FEATURE ARTICLE
What The Right Data Can Do
Find sources that can help tailor learning to each educator's needs
By Learning Forward
Categories: CollaborationApril 2013
Learning Forward’s Data standard advocates using data from a variety of sources and types — including student, educator, and system data — to plan, assess, and evaluate professional learning. This presents several challenges, beginning with the emphasis on a variety of sources and types. The pressures of No Child Left Behind have focused American educators on academic student data from large-scale, high-stakes tests —usually connected to school improvement plans that must be developed where Adequate Yearly Progress is not met. Rarely are those data connected directly to plans for professional learning. A second area of challenge relates to what I knew and articulated forcefully about my students, but was slow to discover about my staff when I became a principal: They don’t all need the
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Types of Data
Student
Academic: Large-scale, common, formative.
Nonacademic: Attendance, discipline.
Perceptual: Surveys, focus groups.
Educator
Preparation, experience, certification, participation, perceptual.
System
Professional learning record, school improvement plans.
Ways To Differentiate
- What.
- How much.
- What kind.
- Where and when.
- Who presents and coaches.
References
Bush, R.N. (1984). Effective staff development. In Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, Making our schools more effective: Proceedings of three state conferences (NIE Grant No. 80-0103; pp. 223-240). San Francisco, CA: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development.
Clotfelter, C.T., Ladd, H.F., & Vigdor, J.L. (2007, November). Teacher credentials and student achievement in high school: A cross-subject analysis with student fixed effects (Working Paper No. 13617). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Hall, G.E. & Hord, S.M. (2001). Implementing change: Patterns, principles, and potholes. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Hirsh, S. (2009). Foreword. In J. Killion & P. Roy, Becoming a learning school (pp. 5-6). Oxford, OH: NSDC.
Holcomb, E.L. (2007). Students are stakeholders, too! Including every voice in authentic high school reform. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Holcomb, E.L. (2012). Data dynamics: Aligning teacher team, school, and district efforts. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Ingersoll, R. (2008, November). Core problems: Out-of-field teaching persists in key academic courses and high-poverty schools. Washington, DC: The Education Trust.
Marzano, R.J. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Marzano, R.J. (2010). A focus on teaching. In R.J. Marzano (Ed.), On excellence in teaching (pp. 1-4). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Learning Forward is the only professional association devoted exclusively to those who work in educator professional development. We help our members plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so they can achieve success with their systems, schools, and students.
Categories: Collaboration
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