April 2005 — Industry Perspective
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The Quest for Quality Instructional Data
Administrators and teachers need solid professional development support and guided practice to become better users and consumers of academic data. Fortunately, instructional data management systems have a variety of user levels. Less advanced levels are easier to use and provide basic information quickly. But as more complex information is desired, the user needs to develop more sophisticated skills in order to navigate the system and gather the required information.‘The Scripted Years’
Once administrators and teachers have quality data and the skills to access it, they ask the proverbial question: “Now what?” To fully answer this question, we must look at the history of data-driven instruction. For many years, educators learned how to teach through methodologies, strategies, textbooks, programs and professional development. I call this era “the scripted years.” Sound educational approaches were used with thousands of students by ensuring teachers adhered to the prescribed methods and materials. They measured the success of these approaches through annual summative test scores. Once a year, school staffs would review the results of their annual scores and try to change practices that did not meet their expectations. In short, they answered the “now what” question during an annual event, rather than seeing it as a continual improvement process.
But public education’s “client ” began to change, and various scripted methods were not successful in helping all students learn. Many teachers began to face the disheartening realization that one approach could not possibly work for all students. Good teaching required a deeper understanding of student learning patterns and needs.
There’s no doubt teachers benefit from learning additional strategies, but they must be able to determine student academic needs and prescribe a course of action to meet those needs when all is said and done. For the majority of teachers, this opportunity to use their professional skills is overdue. Teachers welcome the challenge and seek the expertise required to support every student’s success.
Making a Difference
Today, technology has provided the means to access more information with increased frequency. We can now monitor how well one student is doing or what thousands of students are learning during the school year. We can also give teachers the information they need to analyze the effectiveness of their current instructional efforts. Thus, teachers can understand almost immediately what worked and what did not, as well as analyze their effectiveness with an entire class or an individual student.
This enables educators to weave an improvement process into the very fiber of teaching and learning through quality assessments and opportunities for teachers to review and discuss the implications of data, and then work together to plan academic interventions. Placing technology and high-quality assessment data in the hands of administrators and teachers is nothing short of empowering professionals to use their skills and abilities to enhance the quality of education.
Slowly but surely, districts are reinforcing their core philosophies with the belief that teachers and principals make the difference. While learning to use data to make instructional decisions cannot be totally scripted, it must involve each educator’s ability to comprehend, analyze and act in a manner that produces educational results for all students. Don’t look now, but it is happening nationwide.
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