Data is one of the most powerful tools…that is being used incorrectly, and counter-productively! In fact, in a lot of ways, I think the big push on data has actually had an adverse effect on students. But it shouldn’t. Data should be used as a primary tool to increase learning!

So how do we move from data doing more harm than good to actually being able to use data to increase student learning?

Let’s start with the biggest misconception of data: A score is the end goal. As you know, data serves as one measurement tool towards a bigger goal of learning. I think of it as a weight measuring scale. Hopefully, when people set out on a weight loss goal, the bigger goal is actually overall health, right? You want more energy, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, longer life, better sleep, better immune system…and these things typically come from putting the right things in our bodies and exercising. The pounds come off as an effect of putting the right things in our bodies and exercising. So if say I want to get healthier and lose 20 pounds, I’ll then build a meal plan and exercise plan based on those things. The thing is – on a day to day basis – to just the normal person, it’s hard to measure cholesterol levels and high blood pressure and energy levels. But we can easily measure our weight. So this becomes the measurement that we are using to see if we are getting towards our ultimate goal of having a healthy body. 

But what if weight loss is our only goal, and getting healthy is not?

In all transparency, as I was going through my divorce several years ago, I ate cereal and boxed noodles and drank Dr. Pepper and I actually lost a lot of weight – but obviously I was not healthy. There are now weight loss supplements that have a really adverse effect on your health, but they help you drop weight quickly. There are diets that help you drop weight quickly but the minute you eat a piece of bread you gain 3x as much back.  So if weight loss is our only goal, and getting healthy is not, we may achieve it temporarily, but this is not going to be a sustainable way to live.

Do you see where I’m going with this? If raising test scores and grades are our only goals, and the only goals we are talking about day in and day out, it will actually have an adverse impact on your students and teachers. So what is the goal? It’s learning. It’s always learning. It has always been learning and should always be learning. It is to learn specific pieces of content and to learn specific learning habits to make us independent and life-long learners. And we can absolutely use data to increase learning.

I’m going to give you a newsflash here – students can make “good” grades and even meet expectations on state assessments and not actually achieved either of the learning goals. Students can actually graduate from high school and not be literate. How does this happen? I think that one of the reasons it happens is because the goal is on the data and not on learning. We pass kids because we can’t have a low passing rate. We give kids participation grades when they haven’t mastered the content. We teach them out to guess and how to get through the questions and the answer choices to narrow it down to 2 answers and guess. I’m not saying these are bad test taking strategies, but I kind of think of it as fasting for 3 days before you go get weighed – that’s not going to be an accurate measure of  your actual weight.

Now, I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that I actually love data! So let’s dive into how to use data to increase learning! 

I’m going to make a 2-part statement here in which a lot of people may disagree. I believe that assessment data (CBAs, CFAs, map testing) is for the teachers to guide instruction, and class grades should only be taken when the teacher has given ample opportunities for the students to practice without grades and used formative assessment to know where the students are in their learning. Ok, let’s break this statement down. 

First part of the statement – CBAs, CFAs, interim tests – all the tests in this category- should be used by the teachers to show if the strategies they are using and the tasks the students are doing are getting the students to the level of thinking and understanding that is required by the standard. That’s it. So because of this, it is just as important to look at the questions they do well on as it is to look at the questions that they struggled with.

Now, in order for data talks to be effective (which they can be), we have to get this mindset deep in our spirits: data is not a measurement of the teacher or the student. It is a measurement of the effectiveness of the instruction with that group of students. So we have to be careful of the narrative that surrounds data – instead of “she’s a really good teacher – her scores are always high” – how about “the strategies and tasks she uses really bring learning to her students”. It’s going to be a lot easier to move teachers into the conversation of “what strategies and tasks are she using, and let me try them!”

Also, we’re not just talking about the activity! Two teachers can do the same activity and get totally different outcomes, so we’re also looking at how the activity was presented, what scaffolds were used, and how were the students grouped. These are the “make or break” things sometimes, and when we can take the idea off the table of “she’s a good teacher and everything she does works, but when I try to do the same thing, my kids are all over the place”, we can actually get to solutions.

But here’s something to consider – I’m all about student ownership of learning and responsibility, but for most kids (and I’ll never say all), but for most, especially those that we need to see their scores increase, setting a goal of “70%” on the CBA actually means very little to them. Unit Test 1 and Unit Test 2 – are they not over different things? Trying to get students to hit a certain number on a test when the test is over completely different things is not a tangible goal.

Students are super stressed over assessments, and they just shouldn’t be. We should never make a student feel like their worth is wrapped up in score or their whole education career is based on their 6th grade reading score. When we praise based on scores, we are praising based on a somewhat intangible thing. I know that sounds weird because it’s a score, but a student knows if they have increased their reading by 10 minutes every day. They know if they’ve re-read texts or questions that they didn’t comprehend at first read. They know if they used their brainstorming strategy to ensure organization in their writing. They know if they checked their math work by plugging in the variable to the equation. These are behaviors that they know they did or didn’t do. They can’t walk out of a day of state assessment testing and say, “I definitely got masters on that.”

So here are 4 steps to using data as a teacher in the classroom:

1. Use formative assessment data to drive instruction.

This is literally the only reason to take formative data (other than showing the students if they understand the content or not)- whether that be quick checks of more formal formative assessments like district or campus wide formative assessments, the only reason you are doing these is to see what is working in the instruction and what needs to be adjusted. In my opinion, grades should vary rarely be taken here. Students are probably still in the learning process.

2. Use summative assessment data to determine if your instruction is aligned (assuming students were ready based on the formative assessment data)

This was an area that I struggled with for a lot of years, especially working with typically struggling or different students through SPED and ESL – my students would do well in my class but not perform well on assessments. I wasn’t aligned, and my grades were not a true reflection of if they were learning grade level content. They were learning what I was teaching them, but not what they needed to learn. We can easily blame assessments here – it is difficult to have total equity in assessments. But if this is a consistent trend in your class or campus, there’s a good chance the instruction isn’t aligned. 

3. Use measurement data to
   1. Discuss strategies/scaffolds that worked
   2. Discuss misconceptions and gaps in learning
   3. Check alignment between standard, formative assessments, and tasks and questions
   4. Help students create behavioral goals to get to learning goals
   5. Help teachers create instructional goals (include scaffolds, provide formative assessments at 3 points during the lesson, give more student processing time)
4. Use grades to show students and families their level of mastery of the topic. 

I know that this is a touchy subject. In my opinion, grades are a reflection of the mastery of the standards. If a kiddo has a 90 in my class, then the student and the student’s guardians should feel pretty confident that he is grasping and learning the content to mastery. Participation grades can water this down. Taking grades too early in the learning process can be an incorrect reflection. If it’s day 1 of instruction and the students haven’t had time to process and practice, a grade shouldn’t be taken. In most districts I work in, there is a minimum requirement of grades, typically 8-11 grades – in a 6 week period, this is 1-2 grades a week. If you have 30 grades in your gradebook, you are causing yourself more work, you are lowering the effectiveness of grades, and you are probably not giving the students an accurate reflection of their learning. 

So, as we wrap this up, hopefully you can see that data is a super effective tool, but it is not the only and ultimate goal. It is really for the teachers to help set a tangible and manageable goal with the students. It’s to help the teacher see what type of instruction is working, and it does not measure the worth, intelligence, or skill level of teachers or students. 

You can grab our free guide, The Deal with Data, and if you are looking for other ways to set goals for your classroom or campus, check out the previous Equipped Educator Podcast episode, Vision-Driven Goal Setting.

Also, if you are an instructional coach or have instructional coaches on campus, make sure to sign up for the free webinar: 5 Steps to Lower Coaching Overwhelm! Refocus and get clarity to be a more effective coach during this tough time of the year. You’ll receive it in your inbox starting next week, January 22, and you can watch it on your own time. It will only be available for a limited time.

At The Responsive Classroom, we’d love to see how we can partner with your campus to be more responsive in order to move students forward in the first teach! Email jenn@theresponsiveclassroom.org or head to www.theresponsiveclassroom.org for more information!

You can also catch all of these blogs in podcast form at The Equipped Educator Podcast (on Apple and Spotify)!

Thank you for loving kids!