Educational Leadership: 5 (Good) Ways to Talk About Data

The November issue of Educational Leadership was titled Doing Data Right. Of course, as educators we should be doing our best to improve instruction and assessment with data informing our choices, but it is a much easier thing to say than to do. One of the featured articles (5 (Good) Ways to Talk About Data) in the issues dealt specifically with how to move a school in the right direction with regard to working with data. The research that has been conducted about professional learning communities suggests that this five components are necessary to have data drive instruction and assessment of student learning.

• Component 1: Students are the shared responsibility of everyone.
• All of the students go to the same school, no matter the age -- take ownership and be involved. In my experience, this matter can be dealt with by vertical teams. The more teachers from various grade levels know each other, the more they seem to feel joint responsibility over all students. In the article, it was specifically pointed out that a team should take responsibility for everyones success and failure. This helps build trust.
• Component 2: Conversations about data include healthy disagreement.
• The key word is healthy. People need to be able to talk about what the data means and how it should be used. These discussions will involve differing opinions, but everyone must act professionally and with trust. 
• Component 3: Conversations about data engender trust rather than suspicion.
• Principals and teachers need to work together. The data shouldn't be used to point the finger, but to better understand how improvements can be made.
• Component 4: Data teams take a solution-oriented process.
• Focusing on the solution, rather than the problem. Looking at the data and asking, "What can we do better?" "How can we teach or assess better?"
• Component 5: Data teams know what they're expected to accomplish.
• Clear guidelines for what needs to be accomplished, but also room to explore the data and the conclusions. The article pointed out some examples where they witnessed teams trying to complete all the questions, rather than really thinking about the answers/solutions. On the other extreme, there were some teams that didn't seem to have any clear guidelines on what should be done. You need to have structure, but not so much that it becomes busy work for teachers.

Datnow, Amanda, and Vicki Park. "5 (Good) Ways to Talk About Data."Educational Leadership Nov.     2015: 10-15. Web.

2014 PSAT Results for SIS

During the first week of December, SIS received an early Christmas present from the College Board, when the PSAT results were returned.

For Juniors, the PSAT results are a gauge to performance on the SAT as well as a qualifier for the National Merit Scholarship program. To qualify for the program, Juniors must score above a 150. In the 2014 PSAT the national average score for Juniors was 141.9. The SIS Junior class average was a 160.3, which means that the average SIS Junior was above the qualifying line for the scholarship. The class high score was a 220. The Sophomore class also showed a strong performance with an average of 149.2 and a high of 198. The Sophomores also beat the average for Juniors, which is simply outstanding. The Freshmen class average was 126.3 with a high of 174. We are proud of our students for their initiative, scholarship, and perseverance they demonstrated while taking the PSAT. The results are further evidence that SIS is the best school on Saipan and one of the top schools in the Pacific region. 

Student Data @ Saipan International School

SAT10 Overview and Comparison

One thing I like to do when possible is make data meaningful for students, parents, and teachers. Usually during meetings with the Board of Directors (BOD), it is the financial report that requires some explanation. All too often it is easy to simply see a bunch of numbers and still leave with the feeling,

SAT10 Grade Equivalent

"but what does it mean?" I have encouraged the BOD to ask questions about the financial report whenever they want and I try my best to point out the more important information and make it simple to understand. I think some administrators either don't bother doing this action for parents, or prefer the idea that parents not understand and therefore don't bother admin with questions or concerns. But this is a huge part of our job as admin, helping people make sense of numbers. During the last meeting, the BOD requested an academic report, so I have used our SAT10, AR, and Achieve 3000 data to put together an explanation of what type of learning is occurring at SIS.

Our first photo is the overview of the data from our SAT10 scores with comparisons to our previous year (2013) and the results from the Public School System (PSS). Our Complete Battery and Total Math are slightly down in 2014, but Total Reading is slightly up. The more interesting number isn't as obvious, but is quite important, across the board our number of students above the 50%tile are up. But what does that mean? Although there weren't as many individual students making high scores, more students scored above the 50%tile which translates to less students (including ELL students) falling below average. More student above the 50%tile is a huge improvement, because it means that all of our students are achieving more, not just the ones at the top. To give some perspective, I have included the SAT10 Grade Equivalent scores, which helps demonstrate just how far ahead our students are from their current grade level. Looked at with this lens, we see that only G6 and G8 reading are really places where we need to do some work. These are also grade levels where we have gained more ELL students this year, so that could be a factor.

Our AR Star Reading scores show some growth in most grade levels, but negative growth in G5 and G6. The grade equivalents are mostly below the current grade. One thing that needs to be considered when looking at this data is that again, it includes every student. The ones at the top and the ones at the bottom. Those who are native speakers of English and those that are just starting to learn. Later in the year, we will revisit this data and compare it with spring results. Historically, our students have shown more improvement in the second semester in reading.

Achieve 3000 is new to our school this year, but the potential for solid improvement in reading of non-fiction material is well documented. In the three grade levels where is has been truly implemented, we can already see gains, but in two of the grade levels we are below the desired score range. I don't see that as actually too concerning as of yet, the students and teachers are new to the program, so there is a learning curve in play, but the fact that scores have gone up is a positive note. We will revisit this data in the spring as well; especially because we will begin to have data from the other grade levels as they begin to use the program more.

Gathering Learning Artifacts with Comic Life

Comic Life by Aysem Bray

The G5 students have been doing presentations about different countries in Ms. McRoberts (@amie_mcroberts) class. The presentations take most of a lesson to do, because the viewing students are required to take notes; at the end of the presentation, there is a quiz created by the presenter. With the action moving pretty fast and Ms. McRoberts providing support and watching to assess the presentation, there isn't much time left to collect evidence about the learning environment. Later thinking back, a teacher struggles to remember the details of the presentation. Students forget who presented what and when. Wouldn't be nice if there was some simple way to archive what happened during the presentation? Something that didn't require expensive equipment, a large amount of storage space, or excessive time. That is where our EdTech Coach comes into play. Mrs. Bray (@aysem_bray) stops by the room to take photos of the environment, to capture the learning live. Then she puts together a poster in Comic Life to demonstrate what was happening in the classroom. This provides Ms. McRoberts a great artifact to use during Parent-Teacher conferences; plus, it is a great memento for the students and parents. A nice item for the scrapbook to look back on 20 years later and remember when you loved learning in Ms. McRoberts G5 class.

Comic Life by Aysem Bray