Teachers. We love questions. Asking them, answering them, making children think of them. And what better way to help this process than by using the Gap Analysis feature in the Teacher Dashboard!
Sometimes, we even give children an answer and ask them to tell us what the question is! There can be no doubt that questions are one of the most valuable teaching tools around. Run an internet search for ‘how many questions does a teacher ask in a day?’ and the answer seems to be fairly consistently returned at around 400.
Questioning is a crucial part of formative assessment, and is one of the things hammered into all of us in our teacher training, so much so that a lot of the time, we aren’t even really aware that we’re doing it. The frequent, usually informal, assessments or questions we use daily to help us work out how well our students have understood a concept or topic enable us to decide which direction to take the lesson, or our planning.
Sometimes, however, it can be hard to remember exactly who answered what to your 400 plus questions. To help with this, you could use Gap Analysis.
Gap Analysis by ARE
Log in to the Teacher Dashboard and select the year group and the ARE area, as well as the specific ARE if you really want to drill down. When you click Apply, you will see the percentage of content covered as well as the RAG rating for each child. Red shows a child is emerging, amber shows developing, green is meeting, and green with a white plus sign shows mastery.
Use the Raw Data toggle to switch between the RAG rating and a table of information. You can also export this information.
We recommend taking a look at whether your students are struggling with particular AREs. You can then use this as a planning tool ahead of or during your unit: look at the individual AREs within the area to gain a general overview of the understanding your class have demonstrated to help you pitch your lessons correctly. You can also ensure you then have the right scaffolding in place and any additional resources or explicit teaching/reteaching of concepts completed before the lesson.
Gap Analysis by student
You may find this useful if you have very small classes, particular intervention students you want to focus on, or if you have concerns about individuals’ understanding. You may want to include Doodle targets for students with an EHCP and therefore want to be able to see their progress over a certain time frame. For SEN pupils who are working below year group expectations, you can look back at their previous learning, as far back as EYFS content completed in the app.
