Since the age of big data has arrived, we have seen immense changes to our culture and to every industry. Even in the physical activity of sports, there have been changes to the way games are played using analytics. Professional baseball teams are now completely focused on data analytics.
Data-driven instruction has become a buzzword in our industry. We have so much data it can be difficult to make sense of it at times. The state publishes it, the district publishes it, and the principal publishes it. We get data down to the student expectation level for every student in the school and can pinpoint gaps in the students’ learning. The big question is, is all this data really having an impact on the kids in the seats and the adults training our children?
Question to Ask About Your Data
What do you publish for teachers that help change their behavior?
What do you publish that impacts the intensity with which we approach the work?
There is an obvious moral imperative with anyone who has a conscience. Changing the trajectory of kids’ lives is a big deal. Can data really change the zeal with which we approach the work?
I like sports a lot and would guess I follow football and basketball at all levels more than most with zeal. This statement is thus not from an anti-sports bias. Instructional change data is not having an impact on our culture, if the staff can name the all-district offensive lineman, yet
has no idea how many students are college-ready, or how many kids were enrolled in an Institution of Higher Education (IHE). The TAPR has this data, and it can be accessed very easily.
Please keep telling them who the elite offensive linemen are, but make sure educators know the good and the bad around data that shows the trajectory of students’ lives. The data at the bottom is just one piece of trajectory data that we should set goals around so we may impact the zeal and the daily approach to the work.
What data saturates your culture? If data does not change behavior, we are wasting an immense amount of time collecting it!