Data: Hero or Villain?

If you're in education long enough, you will see trends come and go. Terminology changes. Instructional focus swings back and forth on a pendulum. As educators, it is very easy to get caught up in the pressure of jumping on the newest bandwagon. However, we must always keep our eyes on doing what is best for our students. We need to question each new strategy, tool, or practice that comes our way to see if it's a fit for our unique learners.

One word which I've heard come and go is "data." Because much of my career "data" has also come with a punitive connotation, it isn't my favorite word. It frequently is used in conjunction with standardized test scores...as in these test scores must go up or else. I can read and disaggregate data with the best of them, but it wasn't until I realized what a disservice I was doing to my students by focusing solely on standardized test data that I began to dig deeper into the crucial role of data, valid data, that I began to reframe my ideas.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is based on Five Common Core Propositions. Proposition Number Three states:

Teachers Are Responsible for Managing and Monitoring Student Learning

Managing data is clearly an expectation for all educators, but how do we weave this into our daily practice without losing sight of what each of our students needs?

As I see it, teachers fall into one of three categories. Teachers may be data-driven with a singular focus on hard numbers. Often times these educators put on blinders and only look at their students through the lens of raising test scores. I've been in schools where we were all mandated to justify our instructional choices based on how it would raise those numbers. One day a week, every week, we were required to spend the day doing test prep. What I've observed is that in these situations, students and teachers get burned out. The love of learning and teaching dwindles for everyone. Often we resort to bribes to try to get teachers and students to care about those numbers without seeing the long-term damage it's reeking on our profession and our students as life-long learners, creative problem solvers, and empathetic human beings. The danger of being data-driven is that all of our focus becomes about numbers for one small aspect of learning and growing and we lose sight of what our students need. It tends to eliminate creative ventures, inquiry, exploration, self-expression, and student-voice.

When looking at data, there is another category of teacher. This is one who is living in data-denial. We all know these teachers. We may have been these teachers at some point. Ones who have complete disregard for data, formal or informal. Diagnostic, formative, summative or standardized. These are the teachers who are going to teach the way they want to teach regardless of what students need...because they really don't know what their students need. The danger here is that students easily fall between the cracks. Students go unchallenged and begin to fall behind in their growth. Individual interests aren't nurtured. Potential and hidden talents remained untapped.

Finally, there are teachers who are data-informed. These are the teachers who gather data from a wide range of sources. Data-informed teachers listen. They observe. They analyze...every student, every day. Data-informed teachers look at formal and informal data also taking into account students' interest and learning preferences. They create learning activities that foster student-voice, creativity, innovation, and individuality. These teachers understand that every student is in a different place on the learning continuum and by using a wide-range of data, from multiple sources, he/she is working as a partner with each learner to help him/her reach personal goals. In this type of classroom, the focus is on the student; the learning is diverse. Is there data? Absolutely. It's gathered every day to shape and inform the instruction for each student.

Data. It's easy to fall victim to the pressure and band-wagon of focusing solely on numbers from one source. We can easily become buried in all of those numbers. So much so, that we are tempted to completely disregard any data at all. Either way, if we do that, we have to take our eyes off of our learners and what they need. We aren't doing what's best for them. Students aren't going to remember some test that they took. They will remember how they felt when they were in your class. They will remember the things they created, their triumphs, the connections they made and how they used what they learned to make the world a better place.

Data: Hero or Villian? The answer ultimately is up to you.

A Few of our Favorite Things

As I've been tweeting and Pinterest-ing (is that a word?), I got an iPad for our classroom.The reason I didn't jump on the bandwagon earlier was that I wasn't convinced that an iPad could offer my students learning opportunities that they couldn't find elsewhere. A vast majority of the apps I had seen, turn students solely into consumers. Just because you make a worksheet (or textbook) digital doesn't change that fact that it's still just a worksheet. I want my students to be more than consumers...I want them to be producers of  new content. After some research I found enough of  reason to make this purchase for my learners.

They are having a blast embedding the iPad into their learning routine in the different content areas. What I'd like to share today are some of the tools that we have been using to increase our productivity and efficiency of regular classroom routines. With these apps the students take (further) ownership of their learning environment.

Our Favorite Things... Productivity Edition:

• Confer As we all strive to meet the needs of our individual students, one of the most daunting tasks can be documenting the progress of each learner. Over the years, I have tired all kinds of methods...folders, binders, tables in Word (many of our school computers don't have Excel), but I knew there had to be a more convenient way for me and my students to track their progress in each subject. Not only do we chart their successes, big and small, but my students create personal goals in each content area. Confer does all of this and more. Through confer, you can easily form flexible small groups and you can export your data as a Google spreadsheet or a an email attachment.  You can tell this app was created by a classroom teacher who knows what teachers and their students need to make their conferring productive. Here is a video demonstrating how Confer works.

• Notability We all have to address what we do for students who are absent from class. How do we keep them informed? How do they know what they've missed and get caught up with their peers? We started using Notability. Each student takes a turn creating a note of the day's activities. The notes can include text (class activities, homework, classwork, deadlines, announcements, etc.), photos (my students take photos of the flipcharts they use, review games, vocabulary lists, science experiments, etc.) and audio (of me or one of them explaining something that needs more than text or photos). When a student is out for a day or two, he/she comes in when he/she returns to school, pulls up the note for the dates he/she was out and discovers exactly what went on in the classroom that day. The notes are also easily emailed, so they can also be sent to parents.
• Teacher's Assistant Pro Another task that can easily take up precious instruction time is documenting behavior within your classroom. We know how important it is to document everything: good, bad or ugly.One thing that I do with my students when we privately discuss their behavior is that I have them design the consequences and future plan of action for their behavior. It puts the responsibility on them to make any necessary changes. This app is easily customizable to meet your needs. So if you like to send home positive behavior reports like I do, this can be easily done as well. This app comes with a feature where with the click of a couple of buttons, the behavior report can be emailed to parents. You can tell that this app was also designed by a classroom teacher. Here is a video demonstrating the basics of how this app works: 

So although these apps may not seem as flashy as other apps, in the hands of my learners, they have increased our productivity and given us more of that valuable learning time. It's given my students tools to track their progress and take further ownership of their personal learning journey. And that is what all tools we bring into our classroom should do.

Question Everything!

Almost four years ago I came to the realization that, although I was a good teacher, my students weren't making the growth that I expected. I knew that there had to be a better way to reach my learners, but I wasn't sure how I would do that. So together, we set out on a journey to discover a better way to organize our class. The biggest shift was from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-directed learning environment. How did we discover a better way? We questioned everything. And even now, that is something that as proven to be the most power agent of change....questioning and reflecting on everything that we do.

So I want to challenge each of you (and myself) to question everything that you do with your learners. Here are a few questions to get you started thinking...

1. Why is your learning environment set up the way that it is? Most of us will recognize that the classroom learning environment makes a drastic change after the primary grades. Why is that? Isn't good teaching, well, good teaching? This year, I let my students design our learning environment. They organized our classroom library in a way that was meaningful to them. They created the anchor charts and displays that are hanging in the classroom (they love the poster maker). Their self-portraits are the first thing you notice when you walk into the room which reflects whose learning environment this is. Our classroom was already set up for small groups, but they also wanted different learning spaces within the classroom. Somehow, even with 27 large desks, they have created different spaces for paired and small group collaboration. But, I think that their favorite area is the large rug. They love to stretch out and work with their peers. They also love to sit around our and have group discussions. Believe it or not, they LOVE to be read to while sitting around our big rug. So regardless of your grade level or content area, question why you have your room set up the way that it is. Ask your students what they think. Is "this is how it's always been" a good enough answer? Does your current learning environment meet the needs of your learners? Does it reflect them?
2. Do your classroom norms and procedures meet the needs of your current students? Whose classroom is it? Is it yours or your students? We all remember at the beginning of the school year sitting in a new teacher's classroom and having them dictate a list of rules or procedures to us. Did that nurture and environment where you take ownership of what went on in the classroom? Of course it didn't. So often I hear that students are not interest in what's going on in the classroom. Could this be a contributing factor? We have class conversations for days about what type of learning environment we collectively want. Students come up with ideas that we may never think of including. As a teacher, we already know the basics that need to be included. It is important for us to guide students towards those topics, but allow them to set the procedures and classroom norms for the themselves. They take ownership of their own behavior and they hold one another to the standards that they set. My students know that the norms that are hanging on our classroom wall (thank you, poster maker) are a work in progress. They can change as our needs change. Have you asked your students to share their ideas about how the classroom runs? You'd be amazed at the difference it makes to them to feel like their voice is heard.
3. Do all learners have to learn the same thing at the same time in the same way? Are any two of our students in the same place in their learning journey? No. Then why do we expect them all to sit through the same learning activities and do the same activities? I realize that we all have pacing guides to follow. However, if a student has already mastered a standard, should they have to sit through the same lesson and same activities as students who have not mastered the standard? No. That's why only having whole group instruction in a classroom has proven unsuccessful at meeting the needs of all learners. By giving a pretest on a standard, you'll find out who needs some instruction, who needs a lot of instruction, and who needs no instruction. That gives you the opportunity to provide students with activities that will challenge them. Also, within an umbrella of a standard, it gives you the opportunity to allow your students to explore what interests them. Let them write about a topic that peaks their interest and publish it with tools that strengthens their voice. No two students are alike so there is no way that one way to teach, one strategy, or one tool will meet the needs of your unique learners. This empowers students to guide the path of their own learning. 
4. Why do you give the assignments that you do? Why do you give the homework that you give? What are these assignments really measuring? I recently had a fellow teacher tell me that the parents of her students told her she was a good teacher because she gave a lot of homework.Is that why we give homework... because of others' expectations? I hope not. It is important that we take the time to really evaluate what we are giving our students to do and whether or not that is relevant and reliable. Here are my thoughts on Homework and on the Reading Log Part 1 and Part 2.
5. How do you assess your students? I realize that most of us have no say over many of the tests that we are required to give. However, is that the only way to assess our students? Of course not. Here's something to think about: How many of us have come up with a project for our students, created a rubric, taken it to our class, explained it to them and then they proceeded to pay little heed to the rubric? Why might that be? Could it be because this was all about what we wanted and they had little say in the project? Were they invested in this project? No. What do you do to make that shift? Let them design the rubric or standards for each of the projects in which they are engaged. Of course, you are the content specialist. You know what needs to be evaluated. But, it needs to come from the students. Guide them, through your questions, into designing the rubric for their own projects. Let them evaluate themselves and one another. What you will discover is that the students hold themselves to much higher standards because they designed the project and the expectations. It's theirs. So think about how you  assess your students. Is it effective? Is it reliable? Does it meet the needs of today's students?

This is a short list, but I think I've made my point. Just because we have done something in the past and it's worked or just because that's the way that something has been for years doesn't necessarily mean that it is what is best for our students. We are in the classroom for THEM. Our job is to provide them with the best educational experience possible and to help them along their personal learning journey. Our job is to provide them with the tools that they need to be successful outside of the classroom walls. That is why we need to rethink everything that we are doing to make sure that what we are doing is what is best for THEM.

Do We Misdiagnose Our Students?

This week was a difficult week..not because of my students but because I was returning from being absent from school for two weeks because I had pneumonia. The truth of the matter was that there really was no need for me to be gone from school for two weeks except for an experience I had with my doctors.

When I first came down with a high fever, I thought that it was probably a twenty-four hour virus (as teachers we pick all kinds of fun bugs), but twenty-four hours later I was worse and I went in to see my doctor. I explained all my symptoms. Although I'm not a physician, I had a sneaking suspicion I had bronchitis or pneumonia. My doctor shook her head in dismissal, never took my blood, never even took my temperature. She told me that a fever virus was going around and that was what I had. She gave me a shot and a prescription and told me I should feel better in a couple of days. However, a couple of days later I was infinitely worse. It was time to see a different doctor. When I arrived, he asked me a multitude of questions. He ran so many tests. When he returned, he brought his laptop and showed me the results of all of the tests. (If I hadn't felt so awful, I would have been so impressed with his technology.) What was the diagnosis? I had pneumonia...the data proved it. Now here's the part that really upset me. He explained that the shot and meds that the previous doctor had put me on had slowed down the healing process. Had I come to him first, I would have been better in two days. He had me return the next two days to run tests and make sure that the prescribed treatment was working.

So what can we learn from this experience in regards to our students? First, we can determine that it is important that we don't make assumptions about our students. Just because we have had other students with similar backgrounds, ethnicity, strengths or weaknesses does not mean that the child in front of us is necessarily like our previous students. Each learner is a unique individual. Secondly, it is important that we take the time to LISTEN to what our students are saying...to us and in interactions with their peers... both verbally and in writing. We need to make sure that we evaluate our students and get accurate and reliable data on them so that we know how best to proceed in meeting their individual needs.Then once we know what their needs are, we need to constantly check to make sure that our "diagnosis" is accurate and that our strategies are working in helping our students in the ways that they need.

I think it's all too often (after we've been in the classroom for several years) that we make assumptions based on our own experiences with previous students. Sometimes as teachers we get a little arrogant that we have all of the answers and we overlook some key bit of information on some of our students. This experience taught me to go back and reevaluate my previous diagnosis of each of my learners to make sure that I really am providing them with the support that each one of them needs. Don't wait for an experience like mine; I encourage each of you to take the time to do the same. Each of those learners is depending on us to help make them stronger.