After a district-wide- and a school faculty meeting, while
most teachers in our building were bustling to set up their classrooms for the
next day, six math teachers stared at me as I attempted to explain that the
overwhelmingly intimidating Excel spreadsheet before them was really no big
deal, and that they could use it in their planning and teaching. As a staff, we have been discussing data
usage in theory, but this was our first attempt at putting it into
practice. That is an entirely different
feeling.
The look on my colleagues’ faces was not unique. There are too many instances when the very
idea of using data at the classroom level causes teachers anxiety and uneasiness. And yet, data usage is invaluable to
measuring student progress. It helps
bring to the forefront ways that we can help students on a more individual
level. My classroom may have two
students who are currently getting a C, but they have distinctly different areas
that need improvement. Jacob is
struggling with percent equations, while Kay is attempting to master integer
rules with the division of fractions. As
a teacher, tracking data on the individual standard level – not simply relying
on overall grades – allows me to have a sharper focus and know exactly where
the extra help is needed.
Which is why I believe that those of us who are comfortable
with data should do all we can to demystify the process for all educators. We need to present it in such a way that it
is not only considered a valuable tool, but that using it becomes a moral
imperative because of the ultimate benefit to student learning and growth.
Here are a few steps that can help even the most data-averse
educators get the hang of it:
Ease in. Start with the careful construction of the
data culture in your schools. Much like
a good educator does with students, scaffolding may be the best course. If you intend to have full implementation
over the course of a school year, you’re asking for failure. Rather, there needs to be a well-planned and
deliberate process for teachers to take it a piece of at a time. That starts with constructing a system for every
teacher to use that does not reach the administrative level, and has no evaluative
component.
Allow each teacher to decide what data they want to collect,
how often, and what they want to do with it.
Give them a year of collecting data that matters to them, and seeing
that no judgment comes from it. In our
school, we built a system where teachers were only responsible for entering the
unit when a question was asked, the date it was asked, and a “1” or “0” to
indicate if the student had met the standard on that assessment. This helped us gauge student progress at the
individual standard level and provide more relevant interventions to struggling
students.
Find the Geeks. Creating individualized data collection
systems can be time-consuming, and certainly cannot be expected of all teachers
to do on their own. However, each school
will have (hopefully at least) one person who either has the knowledge, or is
willing to be trained to create and maintain a system. When school ended last June, all I knew about
Excel was how to spell it and put things in alphabetical order. Over the summer, I paired with a colleague
and trained with a consultant at Greybeard Educators to learn Excel. In a week I felt like Mr. Robot. We were able to create grade- and
teacher-specific data collection systems, tailored to each of our teachers’ preferences. The systems were a hit because they measured
what the teacher wanted to measure, not what they felt they had to report.
It’s Not Really About
Data, Anyway. That’s the hidden
secret behind data collection – it has very little to do with the data. The system we built will track student
performance on Common Core Math Standards.
Once we built it, we had to decide what data to enter. This meant that, in order to gather the
evidence necessary to back our claims of assessment mastery, we needed to better
understand the standards. This led to enriching
conversations. Soon, “data collection”
was just a backdrop to our conversations about how to better teach our
students. “Data collection” also became
about having better conversations with students – Jacob and Kay have now been
empowered to assess themselves, by being made aware of their specific areas of
opportunity. They are no longer
relegated to feel an overwhelming sense of having to improve everything they do
in math. They can identify their strengths
and know where to focus their efforts for improvement.
There
are so many benefits to data collection and analysis that it will soon become a
must for educators are to be well-versed in its usage. That’s why the introduction to data usage is
so crucial. Building a school culture
that is unafraid of self-reflection is very powerful. If you can organically foster trust and
confidence among the staff when it comes to data, you have the potential to do
wonderful things with and for your students.
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