The Data Coach's Guide to Improving Learning for All Students. Katherine E. Stiles
systems. This book provides many of the tools that coaches will need in these situations. The authors provide background literature, rich real-life case studies, and templates to guide activities. A very useful CD-ROM accompanies the text. This provides users with protocols, templates, PowerPoint slides, handouts, and a comprehensive Toolkit.
The Data Coach’s Guide to Improving Learning for All Students: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry provides information for a wide range of audiences. It offers a variety of templates, literature, and processes for professional development. In the end, we know that this book in and of itself cannot create equitable schools. Merely learning to manipulate information and being trained in how to facilitate collaborative inquiry can result in a series of symbolic events if one does not bring the vision, passion, and a belief about what is possible for all children. What this book can do is provide powerful resources to those who have the belief, passion, and desire for rich resources for implementing collaborative data inquiries in schools and districts.
Acknowledgments
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
—Albert Einstein
The authors are deeply grateful for the many people who have kindled and rekindled the flame within us to create this book. First, we want to acknowledge the dedicated educators who brought the ideas in this book to life in their Data Teams, schools, and classrooms and joined us in cocreating the Using Data Process of Collaborative Inquiry. Nothing is more inspiring than to see our theory of action actually improving results for students. For that, we have the administrators and teachers in schools participating in the Using Data Project to thank and the following collaborators, who worked at our side to unleash the power of collaborative inquiry in these schools: the Arizona Rural Systemic Initiative at the American Indian Programs at Arizona State University Polytechnic in Mesa, including Program Manager Karen Brighton, Project Director Dorthea Litson, and field staff and consultants Eileen Armelin, Yvonne Billingsley, Rebecca Bogert, Linda Fulmore, Rea Goklish, Laura Laughran, Nelson Letts, Brownie Lindner, Kristen Moorhead, Pam Patina, Virgil Prokopich, Nora Ramirez, and LaVonne Riggs; the Clark County School District, Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Local Systemic Change Initiative, the Mathematics and Science Enhancement (MASE), K–5 Using Technology Project, including coordinator of K–5 mathematics and science Thelma Davis, director of K–12 mathematics, science, and instructional technology Kristy Falba, and project facilitators Abby Burke, Lori Fulton, Laura MacDonald, Steve Piccininni, and Linda Role; the Stark County Mathematics and Science Partnership, Canton, Ohio, including Principal Investigator Mike Bayer, Co-PIs Melissa Marconi, Dr. Jane Dessecker, and Richard Dinko, and Teacher Coaches Leslie Austin, Nancy Baker Cazan, Pam Bernabei-Rorrer, Bill Carli, Patty Carmola, Mike Conkle, Dale Gallucci, Amy Gasser, Sharon Kessler, JoMarie Kutscher, Chad Merritt, Amy Miller, Debbie Poland, Mary Beth Stefanko, Ann Wacker, Kristy Welsh, and Wendy Williams; Johnson County Schools, Tennessee, Director of Instruction Dr. David Timbs; and the K–12 Science Curriculum Dissemination Center at EDC with Barbara Berns, Director. Many of the vignettes and examples in this book come directly from our experiences working with these schools and projects over the last four years.
Many collaborators brought their own light to this book by contributing to its writing: Jennifer Unger, codeveloper of the Using Data Online Course, wrote several of the data literacy tools, helped to shape Task 5, worked on the glossary, and created many of the data examples. Lori Fulton, Thelma Davis, Janet Dukes, Greg Gusmerotti, and Joan Lombard documented their own collaborative inquiry in the Clark County case study. WestEd’s K–12 Alliance Regional Directors Diane Carnahan, Karen Cerwin, Kathryn Schulz, Jody Skidmore Sherriff, Rita Starnes, and Jo Topps helped to write the Toolkit. Finally, we are grateful to Pam Bernabei-Rorrer and Kristy Welsh, who provided us with images of collaborative inquiry in action through the stories and examples they wrote.
Developing this work has opened our eyes to issues of race, class, and culture and the importance of cultural proficiency to the Using Data Process, thanks to the generosity, humanity, and wisdom of our special advisers, Ruth Johnson, Brenda CampbellJones, Franklin CampbellJones, and Kimberly Kinsler. John Zuman and Madga Raupp of the Intercultural Center for Research in Education, as external evaluators, helped us to draw rich lessons from our experiences and to use data ourselves to monitor our own results, as did our formative evaluator, Elizabeth Rowe of TERC.
We also want to thank our national field-test group members, who gave us the gift of their candid feedback and ignited the Using Data Process in many schools across the country: Dona Apple, Angelicque Tucker Blackmon, Carol Blunt-White, Deb Chittenden, Aileen Dickey, Karen Falkenberg, Limmie Flowers, Marla Gardner, Catherine Hill, Carolyn Karatzas, Terry Lashley, Virginia Love, Gary Money, Linda Mooney, Diane Naghi, Stacy Poor, Judith Powers, Yvette Barnes Robinson, Carol Ross, Aminata Umoja, Colleen Wallace, Jackie Walsh, and Helen Weingart. Special thanks also to Sue Card, our former Using Data colleague, and Jeanette Millard, project consultant, for their early contributions to this work. For advice on statistics, we thank William Finzer, Harold McWilliams, Andee Rubin, and Richard Schaefer. For help with mathematics and science content, we extend our appreciation to Myriam Steinback and Page Keeley.
We are filled with gratitude to a few individuals who did the arduous and painstaking work of turning our words-on-a-page into a coherent, beautifully formatted, and publishable manuscript. Peggy Liversidge pored over every word, figure, table, graph, and chart, and scrubbed our inordinately complicated manuscript clean. Much more than a copy editor, she is the best partner to the finish line any authors could wish for. In record time, our graphic designer, Valerie Martin, graced our book with her artistry and did so with infinite patience and good spirits. Early on, Bryce Flynn and Jim Caruso contributed to the PowerPoint slides. Deanna Maier acquired the multitude of permissions needed for this book with the competence and efficiency that are her trademark. Maya Lagu provided able and enthusiastic assistance in production.
Dennis Bartels, Mark Kaufman, and Diana Nunnaley at TERC sparked us with their faith in this work, going back more than 10 years, and sustained us with their ongoing support. The National Science Foundation and Program Officer Janice Earle made this book possible with their financial support. We are also grateful to our publisher, Corwin Press, and our supportive, patient, and flexible acquisitions editors Rachel Livsey and Dan Alpert. Thanks to Corwin Press’s reviewers. Nancy also wishes to acknowledge her coach, Bill Rentz, of Breakthrough Enterprises. All of us thank our families and colleagues, who continue to support us through the impossible demands so that we can do the work we love. Finally, we honor the memory of Susan Loucks-Horsley, to whom we owe the greatest debt of gratitude for letting us know we had the spark inside us all along.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
Corwin Press would like to acknowledge the following reviewers:
Brenda CampbellJones, PhD
CampbellJones & Associates
Laurel, MD
Franklin CampbellJones, EdD
CampbellJones & Associates
Laurel, MD
Mike Greenwood
Windsor Public Schools
Windsor, CT
Lori L. Grossman
Instructional Coordinator
Houston Independent School District
Houston, TX
Bill Nave, EdD
Research and Evaluation Consultant
Winthrop, ME
Aminata Umoja
Founder, Umoja Consulting LLC
Atlanta,