The data pattern indicates that variability is cyclical

There are many reasons why teachers might see cyclical data.  Medication schedules are mentioned elsewhere in these statements as a potential reason.  Two others are parental visitations and memory problems.  In today's culture of divorce, students will sometimes be on a schedule of visitation with a less favored parent.  It could be that every other week, Monday and Tuesday are bad as those are the days after the visit with the less favored parent.  Students might also suffer from severe memory loss problems.  Your instructor once had a junior high aged student who was the victim of fetal alcohol syndrome.  It seemed every Monday when it was time for Math, we started over again.  The weekend was just enough time away for the student to forget everything from the week before.

Potential Remedy

Although teachers may not be able to do a lot about some causes of variability, they can do what they can during the time that they have the student.  If I know that every other Monday and Tuesday that Scott is going to come to school in a funk,  I can plan activities for him which will be less demanding, or more enjoyable in order to help him to get back into the swing of things.  If I know a student has memory problems, I can design instruction to try to help him to maximize the memory he has, and perhaps build upon it.  Whatever I do, by paying attention to my data, I will see that I need to do something, and I can monitor performance to determine whether what I am doing is making any difference.

You can email Dr. McNair at jmcnair@calbaptist.edu

Copyright Jeff McNair/jeffmcnair.com