A Using Data Dilemma: Should We Save These Charts?

Guest Blogger, Jennifer Unger

When TERC’s Using Data facilitators work with schools and districts, we assist with establishing a continuous improvement culture that is grounded on collaborative inquiry. In the process, a lot of chart-paper-sized posters are created. There’s a sound and productive reason for this large-format paper trail!

Anyone who has engaged in data analysis with Using Data’s protocols and processes knows that we value public recording on chart paper because it gets everyone literally “on the same page” and talking together as they uncover learning challenges, own them, and identify strategic solutions.

 

“Genius Hour”: A Treasure Trove of Data Collection

By Mary Anne Mather, Managing Editor
TERC’s Using Data For Meaningful Change Blog

Photo Credit: Clyde Gaw, TAB Educator

 Too often, when people think about using data, they limit their thinking to consulting test and assessment data from state tests, to district benchmarks, to classroom assessments. And while consulting this level of data has its merits, being truly data-informed requires so much more! As teachers, we can come closer to “data-genius” if we tap the treasure-trove of data that a classroom genius hour reveals…

 

Owning the Data Questions

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Unger

I have worked with so many districts and schools where the leadership proudly points to their “data binders”—most recently I recall a three-inch D-ring binder. Not that binders filled with data aren’t helpful or good, but I caution that if they are not being used to guide instructional and programmatic decisions, well, then they can be a waste of precious time and money. More importantly, if they are not connected to a shared ownership of the questions a group of educators has about instruction and programs and similar concerns, then they can serve no meaningful purpose.

So how do we get from just having data to using data for meaningful change and improved results?

 

Reflections from a Dedicated Data User

Introduction by Mary Anne Mather, Managing Editor
TERC’s Using Data for Meaningful Change Blog
…with a link to Data Quality Campaign’s Flashlight blog on
How Educators Use Data: A Four Step Process
*****************

Effective Use of Classroom Data: It’s a topic that weighs on the minds of many educators these days. It’s also the title of a workshop that TERC Using Data recently facilitated at MESPA (Massachusetts Elementary Principals’ Association). The educators who attended were seeking strategies and resources to bring back to their schools that would help them build a culture of data use that is continuous, meaningful, manageable, sensible, and effective. Who isn’t?

There is little doubt that, in the news, education-related data are routinely discussed, bandied about, and sometimes applied in ways that are not efficacious for supporting effective teaching and learning. TERC is dedicated to making data a sweet and welcomed word, not a dreaded mandate. That’s why we were so excited that Rebecca Shah (@rebecca_shah) from Data Quality Campaign was a surprise workshop attendee! Rebecca took one of the teacher-level data analysis processes shared during the workshop and used it to reflect on the session and its outcomes. Her thoughts and related resources are posted on the Flashlight, Data Quality Campaign’s blog: How Educators Use Data: A Four Step Process. Enjoy!

And if you’d like to learn more about Four-Phase Data Dialogue, visit our Data Tips (see Tips 2-5).

 

 

Who Gets Results? Busy People and Wise Leaders Part 2: Supporting Your Data Leaders

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Unger

In Part I*, I offered an insight to educational administrators about the merits of leaning on your busy people—those already involved in other school and district improvement efforts—as your data leaders. In Part 2, I share a few thoughts about the level of support a wise leader provides to ensure that these people are successful.

It’s spring, and a good time to take stock of how using data has informed practice and affected student achievement at your site since the school year began.

Earlier in the year, did you make the decision to integrate broadly-implemented data tools and processes into the assessment/evaluation plan for your school or district? If you have not yet formalized a using-data effort, should you?

As mentioned in Part 1, the first step is identifying the Data Coach and data team members. Some schools refer to these people as their improvement team or teams. Once in place, reflect on the level of support and direction you need to provide. Here are some possible questions and ideas to consider:

 

Who Gets Results? Busy People and Wise Leaders Part 1: Selecting Your Data Leaders

 Guest Blogger: Jennifer Unger

There’s a familiar saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” If comments I hear when working with educational leaders can be taken as evidence, then it’s true.

In order to use data for meaningful change, TERC’s Using Data project advocates the identification of a Data Coach to lead a Data Team or multiple Data Teams. When we talk with school leaders about who might best serve as a Data Coach or team member, I hear comments such as, “I really think Dana would be a great data leader (or team member), but she/he is already involved in so many initiatives.”

In my experience, wise leadership makes all the difference. Let’s explore this dilemma more deeply…

 

Braving Nature For the Sake of High-Quality PD

By Mary Anne Mather, Managing Editor
TERC’s Using Data for Meaningful Change Blog

The 2013 annual Learning Forward Conference in Dallas, Texas faced quite a challenge this past December as a major ice storm glazed the area in a slick crust of sheer slippage. Flights were canceled, and Texas-based drivers found themselves snarled on impassable roads. Using Data, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was scheduled to present a full-capacity, all-day session on Monday, December 9 entitled Effective, Continuous Data Use Requires Prepared Leadership. Would we make it? Would our participants?

 

Using Data and the Why-Why-Why of It All

By Mary Anne Mather, Managing Editor
TERC’s Using Data for Meaningful Change Blog

Any parent or teacher can identify with the “why” inquisition. For a parent, it’s those moments when your child questions an observed phenomenon like “Why is the sky blue?” You give an explanation, and then the child asks why again…and again. For a teacher, it’s the proverbial student question, “Why do I need to know THIS?” You explain, and then you hear, “But why is that important to ME?” At times, the whole experience, for certain, can test one’s level of knowledge, not to mention your patience. And yet, we all understand that learning is about inquiry and discovery. Asking “why” should be something to rejoice in! And asking “why” should remain a lifelong learning tool. It doesn’t stop after childhood.

I recently came across a list at the Teach Thought website that caused me to reflect again on a very essential phase of the Using Data process—Causal Analysis. Informally, we call it why-why-why. The list posted at Teach Thought, 10 Silent Disruptors Of Student Academic Performance aligned pretty closely to some of the causes that we help teachers to explore during causal analysis in order to justify phenomenon existing in their schools that can be altered, and by doing so, leads to increased student achievement. In fact, we offer a set of cause cards that scaffold the reflection process.

In order to use data well, the why-why-why phase of data analysis through collaborative inquiry is as essential as the air we breathe if, as educators, we are going to get beyond the surface of things and accurately pursue meaningful differences that will impact student achievement. We can have mountains of data, and we can even take a step further and analyze those mountains. But until we connect the dots among multiple data sources, discover specific student learning challenges, and then take the time to ask “why-why-why” in order to verify the root causes of these challenges, selecting solutions is premature.

For sure, the data consulted must reach beyond numbers and test scores because the causes can reside in scheduling, misalignment of curriculum and assessments, mismatched vocabulary between what is taught and what is tested, lack of rigor or teacher content knowledge, low expectations for selected student groups, and more. The causes might be any or all of the 10 disrupters on the Teach Thought graphic. The good news is that verified causes can be addressed, and the results can be astounding!

For a step-by-step description of one why-why-why activity, check out Using Data’s Tip #6, When Analyzing Causes, Ask “Why? Why? Why?”.

 

When Teacher Training is Over, It’s Not Over

In our current professional development climate, much is said about long-term, job-embedded training that truly changes a school’s culture and endures. It’s a simple idea, often talked about…not often achieved. Twenty-eight schools in Florida have seen the work it takes and made the commitment.

By Mary Anne Mather, Managing Editor
TERC’s Using Data for Meaningful Change Blog

Teachers meet across schools to share data use insights.

A team of Using Data Facilitators recently completed the training and technical assistance segment of a three-year professional development initiative in Duval County, Jacksonville, Florida. As part of an IES-funded, randomized control study looking at fourth and fifth grade mathematics achievement, 30 elementary schools set out on a journey to learn what it means to be truly data informed. Twenty-eight completed the long-term, job-embedded training that focused on enacting a process for understanding and analyzing data linked directly to student outcomes and classroom practice. The ultimate goal—to build a culture of collaborative data use that informs an ongoing pathway to improvement in any subject area.*

After two and a half years of work, these 28 schools came together on May 16, 2013 at the Schultz Professional Development Center in Jacksonville to showcase their results.

 

Putting Data Back Into the ‘Palms’ of Duval County’s Teachers

By Mary Anne Mather, Managing Editor
TERC’s Using Data for Meaningful Change Blog

TERC’s Using Data facilitators have been working for the past two years with 30 elementary schools in Duval County Florida. This is possible through funding from a U.S Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grant to study the efficacy of the Using Data for Meaningful Change processes.

As our time together winds down, the Duval schools are sharing stories about transformation in practice, focus, and student achievement.