We are in the first week of classes for the 2009-2010 school year.  I crack up when I hear it referred to as the “o’nine, o’ten” school year… Mike and I have a functioning beta version of our EOS software that I have been testing in my room over these first few days. I am convinced more than ever the about the power this system will have to revolutionize classroom effectiveness.  For example, in my Intro Algebra class yesterday, I gave a simple single-digit addition worksheet for my refugee students as bell work.  It is the kind of assignment my 6-year old daughter can do perfectly.

If you are a math teacher, you can imagine what would normally happen next… If I was to actually grade by hand 120 papers with 12 questions each, it would take 30 minutes of labor plus 10-15 more minutes to enter it into the grade book. Then if I still had time or energy, I could analyze the results and take action. More likely, I’d throw it away… or perhaps I’d walk around and assign a -, check or + based on completeness & showing work.  It very likely would be that I wouldn’t find out if I had a student with serious deficits until I gave my first fully graded quiz in a week or two.

What happened instead was while I was planning next week’s activities; my computer was grading the papers. In a blink, I knew that I had 6 out of 120 students with some kind of problem. I can now immediately spending my time and effort intervening and finding solutions for these 6. That is classroom effectiveness!

Mike Barre and I are working on software to help educators Create! Assess! Analyze! Adapt!