Beyond reporting of typical student achievement data
March 10, 2010 at 9:19 pm 6 comments
When most of us think about the types of reporting done within systems like DataDirector and Edusoft, we typically think about the analysis of student achievement data. We expect these types of systems to show us patterns and trends in terms of how are students fared on a districtwide benchmark assessment, or perhaps a more informal measure created by a classroom teacher. Additionally, some of our users import other types of data – like grades – into these systems.
As districts become more sophisticated in their use of data, I’m curious as to what other types of data would be useful to examine – especially when combined with student achievement data – to yield more insight into program effectiveness. For example, will districts increasingly want to ingest professional credential information into our systems? Are there key financial metrics that might yield additional patterns and trends would viewed alongside student achievement data?
I’d like to hear your ideas on what other “non-traditional” types of data we should explore as we continue to enhance our reporting capabilities…
Entry filed under: Assessment and Accountability, Reporting. Tags: data sources, DataDirector, Edusoft.
1.
Jeff Barker | March 11, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Mining the data to identify and distinguish among:
Curriculum that may not be working
Teachers who may not be effectively delivering
Teachers who are highly effective in delivery
Students who may not be responding/performing
Making instructional recommendations based on the results of assessments
Needs or objectives for individualized instruction or remediation
Curricular modifications or revisions
Recommending/ individualizing professional development activities for teachers
Identifying and selecting appropriate high-quality, research-based instruction/interventions
Identifying teacher preparatory programs that consistently produce high and low performing teachers
Modifying the instructional calendar to enable students opportunities to master prerequisite skills and knowledge that will be needed in future learning experiences
Identifying enrichment activities that allow the student to more deeply explore areas of interests and/or cultivate unique talents and skills
2.
Mike Mitchell | March 11, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Thanks for the comments Jeff.
Your comment about “identifying teacher preparatory programs” in particular is interesting to me. I’ve often wondered if patterns would emerge in this sort of exploration. In your case, for example, it might be interesting to see if teachers who came from UGA tend to “perform” better than those who graduate from another institution (like GA Tech). Is this type of data readily available in a form that could be imported into a system like Edusoft or DataDirector? Is this something you think most districts track in a database somewhere?
3.
Lee Baldwin | March 11, 2010 at 8:14 pm
I think that as we become more sophisticated with the use of data , the process of accessing various data sources becomes much more important. Currently we have a large amount of data residing in systems that don’t talk to each other well, data silos. We are moving to an Enterprise Data Warehouse and the goal is to have data from various systems in one place. This would allow access to data elements that we haven’t been able to include but also ones that we may not have thought of yet. Specific elementst to look at are particular programs, interventions, implementation indicators, teacher level variablses such as degree and experience, and professional development. Typically credential and experience data have not shown much relationship, but it is always asked for. If we could develop through data analysis teacher quality indicators or school leader indicators, that would be a big step forward. This may be off topic some, but to me the process of creating a system ithat is flexible, adjustable ,and comprehensive is more important than any particluar elements.
4.
Jeff Barker | March 11, 2010 at 8:19 pm
To my knowledge it is not readily available and I am not certain many HR departments track the information.
I would like to explore the possibilities fo using data from interim assessments especially the distractor analysis and link that to specific instruction and knowledge of currciulum as well as assessment. This may assist our conversations with the universities to help develop programs/classess to support those areas of need.
5.
Liz Frischhertz | March 12, 2010 at 2:23 am
Frequently asked for data
- national board certification and student achievement
- looking at several variables and student/school performance – i.e. average daily attendance
- four-year graduation cohort and early warning flags for students in jeopardy of not graduating on time
- grant impact
- value-added data with prediction tables
6.
Mike Oswalt | March 22, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I’m sure all states are the same in that they have to show some sort of progress towards improvement. In Michigan, we have 90 indicators that schools have to report on. Part of those are around process data (data that isn’t as easily quantifiable). For example, if a district wanted to know if a particular implementation of a curriculum had an impact, they would want to group the kids that went through it with those that didn’t and compare local and/or state assessment data. Similar concept with a group of teachers that went through a PD session and those that didnt.
In Data Director, the way to handle this is by adding a demographic field to the kids and populating it with a yes/no – then doing custom reporting based on that field. It is possible to do – but if there were a process data prebuilt report that allowed the user to identify the field to group them on and assessments to track – and then a way to compare the groups in a pre-built manner, that’d be helpful.
Mike