Anna Perrin

Instructional Repertoire Project

Evaluation Plan
For my Instructional Repertoire Project, I will be implementing a technology lesson using the
online graphing utility Desmos with the purpose of engaging my students in persevering through
the unknown and making predictions, a skill often out of their comfort zone due to a fear of
failure. In order to acclimate my students to being willing to take these risks, these predictions
will occur privately on their own iPads. Rather than sharing these publically where there is risk
of scrutiny, the Desmos app shows the students three anonymous predictions from their peers
once they have submitted their own. As such, I will not be able to reliably analyze their risktaking purely by walking around the room and looking at their work, as this allows me only to
evaluate a few students at a given time. According to the University of Michigan Center for
Research on Learning and Teaching1, Because there are many dimensions to pedagogical
work, it is best to use multiple measures involving multiple sources of data to evaluate the range
of instructional activities. These activities include instructional delivery, assessment of student
progress, and classroom management. In this paper, I will discuss three methods which I will
employ to evaluate my teaching and student engagement in risk-taking and perseverance
through challenges.

The first mode of evaluation which I will employ is video. This mode has several advantages
and several limitations. Of the advantages, I will be able to monitor student focus on the task
and answer several questions: Are they working independently and overcoming obstacles on
their own? Do they seem focused on the work or are they becoming distracted with
conversations, their books, or other work? Am I focusing my attentions on specific students who
require more assistance, or am I able to spend my time monitoring and selecting responses to
1
Methods of Evaluating Teaching. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/resources/evaluation-teaching/methods

Anna Perrin
Instructional Repertoire Project
Evaluation Plan
share during the discussion? I will create a record of this information with a seating diagram of
the portion of the classroom visible in the video (the majority of the room) with tallies of these
occurrences (quantitative data) and any notes I may have (qualitative data). Creating a written
record will simplify the analysis process because I will not need to be searching the video for
desired data during my analysis.

A limitation of video-recording is that I will not be able to use it to specifically observe their work
at any point in time except for during the launch and discussion. As a result, I will not be able to
use the video to examine the predictions my students are making; however, I may be able to
identify their demeanor at certain points in time which may provide indicators to their disposition
toward being asked to do something which is uncomfortable or challenging for many of them.
This information could help me to understand which students are less confident with the
material and the skills required. Another limitation of video-recording is that my laptop will be
located at a fixed location in the room where it can see me at the board. This means that I will
not be able to see every student or myself at all points in time, though I will try to maximize both
of these in order to make my data more reliable.

The second mode of evaluation that I will use to assess student engagement in the task, and
specifically in making predictions, is student work. The Desmos program is specifically built to
facilitate the collection of data from student work. As students progress through the tasks, realtime information is sent from their iPads to my laptop, and I can monitor each attempt they
make, as they modify their equations, watch the graph change, and attempt to collect stars. Not
only can I use this during the lesson to select and sequence responses to share during the
discussion, but I can also continue to access their work after the lesson takes place. From this, I

Anna Perrin
Instructional Repertoire Project
Evaluation Plan
can examine where students were more or less successful, both as a class and individually in
order to adapt my planning for future lessons.

A sample view of student work in the task2. This screen shows how many stars each student has collected on
Challenge Slide #1. From this screen, I can select a students work and test their equation from the student view. I
can also use this utility to project strategies which were particularly unique for the class to examine.

My focus in analyzing student work will be their predictions and the language they used. I am
especially interested to see if students return to revise their predictions after they have been
shown their classmates predictions or after they have had the opportunity to test their theory on
the following slide. As students work and I monitor, I will be asking Which students gave advice
that could be followed exactly, and which gave advice that used vague language? Which
students made predictions that were specific and testable, and which made more general
predictions? I will also examine if students found words or symbols to be more helpful in
producing precise responses. This information will be particularly useful in planning how to

2
Desmos. Marbleslides: Lines. Retrieved from https://teacher.desmos.com/marbleslides-lines

Anna Perrin
Instructional Repertoire Project
Evaluation Plan
develop student skills with using precise mathematical language, particularly in predictions, in
the future.

The program does allow students to move forward before completing a slide, which will allow
them to experiment and test before they make a prediction, which I view as a flaw and
something I will be actively looking for while students are working. My hope is that students will
be motivated by the incorporation of technology to make their predictions without cheating in
this way, and how students engage with this possibility will be one of the most significant pieces
of data I will obtain during this lesson.

This is one of the slides where students are asked to analyze the information given and explain a strategy that they
predict would modify the graph and allow them to collect the stars. On the next screen, they are given the opportunity
to test their strategy. Similar slides ask students to predict how a graph would change if a single quantity in their
equation were to be changed.

Anna Perrin
Instructional Repertoire Project
Evaluation Plan
My final primary source of evidence will be the notes that I take during the lesson. This data will
be qualitative, but it provides me with a resource that reflects my thought process and
observations during the lesson. Although I will be able to retrieve much of this after the fact from
the video recording, my thoughts in the moment cannot necessarily be reproduced after the fact,
making them invaluable in my analysis. More than just a record of my observations, these notes
will also serve as a way for me to assess my reactions in the moment compared with my
reactions while watching the video, when I am removed from the situation and thus may have
less bias or a better view of the big picture. This data source is limited in that it is only what I am
able to record while teaching the lesson, while I will also be supporting students as they work,
and immediately afterwards, before teaching my next class.

I expect to implement this lesson on February 17. That day, I will be gathering data from three
sources: video, student work, and my own notes. These forms of data balance each others
strengths and limitations, providing me with a diverse and balanced depiction of student
engagement in the task. This will support in turn a balanced analysis and enable me to best
plan for continued student growth. My hope is that the incorporation of technology will
encourage my students to engage in the task and overcome obstacles, and that my data will
provide me with the knowledge and resources to extend this growth beyond the scope of the
lesson.