The Data Coach's Guide to Improving Learning for All Students. Katherine E. Stiles
How do you build support among key people? Organize Data Teams? Select and prepare Data Coaches? Create time for collaboration? Ensure timely access to robust local data? Based on lessons learned through the Using Data Project, these are the conditions that can make or break the success of collaborative inquiry. The chapter is written for the people responsible for initiating the local Using Data effort, including individual Data Coaches or leaders who are preparing Data Coaches. The following vignette highlights some of the key actions Data Coaches take to get started with collaborative inquiry.
Vignette: Organizing for Collaborative Inquiry—The Data Coach’s Role
The Nevazoh Data Coach generated interest in the Using Data Process when she talked with several key staff and made a short presentation at a faculty meeting in their middle school. The teachers were really intrigued by the process of looking at the school’s demographic data and discussing it. The Data Coach’s sense was that the teachers could have spent at least another hour talking about what they saw. She promised them more opportunities in the future if they wanted them.
She worked out ahead of time that the principal would announce that the Data Coach had support to convene a Data Team from the school to begin planning an effort to use data to improve mathematics teaching and learning and to ask the staff to consider how they would like to be involved. The principal pointed out there would be a Data Team that would meet weekly to collect and analyze data and ultimately make recommendations for action and that all of the staff could be involved in other ways such as attending sessions to gain data literacy skills and analyze data together.
After the meeting, the Data Coach followed up with several of the mathematics and special education teachers and other faculty who seemed enthusiastic about the Using Data Process during the faculty meeting. In one-on-one chats, she asked them what they thought of the idea, what their concerns were, and if they would like to be involved. She took careful note of their questions and concerns, especially when they raised the issue of data usually being used to point fingers at teachers. She realized that the Data Team would need to demonstrate quickly that this was not how it would operate. These conversations, along with a discussion with the principal and mathematics chair, helped the Data Coach think through the possible membership for the Data Team. She was careful to select a manageable group size of 5–10 people representative of the school and diverse in terms of perspective and culture. She invited the following people to form the team:
The school principal
Three of the six mathematics teachers, one from each of the three grade levels
Three of the nine special education teachers, each with a special education inclusion class at one of the three grade levels
One of the five Title I teachers who was designated for sixth-grade mathematics and had a keen interest in closing the achievement gap in the school
After numerous conversations with each team member and several meetings with the principal, the district mathematics coordinator, and the county educational center’s mathematics leader, the Data Coach helped craft a written agreement that outlined the specific roles and responsibilities for the team as a whole as well as for each individual team member. Everyone involved agreed that the Mathematics Improvement Data Team would have the authority to recommend and lead the implementation of schoolwide changes in the mathematics program, including changes in curriculum, instruction, and local assessment. These recommendations would be made after the Data Team had analyzed a variety of student learning and other data and examined the research to develop an appropriate action plan with clear specifications for ongoing data collection and analysis and monitoring of the action plan’s impact on student learning. The rest of the mathematics faculty would be informed at critical junctures and their input solicited. The district mathematics coordinator, the principal, and the county educational center’s mathematics leader each clarified how and when they would be available for support, and the Data Team was ready to be launched.
As you begin to consider implementing the Using Data Process in your own setting, your biggest question might be “Where can I start?” This chapter discusses seven steps you will take to establish collaborative inquiry within your school(s). They are
1 Make collaborative inquiry an integral part of your school operation and improvement initiatives.
2 Build stakeholder support.
3 Assess and take steps to strengthen a collaborative culture.
4 Select, prepare, and empower Data Coaches.
5 Organize Data Teams.
6 Create time for collaboration.
7 Ensure timely access to robust data sources.
Make Collaborative Inquiry an Integral Part of the School Operation and Improvement Initiatives
Often teachers and administrators are engaged in a variety of new programs and activities. Too often these initiatives are disconnected and incoherent. The Using Data Process attempts to remedy this by making the implementation of collaborative inquiry in participating schools and districts central to the staff’s ongoing work—not an add-on. “If you don’t look at the data, everything else is just a guess,” explained Mike Bayer, principal investigator of the Stark County Math and Science Partnership and Using Data collaborator from Stark County, Ohio. “The data give us direction on where to focus to raise achievement.” For any school improvement effort, using data is the foundation. Consider how to embed the use of data in your existing school operation. What happens now when teachers get student-learning data? Does the district’s data management system suggest ways to use data to enhance results? Do grade-level teams look at student results together? The Using Data Process of examining data can be applied in any of these contexts. Are you engaged in school improvement initiatives such as implementing new curriculum, technology, or learning communities? If so, using data in an ongoing way will help to ensure that your improvement initiatives are focused on the areas that are most critical for improving student learning and will help you measure your progress and results.
Before implementing collaborative inquiry, consider your school’s procedures related to data use as well as all the school improvement initiatives currently under way in the school(s) or district. Talk to the people involved with data use, and explore ideas for linking the Using Data Process with current school procedures. Also think about how the existing initiatives might support each other and share rather than compete for resources, including staff time, energy, and commitment. Coordinate with leaders of other initiatives to develop a plan for communicating with them about your actions and progress. Coordination is especially important with other data initiatives, such as the implementation of data management systems. (See Chapter 2: Resource 1 on the CD-ROM for a tool to guide your planning.)
Resource R2.1
For example, the Clark County School District in Nevada instituted a systemwide data management system a year after 15 of their schools began to implement the Using Data Process. Some participants saw the two initiatives as competing, whereas others saw the new data management system as replacing the Using Data Process. Other schools, however, understood that the two initiatives could be complementary. The data management system provided the timely access to data, and the Using Data Process of Collaborative Inquiry gave teachers the tools to put those data to work to improve their instruction. The schools that were clear about the synergy between the two initiatives were able to adapt both to better meet the needs of their students (see the Clark County, Nevada, case study in Chapter 8; Zuman, 2006).
Build Stakeholder Support
The success or failure of collaborative inquiry rests on the commitment and support of key stakeholders. Karen Brighton, project director of a systemic reform initiative in Arizona, put it this way: “Stakeholder support is foundational. This is serious