Athena student academic tracking

noplacehere

There was a meeting of management about academic tracking and this was brought up as something to be looked into for the school apparently. Anyone using it? What is it? What is it like in practise for staff?

Everyone is burnt out at the moment and I’m not sure now is the best time to be giving staff even more work to do

Treppen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058207431/athena-student-academic-tracking

It's in my sister in law's school where she teaches.

Exams end of every month.

All subject department tests must be common, so basically what it ends up is that every teacher must more or less be on same page. From some of her teacher colleagues' perspective, it kills the professional control they have over their class and it's more about getting the course finished. Funny incident... they made a young lad head of their department because nobody else wanted to do it, now he goes around telling teachers with 30+ years experience that they need to move on and start on a different section of the course as planned out by him , that's a funny one to observe in the staffroom.

From management perspective, if a teacher is out then it's easy for the rest of the subject dept. to assign work to a sub or just go in and give handouts/worksheets. So continuity is good.

Testing can be a bit high pressured as it's never relentless, maybe that helps with when they do Christmas and Mocks but personally I wouldn't like my child to be on that treadmill.

Now there's usual reports+data entry for the tracker but I suppose you just try and do both at same time.

I think The tracking aspect takes into account where they should be based on past performance so JC and Christmas Summer tests have higher weighting.

Also I think it uses aptitude test scores which I'm not sure is kosher, as that was not their intended purpose.

Although, in saying that , they had a few exceptionally high IQ students that always performed ok in tests and went under the radar so Athena said they should be doing way better ( common occurrence where exceptionally able students just do the average and go unnoticed).

Can it create a self fulfilling prophecy? Maybe.

Parents like it.

Good for teachers with parents with unrealistic expectations, easy for teacher to say "computer says no, end of conversation". Some parents will never believe a teacher unless they are shown a graph with scary science stuff.So you can make it work for you too.

It's very important to mention covid.

Last 2 years students had inkling of predicted grades so started gaming the algorithm during testing time , I won't say how :) you know yourself. Technically you weren't supposed to use these trackers to predict the grades... but you know yourself.

Also there was practically zero extra school activities taking place, once that kicks back in then it's going to be nuts scheduling tests if there's field trips, matches, assemblies or masses. You could work around that previously as testing was looser and managed by an individual teacher, now it MUST be concurrent.

Same issue has been masking the JC CBAs, once covid is gone, fun and games will begin.

So she says she's in two minds about it, it seems it's here to stay so the teachers are just getting on with it now. But for post covid ... who knows.

noplacehere

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Very interesting to read. We got told nothing about it but asked if we think it’s a good idea so it’s great to hear what it’s like in practise.

TheValeyard

We started using the Cloudschool version of this. I'm wary, if it will be the benefit of students or a whip for management.

sandyxxx

……anyone know what’s the unions stance on this?!

Bobtheman

If they'd ever try this in my school id say no way and let them drag me to the BOM.

If everyone has to give the same test that means you are stuck using the same material?

Classes vary. Weaker. Stronger.

You give into this bullshit you get what you deserve

byhookorbycrook

Dreadful concept . Teaching to the tests and no quarter given to differentiation. Essentially , the failed English tick the box and to hell with the students system.

joebloggs32

It is the daftest thing i have ever heard.

You would constantly be trying to keep up to have the students on point for the next exam.

Where is there time to review and return to topicd your class might need extra support with. As we all jnow sometimes tedukts from tests throw up issues we neef to address.

Sure we may all retire and let some computer algorithm teach and test the students.

Treppen

With tracking... the students who are Ok with tracking do well, but I think they would have done just as well anyway.

The students who aren't the top H1/2ers I wonder do they get any benefit out of it. Other than it telling them they're on track for their H3 and not to expect any more.

It might stop some parents taking their kids out of a school and sending them to the Institute or wherever if "computer says no" and they are on track where they should be!

Treppen

Just to give a heads up.

VSWare seen to be rolling out an academic tracking function similar to Athena.

sandyxxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118074663#Comment_118074663

Always thought Athena’d be bought up and integrated into something like vsware as a feature….

I think there’s compatibility between the two but if VSware do their own version it’s sure to be slow,clunky,bug-ridden and dysfunctional 🤣🤣

Treppen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118076240#Comment_118076240

Really though it's not complicated software.

Just apply any old algorithm based on past results and sprinkle with a bit of CATs or Drumcondras then throw out a graph for teachers to point to.

This could be done in Excel in 5 minutes.

I'd be interested to know the formula for arriving at a target grade though.

History Queen

Maybe I've misunderstood, but I hate the idea of reducing our students to a target grade. It's wrng on so many levels and just feeds in to the points race/ education is only for results bullshit. I realy hope the upcoming LC reform seeks to decouple the LC from 3rd Level entry, it won't fix everything but it'd certainly help remove the pressure pot that the LC has become.