Understanding Data: How Does It All Add Up?

In this episode
Data is much more than test scores — it can also be a powerful tool that informs, engages, and creates opportunities for students. On a practical level, data can refocus and improve instruction, make connections that lead to insights within curriculum, and help us build upon individual student strengths. Although the past two school years have been non-traditional when it comes to data from standardized tests, we can still lean on alternative forms of data to continue learning about our students. 

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Final thoughts
What is one thing we learned about data collection during the pandemic that we should carry into the future?

​Courtney Brown
Center for Professional Education of Teachers

At a very basic level, we should continue being creative about the ways we think about data and how we define what’s important, especially when it comes to our students. That can mean not relying only on quantitative data or data that comes from standardized tests. But it can also mean really advocating for creating systems that think creatively about student affect, attendance, and what they say about what and how they’re learning. 

​G. Faith Little
Center for Professional Education of Teachers

Pay attention to the questions that come up as we're still in a period of a data gap, and see where they lead us. Because we might find out something important about the connection between learning and the assessments we had been giving, or the data we had been collecting. And really we’re in it to understand learning, so it’s great to have these questions bubble up, even during a period of hard times and uncertainty.  

​Dr. Sherrish Holloman
Center for Professional Education of Teachers
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Over the course of the pandemic, a lot of teachers and schools began using a different form of data. The pandemic, by default, changed the structures and traditions around schools, which also changed the relationship and the distinction between school and home and community. All of those lines got blurred. Teachers were able to get more information about their students — how they live, how they learn. I would encourage us to continue looking at the whole child, not just how they are for one day or one test. 
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DATA & PRODUCTIVE STRUGGLE

EQUITY & ASSESSMENT

VALUING TESTING VS. TESTING VALUES

TAGS: DATA-DRIVEN INSTRUCTION, TEACHING TODAY