Dramatic Academic Growth

Dramatic academic growth refers to students' exceptional growth in knowledge and skills over time. For me, I expect that my students will exhibit growth over the school year. Dramatic growth implies growth that is marked, and above and beyond the expected norms. Measuring growth comes naturally to my students and I, because pushing our limits is what my class is all about. 

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Academic growth can be measured in two ways: quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative growth refers to the measurable amount of growth a student can demonstrate, and qualitative growth is a more holistic approach where teachers note positive improvements in a student's work over time. By tracking both quantitative and qualitative growth, I ensure that I am promoting rigorous learning for students at all levels, and adequately preparing students to be successful in their future college or career pursuits.

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The most encompassing example of quantitative growth available to me are my students' scores on their Iowa Assessments, which they take once in the fall and once in the spring. Data from the Iowa Assessments helps me pinpoint class-wide deficits in specific ELA skills, as well as track individual students to ensure that my teaching strategies have been effective. This means that the data functions not only as a tracking method for growth, but also as a goal-setting tool that actually drives growth. These assessments return a variety of data that I also compare to national averages to determine how my students measure up to students nationwide, as well as performance band indicators that I use to ensure that my students are performing at or above grade level. They establish grade level equivalent markers for each student that allows me to measure growth with exactitude in terms of months and years.

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In terms of qualitative growth, I organically note student progress through the course of our classroom activities and assignments. However, I take particular care to note qualitative growth in my students' writing because it not a heavy focus of their standardized achievement test, and has fallen to the wayside overall in my school's curriculum. A formal research paper that my students attempt in the fall, and complete in the spring for exam credit, is one method through which I teach writing, target growth goals for individual students, and track the success of these goals until year's end. By creating similar writing tasks, and using the same rubric to score student submissions, I can discuss my students' progress with them and their families in detail, and estimate preparedness for high school level writing - a crucial time for students to continue developing their writing abilities for college level work, and for career settings.

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Click on the photos below to see how we analyze quantitative and qualitative growth in my classroom.