Chalkface Blog

The best teaching materials in the most practical format.

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  • Xiaoice: the revolution just happened

    7bab4aadae979479720a71bc699b945eIf you had to put one date on the Industrial Revolution, it would probably be 1776. This was the date when James Watt installed his first Atmospheric Steam Engine; an engine that for the first time did more work than the horses required to feed it with coal.

    It changed everything. Industrialisation led to huge increases in personal wealth and opened new possibilities for ordinary people that even kings could not previously have aspired to.

    James Watt’s engine came the better part of a century after the first steam engine patent had been issued (to Thomas Savery, in 1698), but looking back, we see this was the inflection point.

    In the same vein, I nominate 2014 as the date of the computer revolution. Yes, 2014, just three years ago. Why? Because (more…)

  • Measure confidence, reward improvement

    Confidence and improvement
    Results sorted by improvement. The top row shows the average.

    I am really excited about these two new metrics added to the Results page. They give you a view of each student you have not had before, and which you can use today to improve the quality of their (more…)

  • The Activity Log page is now 10x more fascinating

    Results 3.png

    I’m really stoked about these two new features of the Activity Log page. They turn it from a page that merely reports results into one that provides immediate (and fascinating) insights into students’ behaviour.

    Sort on any column

    The default sort remains surname, but you can now use the arrows to the right of each column header to sort (ascending or descending) on that particular column. The example above is sorted by score.

    Averages

    The class average score is useful; the time spent is absolutely fascinating. In the example above you will notice that the slowest and fastest students are achieving the lowest scores. This may suggest some useful interventions with those particular students, especially if the results are consistent across many quizzes.

  • Improvement to the Gradebook

    Last month I sent a simple survey to our top power users. I wanted to know what the most useful way would be to date assignments in the gradebook. Here is what they said:

    gradebook 2

    No unanimity, but a clear majority. So we did it.

  • 62.5% is the ideal quiz score. Here’s why

     What is the optimum average score for a quiz? 100%? Not in my view. It is 62.5%, or a number close to that.

    When using a quiz as a summative assessment, your goal is maximum discrimination. That is, you want to be able to see as clearly as possible which students have ‘got it’ and which have not.

    Consider a (more…)