Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet

My experience working with this spreadsheet was different then previous experiences working with various spreadsheets.  I think part of it was because I had a specific task I had to accomplish.  Another reason is because I was actually taught various functions to use that made creating the spreadsheet easier.  I've never had any instruction in how to use a spreadsheet so this how time I could have been using functions that make everything a whole lot easier and quicker.  Not to mention it looks pretty good too.  It did take me a bit to get going, but after getting the hang of it, it took no time at all to create this spreadsheet.  Now I can continue to use spreadsheets to keep myself organized without the process taking up so much time...yay!

Based on the data in the chart, the students, on average, did show growth over the last five tests. The growth for each student was fairly steady and consistant (with a couple of exceptions.)  As the year continued, I would expect that these same trends would continue also.  As a result of the score trends, I would, as a classroom teacher, see this growth and be excited about that.  But these students are still below the overall class average.  So I would want to try and get these students more help, maybe have them work with or study with some of the students that are above the overall average, to see if that would help there test scores improve.  I would continue to chart the students and see if any of my new methods helped with growth in test scores.