPG Office Supplies
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In other news:
Today we had to turn in our calculator sets. There are math tests all three testing days: Exit Level (11th grade) on Tuesday, 10th grade on Wednesday, and 9th grade on Thursday. In all three cases, every student is required to have a graphing calculator for the test. Moreover, the memories of those calculators must be completely cleared before testing starts.
Fortunately, TI makes a handy little program by the name of TestGard, which will clear the memory of a calculator with a single keystroke and even removes the stubborn game applications that the kids add that can't be removed by a manual memory reset. So today after school, every math teacher had to turn in their own calculator set and then help clear the extra school sets.
Now, I had cleared my set yesterday before leaving, since today was a short day (classes ended at 10:45 am) and we weren't going to be using them. I was dreading going up there and finding that no one had done this simple-but-obvious step - and it being assumed by my specialist that I hadn't either. I was somewhat pleasantly surprised - about a third of us had gotten their acts together enough to clear their sets ahead of time. On the other hand, about a third not only hadn't done so, they hadn't even freshened the ID markings on their calculators like RR asked them to do two weeks ago. *sigh* At least I didn't have an "everyone here is incompetent" moment.
I had 5 clear sets (counting mine) in the time it took several of my colleagues to get their own set cleared. I will choose to see this as an example of my l33t calculator skillz rather than as slowness on their part. :)
By the time we got everyone finished, it was too late for me to catch the 11:15 bus, so I hung around and made sure all the cleared calcs were stored away before I left. This had me going down the south-central staircase just in time to see Mrs. G heading back to her office. I had meant to ask her whether she or Mrs. HR is my end-year assessor this year, so I asked her; she couldn't remember either, but she said she'd look it up first thing on Monday if I would remember to e-mail her about it. I said I'd try to remember to e-mail her (I probably will) and started to head back to my room.
She stopped me and said she had something she wanted to ask me about.
I tried to think of anyone I'd managed to piss off in the last couple of weeks and couldn't think of anyone.
She gave me the "big friendly grin" and said that I didn't need to make up my mind about what she was going to tell me right away, that if I needed the weekend or even a little longer to think about it, that she would be fine with that.
Okay, get to the point already . . .
She said the school was putting together a team to look at school-wide data - everything from dropout numbers and patterns through TAKS scores to AP enrollment - and that she'd found a couple of people who would serve as the people-people, communicating the analyses to the people who create and implement policy, but that she needed someone who could actually dig into the numbers themselves, and would I be interested -
I interrupted her and said I'd gladly do it.
She was a little startled that I'd made the decision so fast, I think. She started to repeat herself, and I told her "You have your big-picture people already, and you need a details person who can crunch numbers and interpret data. I'll be more than happy." She seemed pleased that I understood, and told me that she'd asked the specialists and department heads for some recommendations for her number-cruncher for the team - and that my name had come up over and over.
Well, I am the AP Stats teacher, after all. I'm probably the only person in the building - with the possible exception of a few of the science teachers - who knows what a chi-square test is. Honestly, I'd have been a little miffed if my name hadn't come up - but the ego-boost is nice, al the same. :)
Now, I don't know what the mission of the team is yet. It may just be to find numerical justification for decisions that have already been made, and if so I'll be their gadfly all the way. But I tend to think Mrs. G's motives are pure even if her methods tend to suck. This might - might - mean that I may actually get to head off some stupidity at the pass. Who knows? - maybe even draw some attention to our problem areas in ways that have validity just above and beyond my (or her) opinion.
Makes me wanna quote Weird Al:
--
In other news:
Today we had to turn in our calculator sets. There are math tests all three testing days: Exit Level (11th grade) on Tuesday, 10th grade on Wednesday, and 9th grade on Thursday. In all three cases, every student is required to have a graphing calculator for the test. Moreover, the memories of those calculators must be completely cleared before testing starts.
Fortunately, TI makes a handy little program by the name of TestGard, which will clear the memory of a calculator with a single keystroke and even removes the stubborn game applications that the kids add that can't be removed by a manual memory reset. So today after school, every math teacher had to turn in their own calculator set and then help clear the extra school sets.
Now, I had cleared my set yesterday before leaving, since today was a short day (classes ended at 10:45 am) and we weren't going to be using them. I was dreading going up there and finding that no one had done this simple-but-obvious step - and it being assumed by my specialist that I hadn't either. I was somewhat pleasantly surprised - about a third of us had gotten their acts together enough to clear their sets ahead of time. On the other hand, about a third not only hadn't done so, they hadn't even freshened the ID markings on their calculators like RR asked them to do two weeks ago. *sigh* At least I didn't have an "everyone here is incompetent" moment.
I had 5 clear sets (counting mine) in the time it took several of my colleagues to get their own set cleared. I will choose to see this as an example of my l33t calculator skillz rather than as slowness on their part. :)
By the time we got everyone finished, it was too late for me to catch the 11:15 bus, so I hung around and made sure all the cleared calcs were stored away before I left. This had me going down the south-central staircase just in time to see Mrs. G heading back to her office. I had meant to ask her whether she or Mrs. HR is my end-year assessor this year, so I asked her; she couldn't remember either, but she said she'd look it up first thing on Monday if I would remember to e-mail her about it. I said I'd try to remember to e-mail her (I probably will) and started to head back to my room.
She stopped me and said she had something she wanted to ask me about.
I tried to think of anyone I'd managed to piss off in the last couple of weeks and couldn't think of anyone.
She gave me the "big friendly grin" and said that I didn't need to make up my mind about what she was going to tell me right away, that if I needed the weekend or even a little longer to think about it, that she would be fine with that.
Okay, get to the point already . . .
She said the school was putting together a team to look at school-wide data - everything from dropout numbers and patterns through TAKS scores to AP enrollment - and that she'd found a couple of people who would serve as the people-people, communicating the analyses to the people who create and implement policy, but that she needed someone who could actually dig into the numbers themselves, and would I be interested -
I interrupted her and said I'd gladly do it.
She was a little startled that I'd made the decision so fast, I think. She started to repeat herself, and I told her "You have your big-picture people already, and you need a details person who can crunch numbers and interpret data. I'll be more than happy." She seemed pleased that I understood, and told me that she'd asked the specialists and department heads for some recommendations for her number-cruncher for the team - and that my name had come up over and over.
Well, I am the AP Stats teacher, after all. I'm probably the only person in the building - with the possible exception of a few of the science teachers - who knows what a chi-square test is. Honestly, I'd have been a little miffed if my name hadn't come up - but the ego-boost is nice, al the same. :)
Now, I don't know what the mission of the team is yet. It may just be to find numerical justification for decisions that have already been made, and if so I'll be their gadfly all the way. But I tend to think Mrs. G's motives are pure even if her methods tend to suck. This might - might - mean that I may actually get to head off some stupidity at the pass. Who knows? - maybe even draw some attention to our problem areas in ways that have validity just above and beyond my (or her) opinion.
Makes me wanna quote Weird Al:
Wanna run wit my crew, hah?
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em printed out on my bedsheets
