Executive Summary
My friend is a Middle School math teacher. There are standard tests the school district gives out so the district can track the status of the various math classes. However, this data is not well utilized. The teachers do not get any use from this data. These teachers must take time out of their day to give students this test and they would appreciate some tangible benefit from it. I designed a program that will allow teachers to utilize this database of information.
My program allows teachers to select a portion of the database, sorted by teacher and/or class. They can then see statistics for the chosen sample. This will allow them to evaluate how a particular class is doing, or a particular teacher. It gives statistics for the chosen sample such as average and standard deviation, and for the database as a whole, to allow comparison. It also breaks down statistics by gender, so teachers can see any potential correlations. A teacher can access her class and see how that class compares to the school as a whole. This will help the teacher know if they need to improve or if they are exceeding the school average. This project will also create a histogram. Numbers are more valuable if seen visually.
In addition to viewing aggregate statistics, the teacher can pull out specific students that are struggling and those students that are above average. This information will allow teachers to tailor their class to specific students, allowing students to get more individualized teaching. It could also be useful to identify students that might be better placed in a higher or lower level math class, or at least receive additional tutoring. Another function, allows a teacher to pull up a particular student to see how they are doing compared to their class mates. This would be a nice starting point for determining how a student is doing. For example, if a student were struggling it would be useful to know if that student’s poor scores are unique to that student or if they are ranked in the middle of the class. This would help a teacher understand if the problem is with the particular student or with an outside factor affecting the whole class.
In addition to these evaluation functions, this program also allows basic maintenance. There are user forms allowing teachers to search the database, edit entries in the database, add new students and enter test scores into existing students. These features are used to keep the database current.
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