Driving the Data Analysis Bus (Not Off a Cliff) Julie Wiebersch Curriculum Director Caddo Mills ISD jwiebersch@caddomillsisd.org

Without Data, you are just another person with an Opinion. Data is absolutely useless. It’s what you do with it that matters. One of my favorite quotes. I don’t know who said it. I wish it was me, but it wasn’t. My new favorite quote, by Justin Minkel in his article Too much of a Good Thing: Making Data Wrok for Schools, January 2015.

Two Ways Teachers Use Data How are my students doing individually? How am I doing instructionally? Teachers are really good at the first one. They can see who’s failing, what skills they need to work on, ability group them for tutoring, etc. The second one, not so much. It’s hard for some of us to reflect on ourselves and determine where are weaknesses are. And to compare themselves to other teacher and have professional conversations about their own strengths and weaknesses.

Instruction Time Spent Giving Assessments Reading Diagnostics – 65 Hours TPRI DRA District Common Assessment – 32 Hours 6 or 9 Week Checkpoints Benchmarks State Testing – 12 -16 Hours This is the testing we do in Caddo Mills on average.

You don’t fatten a pig by weighing it. How many of you have heard this? You must FEED the pig. Testing kids over and over will not make them smarter. You must use the data.

Why do we look at strengths Why do we look at strengths? Doesn’t everyone want to know what they are doing well. And what happens to strengths when you don’t continue to spiral them back through instruction? They drop off. Especially if they are taught at the beginning of the year and tested later.

Learning Standard Breakdown Anything above 90%. We’re talking about concepts. It could be one question or a couple of questions. We’ll look at individual questions later. For now we are looking at whole concepts.

SE are written with key words, not just numbers SE are written with key words, not just numbers. The Plan of Action is most important here. How are you going to keep these as strengths. Be specific.

Areas of Concern are SE’s below 60%.

Learning Standard Breakdown Lowest 4 SE’s. Look at the one that’s 38.4. This data is from a benchmark and I know that this SE is one that has not been covered yet. It’s not an area of concern if it hasn’t been taught. The chances of students doing well on a concept increase when you actually teach it to them.

Again, writing key words from SE’s. How did I teach this SE Again, writing key words from SE’s. How did I teach this SE? This is very important. What I did, didn’t work. Plan of Action here is essential to moving this from am area of concern to a strength. Use more models…. Question was confusing… I want to point out the Plan of Action in this strength. This is an Ah Ha moment that may not have happened if this data was not analyzed.

Individual Responses

How can teachers use this information? Plan lessons PLC conversations Spiral questions into the next assessment Analyze resources

How can administrators use this information? Goal setting with teachers PLC conversations Analyze resources