The mission of the Tools for Evidence-based Action (TEA) community is to enhance evidence-based teaching methodology and policy by developing and sharing new technologies. To start, we have developed a visualization system to understand the pathways that students take through a university (Ribbon Tool) and a classroom observation tool (GORP) which can be used for researching teaching methodology and teacher development and training. Join us!

Ribbon Tool

The Ribbon tool is a visualization system to understand the pathways that students take through a university over time. One side breaks down the student populations into categories (such as major in freshman year) and the other side breaks down the students into the same or different categories (such as major senior year).  The ribbons are a visualization of population density flows of students moving from leftmost categories to rightmost categories. The beauty of the tool is that these categories are completely flexible which means this tool can be used to understand any sort of student movements that may interest an institution.

GORP

GORP stands for Generalized Observation Reporting Protocol. It was originally designed to streamline the process of doing classroom observations following the Classroom Observations Protocol for Undergraduate  Science (COPUS) but is being developed to be flexible and accommodate any observation protocol. This means that events in the classroom, or other setting, can be observed, cataloged, and then analyzed for research on teaching or for professional development.

Other Tools

The development and initial implementation of the Ribbon and GORP Tools have spurred much excitement in the Tools for Evidence-based Actions (TEA) educational community. Probability models, curriculum alignment and many others are being discussed by the community. New ideas for tools are always welcome. 

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