Use+of+Data

=Data Driven Decision Making=

Schools can be so much more effective when they use data: data about what students are learning and how well they are doing. This is especially valuable in schools where the curriculum is delivered through project-based learning. When you're doing projects, Educators know the power of formative assessment - feedback. The more students get, the better they learn. But collecting data in a meaningful way can be time consuming and difficult for teachers.

SWN and Citadel Group schools are fully accountable to its students, the parents and community, the school district, and others, including the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Multiple data paths are used to collect information related to student performance and the programmatic goals of the school. Multiple communication and dissemination strategies have been developed to keep the parents, community, and School District informed and involved. In fact, Citadel Group provides Buffalo Public Schools 18 reports monthly.

Technology infusion throughout the program provides sophisticated multimedia and communication tools for projects, a system for archiving student work, an online learning portal, simplifying the process of tracking each individual student’s progress. Student work is documented and archived as artifacts and evidence of learning so that it can be analyzed by teachers and staff to determine the degree to which learning is demonstrated and mastery achieved. A student learning management system helps staff monitor students as they address and master state standards and the curriculum of the school district. Teaching staff use data to analyze each student’s acquired skills, understandings and curricular needs to ensure a complete education for all.

Part of Data Driven Decision Making (and positive pressure and support) is knowing where your teachers are in terms of implementing the teacher practices. We figured that if we had a teacher observation form we could use it to collect objective data on to what degree teachers were implementing the desired practices. Having a collection of observations from throughout the school over the course of a day or so would give a snap shot of where the school was. Having a series of observations for single teacher over time will help track a teacher's strengths and challenges.

But we never intended the observation form to be used for evaluation purposes. We are using it to help us know how we need to support teachers, and to track our progress as we strive to fully implement the school model.

The observation form has three sections. The first allows the observer to record the teacher's name and the date, etc. It also has a space to script a brief overview of the lesson or activities observed.

The second section is a timed observation checklist. It is structured so that the observer merely needs to mark off observables every five minutes. These include class organization; teacher role; level of student engagement; learning by doing; level of Blooms Taxonomy; learning styles used; and level of technology integration.

The third section are items that are better suited to be rated once at the end of the observation. These include the quality of the teacher's interactions; the level of real world application used; the level of student choice and voice; and the level of orderliness.

A PDF of the classroom observation form is available [|here].

The Schools We Need Project
//Because some students need more than direct instruction.//

The Schools We Need Project is a joint project of the [|Maine Center for Meaningful Engaged Learning] at the [|University of Maine at Farmington]