6.29.2012
6.28.2012
Data Wise Ch 5
Notes from text
Data Wise
Boudett, City, Murnane
Chapter 5: Examining Instruction
Reframe the learning problem as a "problem of practice". It should:
-include learning and teaching
-be specific and fine-grained
-be a problem within the school's control
-be a problem that, if solved, will mean progress toward some larger goal
There are four main tasks to help you investigate instruction and articulate s problem of practice:
1. Link learning and teaching: With this particular learning problem, how does instruction impact what students learn?
2. Develop the skill of examining practice: How do we look at instructional data?
3. Develop a shared understanding of effective practice: What does effective instruction for our learning problem look like and what makes it effective?
4. Analyze current practice: What is actually happening in the classroom in terms of the learning problem, and how does it relate to our understanding of effective practice?
If teachers don't fundamentally believe that their teaching can make a difference for student learning, then it's going to be difficult to convince them to change their teaching.
When planning opportunities for teachers to link learning and teaching, consider these points:
-How will you move the conversation from "students/parents/poverty" to "teachers"?
-How will you frame the work as an opportunity to improve instruction, rather than as a failure (proactive vs. reactive)?
-How will you help teachers have a questioning rather than a defensive stance?
-How will you surface and get people to acknowledge the fundamental assumption that teaching matters for learning?
Components of examining practice:
1. Evidence, data about teaching
2. Precise, shared vocabulary
3. Collaborative conversation with explicit norms
Hearing others' responses to the same lesson helps challenge individual assumptions, helps us notice different things and see the same things Ina new way, and leads to a better understanding of the practice observed.
We need a vision for what [this] effective teaching looks like so we can assess whether what we're doing now fits or doesn't fit that vision.
When looking internally to develop ideas of effective practice, the key is too ground the discussion in evidence.
Connecting best practices to data serves multiple purposes: it increases the likelihood that the practice is effective rather than simply congenial; it reinforces the discipline of grounding all conversations about teaching and learning in evidence rather than generalities or assumptions; it's more persuasive-teachers are more likely to try something for which there's evidence that it works; and it reinforced the link between learning and teaching.
Inquiry is essential in developing a shared understanding of effective practice because you want everyone to understand not only what effective practice for the leaning problem looks like but why it is effective.
Three questions to consider when making decisions about how to examine instruction are:
1. What data will answer your questions about teaching practice in your school?
2. What are teachers ready for and willing to do?
3. What are your resources, including time?
Data Wise
Boudett, City, Murnane
Chapter 5: Examining Instruction
Reframe the learning problem as a "problem of practice". It should:
-include learning and teaching
-be specific and fine-grained
-be a problem within the school's control
-be a problem that, if solved, will mean progress toward some larger goal
There are four main tasks to help you investigate instruction and articulate s problem of practice:
1. Link learning and teaching: With this particular learning problem, how does instruction impact what students learn?
2. Develop the skill of examining practice: How do we look at instructional data?
3. Develop a shared understanding of effective practice: What does effective instruction for our learning problem look like and what makes it effective?
4. Analyze current practice: What is actually happening in the classroom in terms of the learning problem, and how does it relate to our understanding of effective practice?
If teachers don't fundamentally believe that their teaching can make a difference for student learning, then it's going to be difficult to convince them to change their teaching.
When planning opportunities for teachers to link learning and teaching, consider these points:
-How will you move the conversation from "students/parents/poverty" to "teachers"?
-How will you frame the work as an opportunity to improve instruction, rather than as a failure (proactive vs. reactive)?
-How will you help teachers have a questioning rather than a defensive stance?
-How will you surface and get people to acknowledge the fundamental assumption that teaching matters for learning?
Components of examining practice:
1. Evidence, data about teaching
2. Precise, shared vocabulary
3. Collaborative conversation with explicit norms
Hearing others' responses to the same lesson helps challenge individual assumptions, helps us notice different things and see the same things Ina new way, and leads to a better understanding of the practice observed.
We need a vision for what [this] effective teaching looks like so we can assess whether what we're doing now fits or doesn't fit that vision.
When looking internally to develop ideas of effective practice, the key is too ground the discussion in evidence.
Connecting best practices to data serves multiple purposes: it increases the likelihood that the practice is effective rather than simply congenial; it reinforces the discipline of grounding all conversations about teaching and learning in evidence rather than generalities or assumptions; it's more persuasive-teachers are more likely to try something for which there's evidence that it works; and it reinforced the link between learning and teaching.
Inquiry is essential in developing a shared understanding of effective practice because you want everyone to understand not only what effective practice for the leaning problem looks like but why it is effective.
Three questions to consider when making decisions about how to examine instruction are:
1. What data will answer your questions about teaching practice in your school?
2. What are teachers ready for and willing to do?
3. What are your resources, including time?
Data Wise Ch 4
Notes from text
Data Wise
Boudett, City, Murnane
Chapter 4: Digging Into Data
Without an investigation of the data, schools risk misdiagnosing the problem.
There are two main steps when using data to identify the learner-centered problem in your school: looking carefully at a single data source and digging into other data sources.
The first thing to consider is, What questions do you have about the student learning problem, and what data will help answer those questions?
The next consideration is context: What data will be most compelling for the faculty?
Understanding how students arrived at a wrong answer or a poor result is important in knowing how to help them learn to get to the right answer or a good result.
Challenging assumptions is critical for three reasons:
1. Assumptions obscure clear understanding by taking the place of evidence
2. Teachers have to believe that students are capable of more than what the data shows
3. Solutions will require change
Starting with data and grounding the conversation in evidence from the data keeps the discussion focused on what we see rather than what we believe.
By triangulating your findings from multiple data sources- that is, by analyzing other data to illuminate, confirm, or dispute what you learned through your initial analysis- you will be able to identify your problem with more accuracy and specificity.
Students are an important and underused source of insight into their own thinking, and having focus groups with students to talk about their thinking can have a positive impact on your efforts to identify a problem underlying low student performance.
While you refine your definition of the learner-centered problem, you also build a common understanding among teachers of the knowledge and skills students need to have- in other words, what you expect students to know and be able to do, and how well they are meeting your expectations.
Guiding questions to identify a learner-centered problem:
Do you have more than a superficial understanding of the reasons behind students' areas of low performance?
Is there logic- based on the data you have examined- in how and why you've arrived at the specific problem identified?
Is your understanding of the problem supported by multiple sources of data?
Did you learn anything new in examining the data?
Do you all define the problem in the same way?
Is the problem specifically focused on knowledge and skills you want students to have?
If you solve this problem, will it help you meet your larger goals for students?
Data Wise
Boudett, City, Murnane
Chapter 4: Digging Into Data
Without an investigation of the data, schools risk misdiagnosing the problem.
There are two main steps when using data to identify the learner-centered problem in your school: looking carefully at a single data source and digging into other data sources.
The first thing to consider is, What questions do you have about the student learning problem, and what data will help answer those questions?
The next consideration is context: What data will be most compelling for the faculty?
Understanding how students arrived at a wrong answer or a poor result is important in knowing how to help them learn to get to the right answer or a good result.
Challenging assumptions is critical for three reasons:
1. Assumptions obscure clear understanding by taking the place of evidence
2. Teachers have to believe that students are capable of more than what the data shows
3. Solutions will require change
Starting with data and grounding the conversation in evidence from the data keeps the discussion focused on what we see rather than what we believe.
By triangulating your findings from multiple data sources- that is, by analyzing other data to illuminate, confirm, or dispute what you learned through your initial analysis- you will be able to identify your problem with more accuracy and specificity.
Students are an important and underused source of insight into their own thinking, and having focus groups with students to talk about their thinking can have a positive impact on your efforts to identify a problem underlying low student performance.
While you refine your definition of the learner-centered problem, you also build a common understanding among teachers of the knowledge and skills students need to have- in other words, what you expect students to know and be able to do, and how well they are meeting your expectations.
Guiding questions to identify a learner-centered problem:
Do you have more than a superficial understanding of the reasons behind students' areas of low performance?
Is there logic- based on the data you have examined- in how and why you've arrived at the specific problem identified?
Is your understanding of the problem supported by multiple sources of data?
Did you learn anything new in examining the data?
Do you all define the problem in the same way?
Is the problem specifically focused on knowledge and skills you want students to have?
If you solve this problem, will it help you meet your larger goals for students?
Data Wise Ch 3
Notes from text
Data Wise
Boudett, City, Murnane
Chapter 3: Creating a Data Overview
Preparing for a faculty meeting:
1. Decide on the educational questions
2. Reorganize your assessment data (simple is better)
3. Draw attention to critical comparisons
4. Display performance trends
The underlying educational questions should also drive every aspect of the presentation of the assessment data and provide a rationale for why it is important to present the data one way rather than another.
For example, the questions you are trying to answer should help you make the following decisions about your data presentation: Do you want to emphasize time trends? Are teachers and administrators interested in cohort comparisons? Is it important to analyze student performance by group? Do you want to focus the discussion on the students who fall into the lowest proficiencies or those who occupy the highest? Do you want to focus the audience's attention on the performance of your school's students relative to the average performance of students in the district or the state?
Understanding how students outside your school perform on the same assessment can provide benchmarks against which to compare the performance of your school's students.
In labeling and explaining graphs showing student performance, it is very important to be clear about whether the display illustrates trends on achievement for the same group over time, or whether it illustrates cohort-to-cohort differences over a number of years in the performance of students at the same grade level.
Components of Good Displays
1. Make an explicit and informative title for every figure in which you indicate critical elements of the chart, such as who was assessed, the number of students whose performance is summarized in the figure, what subject specialty, and when.
2. Make clear labels for each axis in a plot, or each row and column in a table.
3. Make sensible use of the space available on the page, with the dimensions, axes, and themes that are most important for the educational discussion being the most dominant in the display.
4. Keep plots uncluttered and free of unnecessary detail, extraneous features, and gratuitous cross-hatching and patterns.
Actively involve teachers with the data by giving them an opportunity to make sense of the data for themselves, encouraging them to ask questions, and offering them a chance to experience and discuss the actual questions on the test.
In reality, student assessment data is neither weak nor powerful. The real value in looking at this kind of data is not that it provides answers, but that it inspires questions.
Data Wise
Boudett, City, Murnane
Chapter 3: Creating a Data Overview
Preparing for a faculty meeting:
1. Decide on the educational questions
2. Reorganize your assessment data (simple is better)
3. Draw attention to critical comparisons
4. Display performance trends
The underlying educational questions should also drive every aspect of the presentation of the assessment data and provide a rationale for why it is important to present the data one way rather than another.
For example, the questions you are trying to answer should help you make the following decisions about your data presentation: Do you want to emphasize time trends? Are teachers and administrators interested in cohort comparisons? Is it important to analyze student performance by group? Do you want to focus the discussion on the students who fall into the lowest proficiencies or those who occupy the highest? Do you want to focus the audience's attention on the performance of your school's students relative to the average performance of students in the district or the state?
Understanding how students outside your school perform on the same assessment can provide benchmarks against which to compare the performance of your school's students.
In labeling and explaining graphs showing student performance, it is very important to be clear about whether the display illustrates trends on achievement for the same group over time, or whether it illustrates cohort-to-cohort differences over a number of years in the performance of students at the same grade level.
Components of Good Displays
1. Make an explicit and informative title for every figure in which you indicate critical elements of the chart, such as who was assessed, the number of students whose performance is summarized in the figure, what subject specialty, and when.
2. Make clear labels for each axis in a plot, or each row and column in a table.
3. Make sensible use of the space available on the page, with the dimensions, axes, and themes that are most important for the educational discussion being the most dominant in the display.
4. Keep plots uncluttered and free of unnecessary detail, extraneous features, and gratuitous cross-hatching and patterns.
Actively involve teachers with the data by giving them an opportunity to make sense of the data for themselves, encouraging them to ask questions, and offering them a chance to experience and discuss the actual questions on the test.
In reality, student assessment data is neither weak nor powerful. The real value in looking at this kind of data is not that it provides answers, but that it inspires questions.
Assessment FOR Learning Ch 6-9
Notes from text
An Introduction to Student-Involved Assessment FOR Learning
Stiggins and Chappius
These are the presentations from the other groups in my class in case you were interested.
Chapter 6 Written Response (Essay Assessment)
Chapter 7 Performance Assessment
Chapter 8 Personal Communication as Assessment
Chapter 9 Assessing Dispositions
An Introduction to Student-Involved Assessment FOR Learning
Stiggins and Chappius
These are the presentations from the other groups in my class in case you were interested.
Chapter 6 Written Response (Essay Assessment)
Chapter 7 Performance Assessment
Chapter 8 Personal Communication as Assessment
Chapter 9 Assessing Dispositions
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)