Sep
13
Reflective Journal Entry #1 – EDCI546
Filed Under EDCI 546
Organizing for Collaborative Work – Chapter 1
Chapter 1 of Data Wise provides clear instruction in how to prepare your school and teachers for becoming a part of a school culture that uses data to affect instruction. The steps include: Create a data team, Guide the data team (create a data inventory, take stock of data organization, develop an inventory of instructional initiatives), Enable collaborative work (build a strong system of teams, create a schedule that allows for collaborative work), Plan productive meetings, and Establish group norms (use protocols, adopt an improvement process, lesson plan for meetings). The strongest concept for me, in this chapter, is the intentional planning for data to become an integral part of the school. An administrator could not simply say, “Make a spreadsheet, maintain and revisit the data” and produce something of great quality with lasting effects. Especially if a concentrated look at data is something unfamiliar to a teacher. If a school is to become data wise it will only happen when these overt strategies are put into place. This takes a real commitment on everyone’s part. By creating a schedule that allows for collaborative work, it means teachers must give up time that they may have considered precious to themselves.
This type of planning and school culture is not a part of my school yet. My principal has recruited UVA 488 students to help us organize several components of data, so that is a start. Teachers do keep a body of evidence on each child and reassess several times throughout the year to measure progress. One reason I feel that our school has not taken a more overt approach to data is because our students have typically done very well on SOLs. We have many bright students; our Quest program represents nearly 40% of our school. It seems that other schools may take a more aggressive look at data for purposes such as achievement gaps, low achievement, or schools that have not met AYP. However, becoming a data wise school could be as beneficial for a school like mine as it is for the other schools aforementioned. This type of planning would help us to streamline our current initiatives, discover which ones are not working, and adjust to the found knowledge. We at Venable have some ground to cover.