Today, had the honor of presenting at the International and Private Schools Educational Forum (IPSEF) in Dubai. (Presentation Link, Topic was Educational Excellence). The material came from a 3 month study of school success conducted in Michigan through my work there at the Michigan Department of Education/School Reform Office.
Also, yesterday I printed the following article in an education insert in the local paper here, and have reproduced the content here. It is an encouragement to education leaders to grow and extend their use of educational data. (Link to Article: http://ednow.info/educational-excellence-using-data/)
The main text of the article is below.
These days — Many education leaders find they are working with exponentially more data today than in years back. And with the increase in data goes a higher need for concrete approaches to understand and make effective decisions using that data. Take for instance a common school goal to raise their PISA scores by 10%. The school leader would likely say they were on track to meet the goal if they were at +7% in growth on practice tests at midyear. But what if the school chose to look deeper?
Behind every percentage is a whole lot of detail that does not always get its share of consideration. For instance, how did boys perform compared to girls? How did new students do as compared to those who had been in the school for the previous two years? Or how did the PISA scores compare to local assessments given by teachers? In other words, did a secondary student earning an A in English fare well in tests like PISA reading section, and the other way around.
Becoming a data lover is a relentless task requiring spreadsheets and numbers galore. But in academics, the payoff is a deeper understanding of student performance and how to change it for the better. When we deeply understand the performance of boys vs. girls, new students vs. veteran students, and the alignment (or lack) with localized grades, we can better determine how to intervene and help each student.
In my own previous work, I created a school-level achievement gaps excel tool that looked at annual assessments in schools across a state and compared students’ performance by gender, ethnicity, special population (English learner, SEN, economic hardships) in order to help teachers to know more about who to help. The truth is that every student deserves our best so that they can reach excellence. And we can only help students give their level best when we have a robust understanding of data and how to use it to streamline the school’s supports.
So, what can an educator do today to incorporate data in their classroom?
Know that Professional Development is always available to you in the area of data. For examples of data use in instruction, look at Google Scholar. For tips on how to incorporate data in action research, pool the teachers on your team and select common strands to research together such as grade level gaps or growth of students in each content area with the previous year. Numerous for-pay CPD courses are also available at leading universities in the UAE as well as through private education institutes. One recommended area is strengths-based leadership which can help focus the educators on your team and in your school. A student version of strengths-based leadership is also available at www.strengths-explorer.com.
So, what can a lead do to incorporate widespread data use in school?
Know that training for your school is available in the area of data. It is recommended that you assess each of your staff in their capability to use data in the day-to-day work of teaching. After assessing your teachers, you can have the stronger ones in data train the other teachers. Overall, data at the school level should be used to monitor and bring light in areas of closing achievement gaps, assessing and intervene in attendance deficits. In addition, your school could appoint and send someone for outside training in data. For schools and systems with capacity, Harvard University has a two-year educational data fellowship through the Center for Education Policy; it is called the Strategic Data Project and can create excellence in the area of data use by schools and systems.
Practice these ideas, hone your own abilities in data use for education purposes. Then, great things can happen.
Dr. Jonathan Doll is an alumni fellow of the Strategic Data Project (SDP). He conducted a program evaluation of success skills observed in low performing schools. His co-authored project underscored best practices of schools undergoing positive change through the use of data. His opinions are his own.