Instructional strategies inventory1

Data Wise Improvement Process

School leaders will use this eight-step process to improve student learning through preparation, inquiry and action planning using student assessment data to create effective instruction.

How does it work? Schools must first analyze and organize the student assessment data to understand student performance and instructional effectiveness and create an open environment for educators to discuss the results through graphic illustrations, triangulation of data, and developing and implementing an action plan.

Eight-step process Prepare 1. Organizing for collaborative work: School leaders will establish

data teams that will engage in meaningful discussions addressing student performance and teaching practice.

2. Building assessment literacy: Faculty will be familiarized with how to interpret score reports, the different types of assessments, and the use of key concepts like reliability, validity, measurement error and sampling error to help create a clear understanding of student data assessment.

Inquiry 3. Creating a data overview: Each data team will create graphic

displays of standardized test results to better demonstrate an overview of student assessment data allowing for constructive conversations about patterns illustrated.

4. Digging into student data: Data teams will identify the learner-centered problem, a problem of understanding or skill that is common for many students, so that a solution can be reached on understanding the needs of students in both knowledge and skills. Triangulating data – an approach that forces educators to look at test items in group content, across groups of similar items and at individual test items – will help educators hypothesize reasons for specific student responses. Schools then use multiple data sources to test their hypothesis about student performance.

5. Examining instruction: The learner-centered problem will transition to a problem of practice as school leaders assist teachers in adapting new practice strategies to develop a shared understanding of effective instruction that addresses the problem.

Act 6. Developing an action plan: Through the previous steps, a decision on an instructional strategy can be easily

identified and put into collaborative work to describe how it will fit into the classrooms. Each team will write out an action plan and document members’ roles and responsibilities to build internal accountability.

7. Planning to assess progress: In order to accurately interpret the action plan, school leaders will direct faculty to develop what short-, medium- and long-term data will be needed to measure the progress of the action plan in short-, medium- and long-term goals for student improvement.

8. Acting and assessing: While implementing the action plan, school leaders and teachers will ask check-and- balance questions to ensure effective instruction. In addition to these questions, teachers will be held by the internal accountability previously established in step 6 to ensure the students receive the highest level of instruction.

Updated 8/1/13Prepared by Communications Department

The package containing data from last spring’s mandatory state exam landed with a thud on principal Roger Bolton’s desk. The local newspaper had already published an arti- cle listing Franklin High as a school “in need of improve- ment.” Now this package from the state offered the gory details. Roger had five years of packages like this one, shar- ing shelf space with binders and boxes filled with results from the other assessments required by the district and state. The sheer mass of paper was overwhelming. Roger wanted to believe that there was something his faculty could learn from all these numbers that would help them increase student learning. But he didn’t know where to start.

S chool leaders across the nation share Roger ’s frustration.

The barriers to construc- tive, regular use of stu- dent assessment data to improve instruction can seem insurmountable. There is just so much data. Where do you start? How do you make time for the work? How do you build your fac- ulty’s skill in interpreting data sensibly? How do you build a culture that focuses on improvement, not blame? How

do you maintain momentum in the face of all the other demands at your school?

Our group of faculty and doctoral students at the Har- vard Graduate School of Education and school leaders from three Boston public schools worked together for over two years to figure out what school leaders need to know

and do to ensure that the piles of student assessment results landing on their desks are used to improve student learning in their schools. We have found that organizing the work of instructional improvement around a process that has specific, manageable steps helps educators build con- fidence and skill in using data. After much discus- sion, we settled on a process that includes eight distinct steps school leaders can take to use their student assessment data effectively, and organized these steps into three phases: Prepare, Inquire, and Act.

The “Data Wise” Improvement Process graphic shown at left illustrates the cyclical nature of this work. Initially, schools prepare for the work by establishing a foundation for learning from student assessment results. Schools then inquire—look

January/February 2006 Volume 22, Number 1

The “Data Wise” Improvement Process Eight steps for using test data to improve teaching and learning

by Kathryn Parker Boudett, Elizabeth A. City, and Richard J. Murnane

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For reprint rights, contact [email protected] or call 617-495-3432.

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Published by the Harvard Graduate School of Education

HARvARD EDucATIOn LETTER

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Organize for Collaborative Work

Create Data Overview

Dig into Student Data

Examine Instruction

Develop Action Plan

Plan to Assess Progress

Build Assessment Literacy

Act and Assess