How do we value the data that makes a difference to learning?
Keep it flowing in the cycle between teacher and student.
What counts as data at your school?
Tests and assessments?
OTJs
Anecdotes?
Observations?
Photos and videos?
Student reflections?
Your reflections?
Conversations?
Finished projects?
Documentation of learning in progress?
Learning stories?
Other … ?
The data that’s valued determines how success is defined
When I say ‘counts’, I mean what is - what’s valued? A good indicator might be
the data people refer to when deciding if you’re a good teacher, and/or
what leadership says you should base your teaching decisions on (remember, your practice is meant to be ‘data informed’), and/or
what’s deemed ‘rigorous enough’ to make it on to reports (to parents, the board, the ministry) and/or
what people rely on when deciding if a kid has made progress.
It’s worth thinking about whether the data that’s valued makes a positive impact on the learning in your classroom, day-in and day-out.1
The data flow in most schools is wrong
And how does the data flow in your school? I’ve become a bit obsessed by this question, because it’s
a) abstract (I do love me an abstract thought thread), and
b) gets to the heart of what assessment is for.
You see, I think that in most schools the data flows the wrong way. It goes up, up and away from the student, and looks like this:
Student > Teacher > Leaders > Whānau > Board > Ministry2
Look at the list at the start of this piece: which data sources are valued in this flow? I bet it’s the more ‘formal’ sources.
The problem is, when data flows this way it generally comes back to the student too late. It tells them how well they did (which is usually read as, This is how good I am / not) but the moment has passed for them to do much about it.
(Except, perhaps, to set some learning goals and make some promises)
Data that flows between teacher and student is the most valuable
There is a lot said about assessment for learning3. It’s a great concept4, in theory, but with the data flow the way it is in most schools, it’s hard to implement in practice.
Here’s what the data flow should look like if assessment for learning is to become a reality:
Student < >Teacher
Whānau < - - - > | < - - - > Leaders < > Board < > Ministry5
Getting the data flowing in a cycle between teacher and student should be what’s valued the most. Look at the list at the start: which data sources are naturally present in that cycle? I bet it’s the ones that are more ‘informal’. What can you do to keep them there as much as possible, and raise their value?6
Because they’re the data that connect most strongly to the real work of schools - the human-human growth of potential.
The NZC says as much in the first sentence in the section on assessment:
The primary purpose of assessment is to improve students’ learning and teachers’ teaching as both student and teacher respond to the information that it provides.
Makes me wonder if we send kids to school so that adults can have something to do - this is a data flow model that relies on students to generate the information everyone else works from.
This blog is worth a read if you want to dive into this idea further.
So good, in-fact, that it is one of the three PLD funding priorities set by NZ’s Ministry of Education.
This flow chart intentionally has the powerful in a supporting role. I’ve tried to show the importance of partnership in the process too, but I do think effective partnership requires trust, which means student and teacher are given space to get on with their job: learning.
Not every interested party needs the same data, because their roles in the learning process are different: eg, the data required for governance is not the same as the data required for supporting learning.