On Data

With the public release a couple of weeks ago of EQAO results, now is a good time for educators to reflect upon how data can be effectively used to inform teaching and learning practices.  This important inquiry is a major focus of Lyn Sharatt and Michael Fullan's Putting Faces on The Data.

Putting Faces on The Data            

by Lyn Sharratt & Michael Fullan

The central premise behind Sharratt and Fullan’s Putting Faces on The Data is expressed in the book’s Introduction: “To focus best, teachers need to combine technical expertise with a strong emotional connection to what they are looking at.”  Of course, what they are looking at are the children they teach.

The co-authors begin by reviewing, from their earlier book Realization, 14 parameters for successful district reform.  They include:

• Shared beliefs that each student can achieve high standards and that each teacher can teach to high standards;
• Daily, sustained focus on literacy instruction;
• Principal leadership;
• Early and ongoing intervention;
•  Collaborative inquiry; and
• Cross-curricular connections.

In Chapter 2, Sharratt and Fullan report on their 2011 action research.  They asked five hundred or so educators working in Canada, the U. S., and the United Kingdom 3 questions:

1. Why do we put FACES on the data?
2. How do we put FACES on the data?
3. What are the top 3 leadership skills needed to put FACES on the data?

For  Question 1, nearly half of the respondents’ answers were focused on the personal,  emotional element.  The largest number of responses to Question 2 was centred on assessment for and as learning, to determine the next steps in learning.  With respect to Question 3, the respondents indicated that the top leadership skills are know-ability (knowledge of best practices and structures), mobilize-ability (being visible and getting people moving in the same direction), and sustain-ability (building and sustaining strong relationships).  Most importantly, an effective leader participates as a learner.

   

An effective analogy is made between the important work teachers do in knowing and growing each child and the work of a sculptor who chips away at the marble to reveal the “lovely apparition” (sculpture) inside. Teachers chip away at the marble of system and school data of today to determine how it can best inform instruction tomorrow. 

School Data Wall

 In the chapter on assessment, practices such as the following are recommended:

-       Co-plan using student diagnostic data

-       Make learning goals and (co-constructed) success criteria visible;

-       Use on-going formative assessment and reflect on mid-course corrections;

-       Provide oral and written descriptive feedback;

-       Use peer and self-assessment; and

-       Create data walls.

The rationale offered on confidential data walls which track all students’ assessments is particularly good: “Once all students are placed in their levels on the data wall, and the overlaps of plummeting, staying still, and soaring students are noted, teachers stop saying I because it becomes a we challenge – teachers own all the FACES.” (79)

In their chapter on instruction, the co-authors recommend a 3-tiered strategy of instructional intensification:

1.  Good first teaching practices;
2.  A case management approach for students who struggle, whereby a meeting is held involving a number of school staff, including the principal, and the student’s work is examined and supports are recommended;
3. Further intervention steps, such as a Reading Recovery program, when students still fail to meet with success. 

The good teaching practices the authors recommend include the gradual-release-of- responsibility approach to reading and writing, differentiated instruction, cross curricular literacy connections, and rich authentic tasks that involve higher-order thinking, and student inquiry.  With respect to the last practice, they maintain that “skill in higher-order, critical thinking is the new basic for 21^st-century (teaching) – the additional foundational literacy skill that accompanies the ability to read, write, speak, listen, view, and represent.” (112)  The co-authors also introduce a very useful term – instructional intelligence, which they argue occurs when teachers combine high-yield instructional strategies that consider every learner’s needs.

 

In Chapter 5: Leadership – Individualizing For Improvement, the point is made that a principal should participate with teachers as a co-learner and co-leader, being the knowledgeable other who knows how to use data to improve instruction in every classroom in the school.  A principal should conduct both data talks and classroom learning walks to monitor how each teacher is using data to move students forward.  A principal possesses mobilize-ability when he/she “walks a fine line between push and pull” with teachers, and when he/she de-privatizes practice, “making teaching and learning transparent to all and debatable by all.” (169)  The authors recommend an annual learning fair as a “live report” on evidence of student achievement.  As for sustain-ability, the principal possesses it when he/she uses distributed leadership and empowers “second change agents” ( ie. a literacy coach) in the school. 

Putting Faces on the Data concludes with the question Who “owns” the FACES?  If one has read the book carefully, the answer is self-evident – all stakeholders in a child’s education!

Putting FACES on the Data is an ambitious book that covers a lot of ground with respect to student achievement and the use of data.  In many ways, the book reads like a blueprint for principals and school district leaders for student success.  The case studies and Narratives from the Field spread throughout the book add concrete examples of how many schools and districts have met with success by putting faces on the data.  

Recent Professional Development

10th Annual Summit on Emergency Disaster Planning

On October 1-2, I attended the 10th Annual Summit on Emergency Disaster Planning.  To call the sessions I sat through during the summit "intense" is an understatement.  There were several presentations on school shootings and other crisis situations.  Particularly gripping was the review of the Newtown tragedy which was presented by Robert J. Rader, Executive Director, Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE) and the debriefing on the Chardon High School (Chardon, Ohio) shooting on February 27, 2012 which was delivered by Chardon principal Andrew R. Fetchik and superintendent Joseph Bergant.   

Yours truly with Eric Roher at the 10th Annual Summit

 on Emergency Disaster Planning Conference

Other informative sessions I attended included Clicks and Stones: Cyberbullying in Canadian Schools and Universities, featuring one of Canada's foremost experts on educational law, Eric Roher of Borden Ladner-Gervias, and Emerging Trends in Targeted Violence, which was presented by Tony Beliz, Deputy Director, County of Los Angeles Department of Mental Health.

The latter introduced me to a new word and phenomenon - isonection, which refers to the social isolation that may result from obsessive indulgence in social media.