1. Teacher Data Teams
FOR RTI MODULE 5 .

2. What is a Teacher Data Team?
Data Teams are collaborative teams designed to improve teaching, learning and leadership.
Laura Besser
Data teams are the single best way to help educators and administrators move from ‘drowning in data’ to using information to make better instructional decisions.
Doug Reeves
It is all about instruction, bottom line is student achievement. How can we get better at what we do?
We want to be a leading school – obtaining high results, but also have a high understanding of the antecedents to increased student achievement (not just lucky) – and therefore the replication of success is likely.

3. Why Use Teacher Data Teams?
It is what teachers and leaders do that matters the most
Schools get better outcomes when they focus and learn from that focus
90 % minority
90 % poverty
90 % at or above proficiency, On Grade Level Standards
The ‘why’ behind teacher data teams.
Notes from the Data Team Summit.
Only high implementation yields gains.
Deep implementation at a high performing school yields 3X the gains.
90% faculty participation: 3-5 times higher achievement gains than 10% faculty participation.
High poverty schools – 90% or more – 90% minority – but 90% at proficiency OGL
These schools have a laser like focus on achievement
Collaborative scoring
Non fiction writing
Multiple opportunities for success
Not too many initiatives – implement deep
MOVING TO !

4. A Constant: Our job description
What do students need to know and be able to do? Standards
How will we teach this? Instruction – adult behavior
How will we know if they have learned it? student behavior - assessments and ‘look-fors’ in student work/learning
What will we do if they already know it or don’t learn it? differentiate, intervene
These are the Four DuFour PLC questions (with the instructional component added).
Suntree: Already had gone through the growing pains (culture of PLCs school wide, developed infrastructure of intervention block outside the core, weekly Teacher Data meetings already in place – with a focus on Tier 1 two times a month; Tier 2 one week, and a Field Trip to observe other faculty and best practices throughout school.

5. Our Goal: To Increase Student Learning
How do we do this? By improving instruction!
There are two components
to improving instruction:
Goal to increase student learning. There are two parts to improving instruction – the ‘what’ is the standards and the ‘how’ is the good teaching.
We are going to continue to work on the ‘how’ from the ‘what’ we just experienced with Theresa Phelps (Writing Resource Teacher), as we just examined our focus standards in writing.
What (Standards)
How
(Good teaching)

6. Teacher Data Team Process
The goal is to improve student learning and student achievement.
The data team process – described as short term instructional data teams that are tactical and very technical in nature, gets you from the standards to the instruction.
Process
Standards
Classroom Instruction

7. Teacher Data Team Process
FOCUS Standards
1. Collect/Chart Data
2. Analyze strengths and obstacles
3. Set SMART goal(s) for improvement
4. Determine Instructional strategies
5. Determine results indicators
Monitor and Evaluate Results Begin Cycle Step 1
This is the process. Chris Reed, AP Suntree Elementary – “You need to get to step 4, otherwise you are just talking.”
It is possible to get through these steps in one data team meeting with incredible organization and leadership. This keeps the meetings all about data, instruction, and student learning.
Leadership and Learning Center Data Teams Summit; Beach, FL February, 2011Clearwater

8. A Moment to Reflect Think about your Teacher Data Teams this year
A Moment to Reflect Think about your Teacher Data Teams this year. How can you deepen your implementation?
Just at your table, reflect on your Teacher Data Team Process.
Some teams may be more successful than others even within your building. What successes do you have? How can you scale that out to the whole building? If you could raise the bar, what would you like to see happen next year in terms of your instructional staff meetings?

9. Setting “FOCUS” Standards in Writing
“FOCUS” on standards, K-6
Met with each grade level
Reviewed writing standards
Determined which standards would be the ‘focus’ (approximately 5-7)
Charted and displayed focus standards to show continuum
Theresa Phelps – Writing Resource Teacher – helped teachers look at the writing standards to develop FOCUS standards.

10. Setting “FOCUS” Standards in Writing
Purpose
Define areas of emphasis
Provide seamless progression from one grade to the next
Recognize grade-level focus, resulting in a school-wide response

11. Next Step: Alignment
These were Suntree’s standards across the grade levels.

12. Some Examples of FOCUS Standards
Note: The introduce ….

13. 1st Grade

14. 2nd Grade

15. 4th Grade

16. 6th Grade

17. Where Do We Start? Introduction to Data Team Process
Team Developed Norms
Roles of all members
Scheduling
Minutes
Agenda
Already had established the culture
Infrastructure already established (90 minute reading with 30 minutes outside the block)
Weekly Teacher Data Team meetings, etc
Defining roles and what they mean. We will model the facilitator this time .. But they need to determine who will do the rest this time.
RECORDER: Captures thinking during the meeting. Best if typed during meeting and displayed as we go. (Jayna will make a template to make this easier). After meeting, tweaks and formats, distributes to administration and TDT members within 24 hours.
TIME KEEPER: Will have a copy of the agenda (with anticipated time in minutes) to help keep time – give 2 or 1 minute warnings. Has permission to do this and help us keep on track. During the meetings, Chris demonstrated this and Jayna (facilitator) also kept moving along the meeting.
FOCUS MONITOR: Will have a copy of the agenda in order to know the topic being discussed). Has permission to keep the dialogue on track. Chris and Jayna.
ALL MEMBERS: will agree to norms, contribute, etc.

18. Our Schedule/Timeline
Thurs. 3/24 Writing Prompt (New baseline) Fri. 3/25 – Tues. 4/12 Collaboratively Score Writing Enter scores into A3 Tues. 4/19 Teacher Data Teams: Steps 1-5 Wed. 5/4 Administer Final Writing Prompt Thurs. 5/5 – Fri. 5/13 Collaboratively Score Writing Submit Scores to Jayna Tues. 5/17 Teacher Data Teams: Step 6
This is the timeline Suntree used and shared with the faculty March 22, 2011.

19. Teacher Data Team Meetings April 19th, 2011
This is a copy of the posted agenda. Went over in first minute of every meeting.

20. Step 1: Collect and Chart Data
Teacher
(#)
STUDENTS TAKING PRE-ASSMNT
(#) and %
PROFICIENT or HIGHER (4-5-6)
JUST BELOW PROFICIENT (3)
BELOW PROFICIENCY (2)
Far to Go (0-1) A
(18)
(18) 100% B
(15) 83%
(1) %
(2) % C
(8)
(6) %
12.5%
(1) %
Etc Data Charted Before Meeting; Presented for All Classes In Grade Level: 2 Minutes in TDT
Grade Level
(91)
(70) 77%
(16) 18%
(5) 5%
Go over the points on the HANDOUT – get them familiar with this because this is what they will have when the go back to do in August.
Explain that by the Meeting Time, Data has already been charted according to proficiency areas, classes, number and percentage of students, any important subgroups, etc. This takes 2 minutes to go over in the meeting.
Leadership and Learning Center Data Teams Summit; Beach, FL February, 2011Clearwater

21. Step 2: Analyze Strengths and Obstacles
For each proficiency area:
- Identify things WE can influence and do something about
- Determine why
- Determine strengths across all proficiency areas
- Determine and identify needs and misconceptions across all groups
REFER TO HAND OUT to go over the checklist in Step 2.
Noting that this is one of the important parts of the meeting – plan to spend some time here.
It was amazing to see the teachers glance through the student work samples for evidence to support their discussion of strengths in the proficiency areas.
Leadership and Learning Center Data Teams Summit; Beach, FL February, 2011Clearwater

22. Step 3: Establish, Review, or revisit SMART GOAL
The percentage of ______ (grade) _________ (content area) students scoring proficient or higher will increase from ______ (baseline) to _________ (target goal) by _______ (date) as measured by ________ (assessment) given on ________ (date).
You will already have SMART goals in your SIP plan. However, this is a short term goal for the approaching unit of instruction (tied to the standards). This is how we can make our core Tier 1 more effective throughout the year – meeting short term SMART goals, in order to meet the large overall SMART goal in our SIP plans in the content areas.
Leadership and Learning Center Data Teams Summit; Beach, FL February, 2011Clearwater

23. Step 4: Determine Instructional Strategies
What specific strategies are going to be used to address the identified needs (from Step 2)
Link instructional strategies to specific needs for each performance group (differentiate)
Describe who, what, when, how long, etc.
Prioritize
This is key – refer to hand out on STEP 4: Instructional Strategies and questions. This is the KEY to our TDTs, using DATA to Inform Instruction.
Leadership and Learning Center Data Teams Summit; Beach, FL February, 2011Clearwater

24. 5. Determine Results Indicators
For each instructional strategy planned, ask,
When this strategy is implemented successfully,
what will the adult behavior look like?
What will the students be doing?
What are the ‘look-fors’ in the student work? (Evidence that it is working)
In other words, how will we know this strategy is working? What are the look-fors?
Describe – put in the minutes.
Leadership and Learning Center Data Teams Summit; Beach, FL February, 2011Clearwater

25. We charted as we went along:
Reed: Summarized the whole process – notice here we had one class that was way off from the others. So we looked at the overall grade level. …..
There were three classes in 5th
116 students
70% proficiency
Goal: looked at the number of students scoring Level 3 and made the goal to increase students scoring Level 4.
Left these in data room for all teachers to see K-6 perspective

26. Post-Test Analysis TDT
How did we do?
Did we meet our goal?
What are we going to do for the students who are still not proficient? (Tier 2/3 Intervention)
How are we going to maintain proficient students while we move on through the next instructional standards?
We all don’t think we have time for this – but this was the best use of a TDT … not just reporting data, but we began to talk about instruction, our standards, and how we are going to address proficiency as a grade level and content area.
If you don’t think you have time for this – this school began right BEFORE FCAT – DURING FCAT, and wrapping up AFTER FCAT when typically instructional focus tends to lessen.