Out of all of the courses I have taken so far in the Instructional Technology program, this course has been the most thorough and in-depth. There were many tasks to complete and waiting until the last minute to do assignments for this class was not an option! I feel very accomplished now that I have all assignments complete and looking back at what I have done in this course makes me realize how much I have learned. I could list every single assignment that I felt taught me something important, but to be honest, there are too many of them to do that so I will focus more on some big ideas that I have taken away from this course. First, it is important for a Data Coach to keep things simple and straight-forward. I tend to provide way more information than necessary and not only did I learn that this is not effective when it comes to data, it can be highly ineffective. I also learned some effective strategies to target this, like the use of simple, colorful graphic displays when giving a data overview. Second, I learned that you have to look both "deep and wide" when looking at data, meaning that you can't only look at overall data over the past three years but you also can't just drill down into a single year's data to find the real story. Third, I learned the big picture of data analysis, what I feel the administrators see but what teachers often do not, unless they have an effective data leader at their school. Our schools focus much of their data professional development on the teacher's use of formative assessment data to drive instructional practices so this was a different approach that I feel made me better understand the motivation for goals in our school and system improvement plans.
If I had to choose one field experience that was the most valuable, it would have to be the one that really allowed me to apply those skills stated above: the Data Overview. At first I was very overwhelmed with the amount of data available to analyze and this made me realize the need for presentations on data to be simple. As I started to drill down, there were trends I began to notice that I was shocked to see. It was at that moment I realized that if you are looking at data, it is important to present changes over time along with comparison data. Previously I have seen trend data just with overall scores and sub-group comparisons and strand-level data were for the year only. However, looking at trends over time while drilling down into those two levels made a big difference in the story that appeared.
What is most interesting about this project is what I did afterwards: I requested other data to see if I could find some of the same trends there. I wanted to see if this was isolated to this grade level and subject or if it was a trend that I found in other areas. I haven't finished looking at this data yet, but I want to continue to apply what I have learned and share my findings with school leadership. This would be highly welcomed by school leadership. However, a challenge I would face would be applying the Using Data Process/Data Wise Process in its entirety to the data teams that already exist at each of the schools. Much of what I have been taught is already in place but in a different way - data is used to drive day-to-day instruction and much of what the data team would be doing according to the processes I have learned is reserved to the administration at each school. I believe that that will likely remain the same, but I do hope to assist my administrators in looking more closely at trends in data and using these to develop short- and long-term action plans.
If I had to choose one field experience that was the most valuable, it would have to be the one that really allowed me to apply those skills stated above: the Data Overview. At first I was very overwhelmed with the amount of data available to analyze and this made me realize the need for presentations on data to be simple. As I started to drill down, there were trends I began to notice that I was shocked to see. It was at that moment I realized that if you are looking at data, it is important to present changes over time along with comparison data. Previously I have seen trend data just with overall scores and sub-group comparisons and strand-level data were for the year only. However, looking at trends over time while drilling down into those two levels made a big difference in the story that appeared.
What is most interesting about this project is what I did afterwards: I requested other data to see if I could find some of the same trends there. I wanted to see if this was isolated to this grade level and subject or if it was a trend that I found in other areas. I haven't finished looking at this data yet, but I want to continue to apply what I have learned and share my findings with school leadership. This would be highly welcomed by school leadership. However, a challenge I would face would be applying the Using Data Process/Data Wise Process in its entirety to the data teams that already exist at each of the schools. Much of what I have been taught is already in place but in a different way - data is used to drive day-to-day instruction and much of what the data team would be doing according to the processes I have learned is reserved to the administration at each school. I believe that that will likely remain the same, but I do hope to assist my administrators in looking more closely at trends in data and using these to develop short- and long-term action plans.