Did Tufte do anything like this?
February 22, 2010 2:47 PM Subscribe
[data visualization filter] Need help with ideas for a data visualization tool -- something like a "Doomsday Clock" but showing progress towards college readiness? Must be understandable to a young teenager. Would prefer something with a trend to illustrate past events, too.
The only idea I've fleshed out is something like a histogram whose bar values are based on Likert-type scales for different "college readiness" traits. The traits would be scored on the Likert scale, then summed to produce an overall number, which would be graphed along an x-axis showing date of assessment. The y-axis would be a value, with the maximum value representing the highest possible score, or "College Readiness".
But I'm ready for ideas on (1) how to illustrate her progress towards her goal of going to college. I'd like something very simple and could show trends. I would prefer something that could be maintained on a piece of paper, posted prominently on her bedroom door. I have access to typical household things (colored pens, sticky notes, glue), but also stuff like overhead transparency film and sheets of craft foam.
Ideas for (2) college readiness traits to be measured would be useful, too. Right now I have (based loosely on [Conley's, "Redefining College Readiness" (2007)]:
~ Writing/ Math/ Reading skills, as measured by current grades (we can see each class' gradebook online)
~ Persistence, as measured by allowing critique of her work and minimal frustration during
~ Time management, as measured by planning ahead and getting work done early/on time
~ Plan for improvement, as measured by scheduling makeup work or doing extra credit
~ Assignment management, as measured by comparing assignments in her daily planner to the assignments posted online
~ Intellectual curiosity, as measured by asking questions and seeking out answers for things she doesn't understand (this is subjective, but we will allow for self-assessment, too)
Please give me a way to measure them, too - all assessments need to be as objective as possible.
The only idea I've fleshed out is something like a histogram whose bar values are based on Likert-type scales for different "college readiness" traits. The traits would be scored on the Likert scale, then summed to produce an overall number, which would be graphed along an x-axis showing date of assessment. The y-axis would be a value, with the maximum value representing the highest possible score, or "College Readiness".
But I'm ready for ideas on (1) how to illustrate her progress towards her goal of going to college. I'd like something very simple and could show trends. I would prefer something that could be maintained on a piece of paper, posted prominently on her bedroom door. I have access to typical household things (colored pens, sticky notes, glue), but also stuff like overhead transparency film and sheets of craft foam.
Ideas for (2) college readiness traits to be measured would be useful, too. Right now I have (based loosely on [Conley's, "Redefining College Readiness" (2007)]:
~ Writing/ Math/ Reading skills, as measured by current grades (we can see each class' gradebook online)
~ Persistence, as measured by allowing critique of her work and minimal frustration during
~ Time management, as measured by planning ahead and getting work done early/on time
~ Plan for improvement, as measured by scheduling makeup work or doing extra credit
~ Assignment management, as measured by comparing assignments in her daily planner to the assignments posted online
~ Intellectual curiosity, as measured by asking questions and seeking out answers for things she doesn't understand (this is subjective, but we will allow for self-assessment, too)
Please give me a way to measure them, too - all assessments need to be as objective as possible.
I'm thumbing through Tufte's Visual Explanations and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information but there's nothing I can see that stands out as matching your goals exactly.
If you need something that your students can update on their own, you might look into a web application that spits out a nice graphic they can print out. Or you make a layered set of transparencies they can update on their own with transparency markers, with each layer representing a class of progress accomplishments.
Either way, for a given class of progress accomplishments, you might place time points along the x-axis (3 months before the first day of school, up until the first day of school). The y-axis would represent a percentage of completion towards a goal. You might divide the y-axis by specific accomplishments.
If accomplishments can be completed in any order, you might use a blank-colored pie chart, instead. Students fill in colors in slices of a pie to denote completion of various tasks.
If you like the idea of a pie chart, but want to denote time-to-completion, you could use a staggered, "onion-ring" pie chart. As time progresses and goals are completed, the student colors in outer rings in succession.
The nice thing about the onion-ring design is that each slice of a pie can represent a class of progress accomplishments, while outer rings in the pie represent the dimension of time. This would negate the need for a complex layer of transparencies.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:20 PM on February 22, 2010
If you need something that your students can update on their own, you might look into a web application that spits out a nice graphic they can print out. Or you make a layered set of transparencies they can update on their own with transparency markers, with each layer representing a class of progress accomplishments.
Either way, for a given class of progress accomplishments, you might place time points along the x-axis (3 months before the first day of school, up until the first day of school). The y-axis would represent a percentage of completion towards a goal. You might divide the y-axis by specific accomplishments.
If accomplishments can be completed in any order, you might use a blank-colored pie chart, instead. Students fill in colors in slices of a pie to denote completion of various tasks.
If you like the idea of a pie chart, but want to denote time-to-completion, you could use a staggered, "onion-ring" pie chart. As time progresses and goals are completed, the student colors in outer rings in succession.
The nice thing about the onion-ring design is that each slice of a pie can represent a class of progress accomplishments, while outer rings in the pie represent the dimension of time. This would negate the need for a complex layer of transparencies.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:20 PM on February 22, 2010
My experience as a high-school teacher is that buy-in is a lot more important than the format of the chart. I don't know if this is likely at all, but it would be terrible if the chart became (in her mind) a daily negative judgement--college telling her she always needs to be different and better than she is. If it were me, seeing "intellectual curiosity" presented as an item on a to-do list would seem terribly depressing and make me want to think of the list as little as possible.
Here's something similar I do with my students:
Students expect the teacher (or, I imagine, the parent) to have some accountability scheme for, say, turning in homework. In my experience, they are rarely motivated by such external regimes. So I start with a conversation to find out how they wish they were better. Most students will say things like they wish they were better at school, or had higher grades. I name a few specific things they can do to achieve that goal, such as turning in homework or always asking for help when they're confused. This is your opportunity to suggest goals you also share. Then I ask them to pick 2 or 3 which they want to focus on. Then we make the chart and accountability plan together. Even though I was the one who generated the specific list, the students feel like it was their idea, and there's a lot of buy-in.
I emphasize that it's their chart, and that every (say) week I'll ask them to show me how their plan is going so that, if something is amiss, we can figure out together how to get them back on track. Every time we talk, I play the role of consultant--someone helping them achieve their own goals. This has a very different feel than the teacher telling them what to do, and seems to work a lot better for me.
If you're feeling it, you might consider trying something like this to have your daughter generate something like your list on her own. (You can also ask something more specific than "how do you wish you were better?" You might talk about the good qualities of someone she admires, or brainstorm what kind of person she would give money to to start their own business).
All that said, you're right on that whatever design you choose should be visual, readable-at-a-glance, and clearly show progress over time.
Good luck. And tell us what you decide on when it's all done!
posted by mathtime! at 4:15 PM on February 22, 2010 [2 favorites]
Here's something similar I do with my students:
Students expect the teacher (or, I imagine, the parent) to have some accountability scheme for, say, turning in homework. In my experience, they are rarely motivated by such external regimes. So I start with a conversation to find out how they wish they were better. Most students will say things like they wish they were better at school, or had higher grades. I name a few specific things they can do to achieve that goal, such as turning in homework or always asking for help when they're confused. This is your opportunity to suggest goals you also share. Then I ask them to pick 2 or 3 which they want to focus on. Then we make the chart and accountability plan together. Even though I was the one who generated the specific list, the students feel like it was their idea, and there's a lot of buy-in.
I emphasize that it's their chart, and that every (say) week I'll ask them to show me how their plan is going so that, if something is amiss, we can figure out together how to get them back on track. Every time we talk, I play the role of consultant--someone helping them achieve their own goals. This has a very different feel than the teacher telling them what to do, and seems to work a lot better for me.
If you're feeling it, you might consider trying something like this to have your daughter generate something like your list on her own. (You can also ask something more specific than "how do you wish you were better?" You might talk about the good qualities of someone she admires, or brainstorm what kind of person she would give money to to start their own business).
All that said, you're right on that whatever design you choose should be visual, readable-at-a-glance, and clearly show progress over time.
Good luck. And tell us what you decide on when it's all done!
posted by mathtime! at 4:15 PM on February 22, 2010 [2 favorites]
A horizontal bar chart like here might work. It would be easy to have as many bars as you need. You could mark significant events on the bar with annotations.
Or, you could use a bullet graph. The bullet graph could be useful to display something like overall progress towards goal (the performance measure in the second graph on the wiki page) with an intermediate goal as the comparative measure.
Or, you could use a polar clock with each ring being progress towards 100% of the goal (although I don't think Tufte would have promoted this :) )
posted by tayknight at 6:53 PM on February 22, 2010
Or, you could use a bullet graph. The bullet graph could be useful to display something like overall progress towards goal (the performance measure in the second graph on the wiki page) with an intermediate goal as the comparative measure.
Or, you could use a polar clock with each ring being progress towards 100% of the goal (although I don't think Tufte would have promoted this :) )
posted by tayknight at 6:53 PM on February 22, 2010
I would like to second mathtime's comment. Your daughter's buy-in is the most important thing.
I have two kids who have gone to college. For the first, a system like this would have been a complete negative, and a negative to our relatioship. He was way too laid back for that kind of organization, and imposing something like this on him would have killed his faith in us. The second was an organized self-starter, and could have absolutely used charts and goals.
But, frankly, your categories freak me out a little. The way your question is phrased makes you sound just a little hyper critical and controlling. I'm sure you're not, but don't let the project take over.
An aside: I am not sure that college readiness traits are best fostered by goal setting. For example: my daughter used to have a horrible time handling frustration (especially with math) and we suffered through regular sobbing meltdowns while she was in high school. What we could do to help her was to listen, comfort, and coach and help her develop some insight into how she is wired. Setting a goal to reduce meltdowns wouldn't have helped. Now in the college of her dreams, she still has occasional meldowns, but she recognizes them for what they are, takes a break, and picks a new tack.
Please make sure that this project is your girl's project to own.
posted by SLC Mom at 8:20 PM on February 22, 2010
I have two kids who have gone to college. For the first, a system like this would have been a complete negative, and a negative to our relatioship. He was way too laid back for that kind of organization, and imposing something like this on him would have killed his faith in us. The second was an organized self-starter, and could have absolutely used charts and goals.
But, frankly, your categories freak me out a little. The way your question is phrased makes you sound just a little hyper critical and controlling. I'm sure you're not, but don't let the project take over.
An aside: I am not sure that college readiness traits are best fostered by goal setting. For example: my daughter used to have a horrible time handling frustration (especially with math) and we suffered through regular sobbing meltdowns while she was in high school. What we could do to help her was to listen, comfort, and coach and help her develop some insight into how she is wired. Setting a goal to reduce meltdowns wouldn't have helped. Now in the college of her dreams, she still has occasional meldowns, but she recognizes them for what they are, takes a break, and picks a new tack.
Please make sure that this project is your girl's project to own.
posted by SLC Mom at 8:20 PM on February 22, 2010
It's not perhaps what you need right now, but I'd strongly recommend David Mccandless' "The Visual Miscellaneum" if you're interested in this sort of thing. Tufte is great, but he's more about the philosophy of visualization whereas this is chock full of visualization examples.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:38 AM on February 23, 2010
posted by MuffinMan at 12:38 AM on February 23, 2010
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posted by parilous at 2:47 PM on February 22, 2010