549 Week #5

This past class was the most confusing so far. Since the class I have been able to sort through some of my notes and seem to have a better handle on things. I am still a little confused about transferring the T scores and T area scores onto the normal curve. My understanding is that the T area is what you calculate using the the Distribution of t Chart. If this s not the case let me know as I am mistaken. If it helps the Z scores make much more sense to me then the T scores. Anyway, other then that most of what we are doing seems to make sense. The null and alternative hypothesis idea makes some sense now. The Null Hypothesis will always include an = sign when comparing two sets of data. The Alternative Hypothesis states that 1 group will be greater then the other. Finally, just a clarification on Directional verses Non Directional. In Directional you would use 1 Tail Test and are comparing 1 groups superiority over another. With Non Directional you would use a 2 Tailed Test and you be comparing weather or not two groups are equal or not.
On a different note I am getting ready to begin my Action Research as I received IRB approval. I am trying to keep in mind what type of statistics I will use once my data collection is complete.

549 Week #4

I finished completing the Standard Test Analysis assignment and want to make a few comments. First, I choose to research Cedarburgs WKCE scores. I was pleasantly surprised to see how high our districts WKCE scores were. I know that I teach in a very good district but it was reassuring when I saw how high the scores were. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how high Port Washington scores were as well. We recently bought a home in Port Washington and as a home owner it is reassuring to see such high scores for Port Washington as well. I know better then to judge a district based simply on its WKCE score but it was again reassuring. One of the things we have been using at CHS is MAPs testing. I think MAPS stands for Measure of Academic Progress (although I am not positive). Our students are tested in the fall and again in the spring. One of the interesting things about MAPS tests is it give us a measure of how much the student should improve from spring to fall based on their fall scores. It is also helpful in knowing about where the students should be preforming academically in the classroom. Finally, as a special education teacher MAPS scores are nice to occasionally bring to IEP meetings to use in conjunction with Standardized Tests like the Woodcock Johnson.

549 Week #3

So far much to my surprise I am enjoying the class. It has been a long time since I have had a math class but I am finding it a much better experience then I remembered. I like the fact that I am seeing a practical application for the class in terms of writing my action research paper. Oh, on a side note I am hung up in Full IRB so I am still awaiting the go ahead to begin collecting my data. However, like I said before I am enjoying the practical application of the class. Being a special education teacher I have sat in on countless IEP meetings and explained to parents how to interpret the results of different standardized test scores. I have always relied on my cheat sheets to explain the information and results to the parents. This last week when we started discussing Z scores and standard Deviations many of the things I used to explain made much more sense to me as I now understand how the scores are generated. This will greatly help me in interpreting future standardized test results. Just a question to make sure I understand the Skew concept. When there is a negative Skew that means that the majority of the data falls above the median. Following the reverse then when there is a positive Skew majority of the data falls below the median. Just double checking this concept.

549 Week #2

This past class was a good class for me. However, I must admit that I had trouble paying attention for some of the lecture. It was not that the material was not relevant or interesting, it is just that it makes for a long day to teach for 6 hours and then pay attention for another 4 hours. Anyway, I thought the explanation of finding standard deviation was well done. I particularly enjoyed having the time to plug in numbers on Excel. I found this very helpful and useful. Also, I was amazed at just what a powerful tool excel can be when used properly. To build off the Excel theme we worked in our group on Tuesday and noticed that there were some slight differences between Excel on the PC and Excel on the Mac. However, we worked together and worked out some of the differences. We also decided as a group to put our descriptive project on a google docs. We played around with Excel in google docs and we were able to get it to do what we wanted. Hopefully we will continue to have good luck with Excel in google docs. As for the upcoming benchmark we reviewed the sheet given to us at the end of class and we all are comfortable with the information on the sheet. Like I said earlier I felt the information presented was relevant and I am looking foreword to getting my own data and computing it for my project.

549 Week #1

This will be my first blog for 549. I wanted to talk just for a moment about CEDU 520. Everything is in now for that class and I am awaiting my IRB approval. Hopefully my current class 549 will assist me in interrupting the data I collect and also assist me in writing the data I collect in the correct format. I am a little apprehensive about being able to write and interpret the data that I collect. However, I am hopefully that this class will prepare for that. After completing our first session of 549 I am feeling better about statistics. I am one of those people who did not like math. It is not that math is beyond me but I was always the person in my college classes who would work too fast or miss a step and wind up getting the entire problem incorrect. So I am optimistic that my 549 class will be a much better experience. After the first session I felt that we moved at a perfect pace for me to grasp the concepts. The concept that I had he most trouble with prior to this class was differentiating between mean and medium. Now I know medium is the middle of all the data collected and mean is the average of all the data collected. Seems simple enough but I always used to mix the two concepts up in my head.