Well, it’s been a while…honestly I feel like I have been on a world tour this summer (ok, maybe just a central kentucky tour 
) I have been busy with trainings and have had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people in the area and visit many of your schools. One of the things I have concluded after my summer tour is that Kentucky Schools are Data Rich but often Information Poor. Most schools have more data than they could ever analyze…GRADE, GMADE, KCCT, ThinkLink, MAP, Learning Checks, ORQ, Portfolios, Running Records, DRA, Interest Inventories, CTBS, Unit Assessments WHEW, just to name a few!!!
So what do you do with all this assessment data? How do you begin to sort through it all and what data is most valuable to analyze. Consider the following:
- Assessment should drive your instruction. What data will help you make the best teaching decisions?
- Ask yourself, “What do I need to know in order to teach my students?” Then ask, ” What data will best help me teach them? That’s the data to analyze more deeply.
- Know what your assessments are designed to do, some are predictive and others are diagnostic, some measure content knowledg other measure skills.
- Do a data inventory. List what data sources you have, what subjects you have data for, dates of data collection, grade levels assessed, how you use the data and then could you use it more effectively.
- When looking at data, look past the surface. Ask yourself “Why?” If a child is novice on ThinkLink in reading, ask why? Is it a content issue or a reading issue?
- Standardized test results are a good place to beginbut rarely all we need to know in order to improve acheivement.
Many schools never move to asking “Why?” They do a good job stating a problem but need to go deeper.
