What data will we collect?
Each day, teachers will answer key questions about their writing instruction to generate more than 75 data points. By asking a series of questions on our survey, which is designed to be adaptive, we will be able to gather an enormous amount of data each day without taking more than 5 minutes of a teacher's time.
Examples of the questions we ask, and associated answer choices, are below:
Which writing skill(s) did students work on during this lesson?
- Spelling
- Grammar activities
- Crafting individual sentences
- Planning
- Writing short response(s) or paragraph(s) that are not part of a longer product
- Writing part or all of a 3-5 paragraph, or equivalent length, product
- Writing part or all of a longer piece of writing (more than 5 paragraphs)
- Revising a piece of writing
- Proofreading a piece of writing
- Creating a digital product
- Learning to type
- None of the above
Who is the primary intended audience for the final product resulting from the writing students did during this lesson?
- The individual student (e.g., private journaling)
- Teacher
- Peers
- School faculty (e.g., administrator, custodian, guidance counselor, other teachers)
- Family members (e.g., parents, guardians, siblings, grandparents)
- Standardized test grader
- External audience (e.g., politician, newspaper, college admissions officer, employer)
Indicate how many minutes students spent on each skill during this lesson.
- 0-10 minutes
- 11-20 minutes
- 21-30 minutes
- 31-40 minutes
- 41-50 minutes
- 51-60 minutes
Identify the primary reason(s) you included this writing skill in your lesson.
- Teacher identified need based on student work
- Coach/administrator guidance
- Part of curriculum
- Test preparation
- Responsive to students' backgrounds and experiences
- Teacher interest/passion
- Student interest/passion
- Assessing student learning
Did students write about content they are studying (e.g., a novel, a time period in history, a science concept)?
- Yes
- No
Which of the following instructional strategies did you use to teach this writing skill?
- Teacher thinking aloud
- Teacher modeling
- Reviewing a rubric or checklist
- Analyzing a teacher-written model piece of writing
- Analyzing a published piece of writing (mentor text)
- Analyzing an exemplary piece of student writing
- Analyzing a piece of writing to identify areas of improvement
- Word choice and/or vocabulary instruction
- Discussion (whole class or small group)
- Students working on a shared piece of writing
- Independent writing
- Setting or reflecting on progress toward goals
What was the primary purpose of the writing students did during this lesson?
- To persuade or make an argument
- To inform, explain, or describe
- To summarize, synthesize, or paraphrase
- To investigate or gather information
- To convey or reflect on personal experience (e.g., journal entries, personal narratives)
- To write creatively (e.g., stories, plays, poems)
Will or did students receive any feedback on the writing during this lesson?
- Yes, individualized feedback from a teacher
- Yes, whole-class feedback from a teacher
- Yes, peer feedback
- Yes, individualized feedback from an online program
- No, not on this piece of writing
Did students do this writing on paper or on a computer?
- Paper
- Computer
- Both paper and computer
What method(s) did you use to assess student writing during this lesson?
- Conferenced with students to assess understanding
- Looked at student work to assess understanding
- Calculated percent correct
- Used a checklist
- Used a rubric based on an external assessment (e.g., state or national exams)
- Used a rubric that is part of a curriculum
- Used a school or district-created rubric
- Used a teacher-created rubric
How will we reflect teachers' data back to them?
Teachers will have a personalized data dashboard that aggregates and summarizes their daily writing instructional practices from across the year. This private dashboard will allow teachers to reflect on their own instructional practices.
In the example dashboard above, the teacher can see which skills they have spent the most time on, as well as how the amount of time devoted to writing instruction has varied over time.
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