|
Back to
Classroom Data
Data Notebooks at Piedmont 2006-07
 I facilitated Piedmont Open IB Middle's year-long
school-wide implementation of data notebooks during the
2006-07 school year, and was able to collect some of my
own data about how teachers use and would like to use
data in their work.
Piedmont's principal, in her first
full year of the position, was a
former Teacher Academy trainer familiar with the NCTA
data module. She started off the year by giving each
teacher a personalized data binder containing some blank
dividers, a copy of the
Sample Data Notebook (Adobe PDF, 10639KB), and a list
of suggested data to include in the binder. Little
was said at the time, but it was made clear that each
teacher was expected to a keep, fill, and be ready to
share his/her data notebook during the school year.
Her intention was to introduce data notebooks in 2006-07
and follow up with greater depth and emphasis in
subsequent years.
Prior to the opening of school when the data binders
were distributed, it is also important to note that
teachers also received several other binders: a school
safety binder, the Piedmont Handbook, and a binder
called "The Piedmont Teacher" which contained information
to be be used for professional development about Open
Education, staff team building, and middle school
philosophy. Support staff - counselors, EC teachers, our
testing coordinator, and our ELL coordinator - quickly
emailed current demographic and achievement data to
teachers for inclusion in their data notebooks.
I followed up with a one-hour staff
development session on 10/12/2006 during which I
introduced Victoria Bernhardt's four types of
data and the importance of considering all four types
for a complete picture when designing instruction.
I also led the staff in an activity called "What Data
When?" in order to consider the importance of having
timely data and highlight the many examples of ongoing and
periodic data teachers already collect. At the end
of the session, teachers brainstormed and shared ideas
for data pieces they needed to collect and were
collecting in their notebooks.
From the start of the year, "put
that in your data notebook" or "you need that for your
data notebook" were common refrains. While they
were never checked, the principal kept data notebooks at the
forefront of her teachers' thinking with constant
informal comments and formal reminders at whole staff
meetings. She also kept her own data notebook and
would occasionally refer to it in conversation with
teachers. In addition, core teachers were required
to complete PEP (Personalized Education Plan) inserts
for each student failing his/her class at the end of
each quarter. The inserts would be
used as documentation of teacher interventions for retention/promotion decisions
at the end of the year, and
were to be kept updated in teachers' data notebooks.
It must be noted, however, that Piedmont also had
several other staff development series going on in
addition to work around data: training in International
Baccalaureate principles and practices (as the school
was in
the final stages of IB certification), a required
district training based on Robert Marzano's Schools That
Work meta-research,
and training in the use of a brand new and somewhat difficult district data
collection and grading program, NCWise, which was fully
implemented and required beginning second quarter.
Most staff development was conducted after school during
required weekly faculty meetings along with
announcements and other ongoing business.
Piedmont's second one-hour whole
staff session was
held mid-year on 1/10/2007. I used material
from Alan Blankstein's Failure Is Not an Option
to review the purposes of data collection, emphasizing
that the most important criterion for determining what
should go in one's notebook is whether that data is useful
in making instructional decisions. I also introduced
the dimensions of thought in a data notebook -
information, analysis, and reflection - and had
teachers, who were sitting with their grade-level
curriculum teams, complete and share
First Semester Reflections (Adobe PDF) based on their data notebooks.
These reflections, which captured important process
data, allowed teachers to see if they had a complete
picture of data in determining instruction, and
encouraged them to analyze and think reflectively, were
to be included in teachers' data notebooks.
 In
addition, I took the opportunity to gather some data of my own.
I had teachers use post-it notes to create a plus/delta
chart about data notebooks. Plus post-its indicate
favorable comments. Delta post-its indicate
concerns. After all comments were posted on the
appropriate side by participants, I grouped the
responses into categories.
Plus/Delta
Comments
In response to teacher needs and concerns from the
plus/delta chart, I offered
and held an informal data notebook sharing session.
Though several staff members had specifically requested
the session and said they would be there, it was not
well attended. The four attending teachers and I
considered the questions we needed answered with our
data and, after sharing and getting ideas for data
pieces from each other, we reflected on next steps with
our notebooks.
At the end
of the year on 5/23/2007, I held one final whole staff
session during which I had teachers reflect on their
data notebooks and on their teaching processes during
the school year using the templates below.
Teachers completed the reflections and discussed them
with colleagues. These were to be included in the data
notebooks as final reflective pieces.
End-of-Year Data Notebook Reflection (Adobe PDF)
End-of-Year Reflection on Classroom Processes (Adobe
PDF)
Teachers also completed a
survey on their feelings about data and the data
notebook to help the principal and Piedmont staff plan for the 2007-08 school year.
End-of-Year Teacher Survey
results
At Piedmont's Annual Review, a
non-required meeting on the last teacher workday devoted
to reviewing the year's accomplishments and setting the
direction for the next year, data and data notebooks
were not mentioned except in passing. Priorities
for 2007-08, according to two traditional, comprehensive surveys administered and
analyzed before the Review, pointed toward discipline
and morale (especially as it relates to Piedmont's
expectations of teacher time and workload) as chief
staff concerns.
Back to
Classroom Data
|
