Data Warehouse Overview From Calhoun ISD - PowerPoints Data Director and D4SS “Instead of overloading teachers, let’s give them the data they need to conduct powerful, focused analysis and to generate a sustained stream of results for students.” Stiggins

 “Schools that explore data and take action collaboratively provide the most fertile soil in which a culture of improvement can take root and flourish.” "The Collaborative Advantage." Educational Leadership Dec/Jan (2009)  All data mining efforts must be based on inquiry – asking the right questions, and then asking more questions of the answers in order to make informed decisions. Quotes…to think about

Leadership and Collaboration are essential and Data Director is: –A tool for informing school improvement planning –A tool for engaging professional learning communities –A tool for promoting collaboration between districts –A tool for building a culture of quality data for student success

Why a data rich culture? No Child Left Behind and Michigan’s Education YES! Requirements that Schools must align student demographic and achievement data to ensure that all student subgroups make adequate progress Schools are turning to data to justify programs and identify intentional areas of school improvement efforts based on data and not feeling

How do D4SS and Data Director work together? Together they provide the ability to triangulate data from multiple sources –Both provide non-negotiable state data Data4SS is based on enrollment at time of MEAP Data Director: is based on live/current enrollment provides analysis of district required assessments provides analysis of classroom performance data provides frequent systematic monitoring for growth to avoid unexpected results

Building a Culture of Quality Data for Student Success Essential Components: –Principals as Instructional Leaders –Professional Learning Communities –Sustained Support

Principals as Instructional Leaders Starts with professional development for principals and bringing principals from other districts/buildings together to engage in conversations and learning Must be part of their building/district team Principals must be part of the visioning for their building

Essential Professional Development Topics –Using state data to identify school improvement goals Good entry point for data mining to identify trends and areas for focus –Using school data to clarify and address the problem Grade level teams come together to review assessment results and identify areas of focus –Examining student work to inform instruction Based on the interpretation of the data, PLCs examine specific assessment items, such as writing samples, to identify areas to focus specific instructional interventions –Using classroom data to monitor student progress Using classroom assessments to show progress, identify areas of focus, and predict performance on standardized assessments

Local school district resources –Leadership Commitment of superintendent to the project and principals to motivate staff to use data to inform instruction –Power Users School Improvement and technical key contacts and key teacher leaders who are front line support for using Data Director as a school wide tool for driving classroom instruction –Professional Learning Communities Principals and key teacher leaders who are using the tool appropriately and able to show others through professional learning communities.

 “Being data driven is an admirable goal. Just because a school collects data, does not mean the data are being used to improve student achievement.” Marzano  Using a data warehouse is a school improvement project with a resource meant to drive classroom instruction (with a cool technology tool), not a technology project that is just another tool to collect data for state reporting. Quotes…to think about

Lessons Learned: Calhoun ISD School district key contacts are central to the success of the data warehouse and must communicate with each other. School district key contacts prefer to train each other Superintendents need to initiate some questions; principals need to find the answers and use those results to probe deeper (data mining). Principals need to be given a meaningful pre-built report(s) that encourages them to ask more questions (i.e. hold their hand at first). There will always be technological glitches.

It is a critical learning experience for district staff to work to clean and validate their own data: –District staff can best assess the data they receive to determine why it is not accurate – which is a critical step in problem-solving. –District staff can best assess who is responsible for the data error so that that individual(s) can be brought along to enter data correctly in the future. –District staff can monitor data for ‘red flags’ that aren’t apparent to ‘outsiders.’ Lessons Learned