Online Graphing Tools

In this assignment I looked at the scores of the national assessment compared them to the West Virginia assessment scores on the NAEP website.  My focus was in math and I found that the scores were lower than what I had imagined maybe this was due to the fact that they are averages and not base on what hear about test scores from teachers that I know.  This assignment actually kind of opened my eyes when it came to these averages. I feel that West Virginia is doing fairly well with what we are given; however there is always room for improvement.  After looking at the scores I compiled them into a line graph using Kids Zone. This is a neat tool to use because it allows one to look at information in a more visual way. The down side to this is like the assignment that we were given, if the settings are changed one can make data look good, bad, or even unrealistic.I am not a big fan of changing data to make it look like something else. We need to realize mistakes that the data shows and fix it accordingly. Although, in this assignment I had to do just that, manipulate the graph, to get the results that I needed. This process was simple and was all about changing the min and max so that the either resembled a close margin or a big jump. My results for the assignment are shown in the following links:

Trouble Among The Hills
A Future For West Virginia Students
In Trouble Among The Hills I made the min and max closer together to reveal a jump in the graph and make it appear that the averages were vary different when in reality they were only 6 points away in 2009. Then in AFuture For West Virginia Students I had to increase the min and max to make sure that averages were close together for better assessment results.

Teachers could use this activity with Standard 1 Function 1E Student Assessment. The assessment scores compared to other scores can guide the teacher and student for future learning capabilities and results. It can also be used for the assessment of a teachers own personal teaching style. This approach can be found in Standard 3 Function 3E. Assessments scores and charts can allow one to evaluate their own teachings and learn abilities inside and outside of the classroom.