“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…

 

Using Data Tip #8: Triangulate, Triangulate, Triangulate

GUEST BLOGGER: Mary Anne Mather, Using Data Senior Facilitator & Social Media Liaison on Twitter & FaceBook

All too often state test results may be the only source consulted when targeting specific areas for improvement. However, decisions about instructional changes that reflect only this single data source, might lead to errors in your decision-making.

If you want your data to lead you toward making meaningful changes, an important principle to follow, is triangulation. Triangulation means using three independent data sources to examine apparent issues or problems. You might ask, “Why bother with the extra work of triangulating?” Consider this analogy:

A third-grade teacher asks Mary to look through the front panel of the classroom terrarium and list everything she sees. Mary diligently makes a thorough list and begins to return to her seat when the teacher asks her to take a second look through the side panel of the terrarium. She immediately sees several plants and animals obscured in the front panel view by rocks and shrubs. By using this second “window,” Mary now has a more complete picture. Then the teacher asks Mary to peer through the top of the terrarium to see if there is anything else. Mary is able to add to her list before she sits down. Her three-window analysis reveals a far more comprehensive picture than any one window alone.*

The notion of using multiple windows or perspectives also applies to understanding and applying information from student achievement data. Consider these Action Steps:

 

One Teacher Talks About Using Data to Drive Instruction in the Classroom

GUEST BLOGGER: Mary Anne Mather, Using Data Senior Facilitator & Social Media Liaison on Twitter & FaceBook

I very much enjoyed Part I of Jill Thompson’s blog series about “Using Data to Drive Instruction in the Classroom.” According to her bio, Jill is an elementary math and science facilitator.

I applaud her for sharing her insights and passions about this subject. As a former classroom teacher, and currently as a facilitator for TERC’s Using Data process, I find myself in step with her thinking. Regularly integrating formal and informal assessments into the instructional planning process is a must. It’s not adding more to the plate — it IS the plate…understanding the impact of the teaching process on student learning and using that information to plan the necessary next steps—not only what to teach, but how to engage kids in the learning.

These days there is so much negative emphasis on testing, and I understand the rub when I see test scores being used to punish teachers and categorize kids. But let’s be clear that using data and testing are not the same thing. Data comes in many shapes and forms, well beyond test results and grades (these are just one data point). Teachers have the opportunity to use data as a valuable resource to guide a teaching and learning approach that can ignite learning for all students. As Jill notes–it just takes time and know-how (and an understanding that it’s a non-negotiable).

I plan to follow Jill’s blog series on this topic, and I recommend it to you. Thank you, Jill, for sharing your experiences and helping those who might be uncertain about how to put their data to work as an instructional tool. Your ideas illuminate understanding of a process for using data that can profoundly impact student engagement and achievement.

 

Using Data Tip #6: Beginning a Causal Analysis Process: Why Asking “Why” Once is Not Enough

GUEST BLOGGER: Mary Anne Mather, Using Data Senior Facilitator & Social Media Liaison on Twitter & FaceBook

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

Once a school or grade-level data team has analyzed several data sources to pinpoint a student learning problem, they often feel ready to leap into action and solve it. To ensure that the solution pursued produces the hope-for results, it’s essential to engage in a collaborative process of causal analysis to identify the “root” cause of the problem.

There are many tools that support root cause analysis, one of them is referred to as Why-Why-Why—a question-asking technique used to explore cause and effect relationships. Why-Why-Why helps a group look beyond symptoms to underlying causes by taking the identified problem and asking why it exists at least three times—each time probing more deeply.

 

Anatomy of a School Improvement Communications Plan

Guest Blogger: Dr. William L. Heller, Using Data Program Director, Teaching Matters*

Summer has arrived, and the last of our current data institutes, like the school year itself, has come to an end. But as the participating data teams leave, carrying not a diploma but an action plan, they realize that their work is only just beginning. It is not a graduation; it is a commencement. And the first step in the journey ahead is to introduce the action plan they developed to the principal, administrators, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders in their school communities. This requires another planning document—a strategic communications plan, inviting others to invest in a shared vision for bringing the action plan to reality.

So…what are the elements of a good communications plan that will get others behind the action plan?

 

Taking Standardized Testing’s Higher Road

GUEST BLOGGER: Mary Anne Mather, Using Data Facilitator & Social Media Liaison on Twitter & FaceBook

Since the story broke, the media and bloggers have actively covered the details about a recent test-score-fixing fiasco—and the news continues (links provided below). There have been commentaries about who really suffers from a scam of this magnitude (students robbed of remedial opportunities) and who is to blame—their motivations…and their motivators (“…targets were implemented…in such a way that teachers and administrators believed that they had to choose between cheating to meet targets or failing to meet targets and losing their jobs.” Volume 3: Conclusions: Why cheating occurred and cover-up allegations, p. 4). I’m particularly taken with “the data-made-me do-it” explanation. There’s even talk of legal prosecution. This whole mess feels like a major attraction in a very tawdry sideshow of the school reform circus. And sadly, although the media is focused on one district at the moment, test score and data manipulation is not new news.

Yes, there’s explaining to do, and some one (or many) will need to be held accountable, but wouldn’t it be great if the lion’s share of the energy fueling our collective indignation, disbelief, and need for retribution could be channeled to establishing more positive, long-term improvements to a testing and assessment system that has surely gone awry. I’m not yet so tainted that I can’t believe we (saints and cheaters alike) all really want the same thing: exemplary schools, highly qualified teachers, and well-educated students who are life-long learners ready to succeed in their adult lives.

I weigh in with Diane Ravitch on this one,

 

Data Blind Spots—Data Use Continuum Tool Can Improve a School’s Vision

By Diana Nunnaley, Director, TERC’s Using Data

Depending on where you sit, and which frame of reference shapes your work, you either celebrate charter school efforts or think charters reflect a “right” wing or “left” wing  (take your pick) conspiracy to undermine the role of public education in the United States.

A blog post is too short a space to weigh into the considerable arguments both pro and con that can be made regarding the place for charter schools in America. To my thinking, charters are a natural consequence of Americans seeking a solution to a social problem. We may not agree on the substance of the problem or the direction of the solution, but in a society that values and applauds entrepreneurial efforts, charters are here to stay. That is, they have a place until we learn more about the experience (hopefully by examining the data) or, have a collective epiphany about the impact of poverty on kids’ success in learning and activate the collective will to change the way we fund and support local education.

Charter School Vision Equally Blurred

Based on my experience working in schools across the country, the reality is that teachers in charter schools bring the same passion and desire to help children learn as teachers in any other public or private setting. They face the same staggering challenges and then some. And they bring the same blind spots to the table when examining their student learning data.

 

Why Norm? It’s Good Form!

Guest Blogger: Dr. William L. Heller, Using Data Program Director, Teaching Matters*

Data-savvy investigators never make important decisions based on a single source. When teams following the Using Data process believe they may have found a student learning problem, based on their analysis of standardized testing results, they know to confirm the problem through an examination of student work and other common formative assessments. When they do this, it’s important for them to have a norming process in place to ensure that the data being generated is reliable and useful.

Norming is the process of calibrating the use of a single set of scoring criteria among multiple scorers. If norming is successful, a particular piece of work should receive the same score regardless of who is scoring it. With the advent of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, we may anticipate that curriculum-embedded performance tasks will begin to gain prominence over traditional multiple-choice tests, and it will be even more important for teachers to be aware of how to make the best use of these assessments. Whether or not they are rigorous about norming can make a very big difference.

 

Measure What You Treasure: Soccer Goals, Factory Lighting, and Monitoring Plans

GUEST BLOGGER: Dr. William L. Heller, Using Data Program Director, Teaching Matters*

There is an important lesson to be learned from a soccer game played between Barbados and Grenada at the 1994 Shell Caribbean Cup. In this tournament, tied games would go to sudden death overtime, and any subsequent goal scored would be a “Golden Goal” worth two points. Barbados needed to win by two to progress to the next round, and in fact they were ahead 2-0, when Grenada scored.

With just minutes left in the game, a quick-thinking Barbadian player scored on his own goal, tying the game in order to invoke sudden death and buy some time for his team. Grenada’s players then tried to score on their own goal, hoping to lose by one, but Barbados was able to successfully defend Grenada’s goal. The game went into overtime, and Barbados won 4-2.

You would think that it would have taken a great deal to get these players to go against years of training and experience to want to score on their own goals, but all it really took was a momentary change in their accountability system.

We’ve seen a similar effect this year in New York City middle schools.

 

Using Data Tip #4: Make Data Observations — Before Identifying Solutions, Get All the Facts on the Table

GUEST BLOGGER: Mary Anne Mather, Using Data Facilitator & Social Media Liaison on Twitter & FaceBook

Set aside assumptions, and focus on just the “data facts” before leaping to explanation and interpretation.
The Data Coach’s Guide to Improving Learning for All Students

Teachers are natural problem solvers. When we see evidence of individual students struggling, or indicators in our data that groups of students are underachieving, we are anxious to find solutions. The Using Data process advocates a “hold your horses” mindset that can help teachers to better pinpoint a student learning problem before jumping to explanations, interpretations, and quick-fix solutions. Data analysis is more effective if a team of stakeholders takes the time to observe and record as many details as possible about what the data reveal.

Observe is the third stage in a 4-phase dialogue process* that guides deep discussion toward deriving accurate meaning from the data. (See more information about Step 1: Predict and Step 2: Go Visual.) Engaging in this process as a data team, rather than individually, can garner the greatest impact toward improved student achievement.