Creating a Data-Driven Environment

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    Assessments and the amount of data that given through them have become an essential part of education. Once an assessment is given, it is then up to teachers and administrators to understand all the data and results.

    This is why it’s important for schools to have plans in place on data analysis, action and creating a data-driven culture.

(YouTube: Uncommon Schools)

Analysis

    Paul Bambrick-Santoyo’s book “Driven by Data” breaks down the importance of assessment analysis (2010). In Chapter 2, he breaks down the foundations of effective analysis by using an example from the movie “Man on Fire.” Dakota Fanning’s character shows a swimmer who was the fastest in the water, but finishes in third. Bambrick-Santoyo states that if the coach skips the meet and only reads the newspaper results, the coach would probably advise that the student swimming faster. Instead, Denzel Washington’s character, who was at the meet, sees the issue is Fanning’s character had a slow time due to be the last racer off the starting blocks. He saw the whole picture.

    Only with the “view from the pool” can anyone begin to see what must be done (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010). While teachers can’t necessarily watch their students take an assessment, they can employ effective, rigorous analysis on the results of the assessments (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010).

    In his book, Bambrick-Santoyo states that effective data reports collect question-level, standards-level, individual student and whole class data (2010). Time for this analysis, and for the meetings to discuss observations, is essential (Crites, 2016). Examples of doing this can be pairing a teacher, or teacher team, with an administrator for a 30-minute data-analysis meeting, held during teacher prep time either during the day or after classes (Crites, 2016). By doing this, all educators are able to have rich discussion of what the data shows, and what needs to be done next (Crites, 2016).

    Bambrick-Santoyo also states that for analysis to be effective, it must be timely. So, it’s important to put systems into place to ensure that the insights of data-driven instruction are quickly put to use (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010).

    This means school calendars should be designed to ensure interim assessments are analyzed within 48 hours of being scored. In my school district, we build teacher workdays into our calendar at the end of each 6 weeks period. We also allow teachers in the high school to have two conference periods, and we have a 40-minute Pride Time, or study hall, where teachers can meet with struggling students.

    Bambrick-Santoyo also states that proper leadership and teacher training is a crucial component to guarantee quality analysis (2010). Some Key Principles for Leading Analysis Meetings he mentions are:

• Let the data do the talking.
• Let the teacher do the talking.
• Always go back to specific questions on the test.
• Don’t fight the battles on ideological lines.
• Know the data yourself to have an effective meeting.
• Keep in mind the difference between the first assessment and the third.
• Make sure analysis is connected to a concrete action plan you can verify.

    If done effectively, these meetings can improve both teaching and learning.

(YouTube: Uncommon Schools)

Action

    The third step Bambrick-Santoyo mentions in his book is Action. Assessments have been taken and data analyzed, so now it is time for the teacher to take all that information to students in the classroom. Bambrick-Santoyo states there are Five Core Drivers for Action:

1. Planning
2. Implementation
3. Ongoing assessment
4. Accountability
5. Engaged students

(2010)

    All five work together to create a strong action plan. Bambrick-Santoyo emphasizes that schools must implement new approaches to difficult standards (2010). He mentions the use of exit tickets to check for students’ understanding of the lesson, building peer-to-peer support strategies among students, and re-designing homework with the assessment end goals in mind (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010).

    Education leaders should also take time to follow up with teachers on their reteaching and ask each other:

• How did it work?
• Will you use that approach from the outset next time?
• What do your students still not get?

(Crites, 2016)

    When it is implemented properly, data-driven student engagement occurs when students know the end goal, how they did, and what actions they can take to improve (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010).

(YouTube: Uncommon Schools)

Culture

    Teachers are creatures of habit. My mother taught elementary school for nearly 30 years, and she can continuously tell me all the education programs that were constantly brought in stating this is going to work and make education better. She has her favorites, and those are her favorites because a culture was created around those programs in the school.

    Bambrick-Santoyo states in Chapter 4 for his book that the best initiatives in schools, and elsewhere, do not require buy-in, they create it (2010). Rather than hope that teachers enjoy the process from the very beginning, school leaders should anticipate that it will take various phases for everyone to see the value of data-driven instruction (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010).

    Once again, Bambrick-Santoyo mentions the importance of making time for data, not end-goal tests when placing interim assessments, mark professional development, and leaving room for re-teaching all in the school calendar (2010). He mentions district leaders and teachers need to visit other schools who are successful in data-driven instruction. Such visits provide important insights into the mechanics of data-driven instruction, but they also provide something more important: hope (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2010).

    It’s also important to let teachers own their professional development process, and look at case studies of schools that have been successful with data-driven instruction (Crites, 2016). Creating a data-driven instruction culture is not something that will be done immediately, but, if given time, it is intrinsically motivating when both teachers and students see how their efforts are leading to success (Crites, 2016).

(Photo from mdrc.org)

Going beyond

    Data is continuously going to be part of schools. A judicious, targeted use of data by educators coupled with careful coaching for them and qualitative assessments of students can yield significant improvements, especially when the definition of data expands beyond testing (Berwick, 2018).

    As a Career Technical Education Teacher, I am interested in seeing how data plays in CTE programs like mine where students don’t necessarily take paper and pen assessments, but show their skills in real world situations. Relationships between school leaders, teachers, and students are essential in making a school environment successful.

Future Reference: Dalporto, H. (2019, October 1). Building Effective Data Strategies in Career and Technical Education. Mdrc. Retrieved July 27, 2024, from https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/building-effective-data-strategies-career-and-technical-education

Reference

Brambrick-Santoyo, P. (2010). Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction (p. IntroductionandChapter1). Jossey-Bass.

Crites, E. (2016, October 4). 7 Steps to Becoming a Data-Driven School. Edutopia. Retrieved July 27, 2024, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/7-steps-becoming-data-driven-school-eric-crites

Berwick, C. (2018, August 31). Student Data: Friend or Foe? Edutopia. Retrieved July 27, 2024, from  https://www.edutopia.org/article/student-data-friend-or-foe

  

 

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