Data Team Summary

Margo Tripsa
(Ed. S. Instructional Technology)

A. School Vision:

1. Paste your schools vision into this section.

Vision International School a separate gender, college preparatory school is committed to preparing
students for the 21st century by providing an academic environment in which students learn how to
creatively solve problems and to learn independently. In addition, students will learn to express themselves
through the fine arts, athletics and a wide range of activities and experiences designed to enrich their lives.
We seek to instill a sense of ethics, care and compassion for others through engagement in community
service and global citizenship.

2. Enter your Wordle URL into this section (see Syllabus for details).
https://goo.gl/9pVHSk

3. Describe how your schools data team can use data to measure meaningful progress toward realization of
your schools vision.

The data team should foster the use of data-driven instructional decision-making at the school level. Before
making instructional decisions, all the key players should become familiar with the schools vision and
mission and conversations should take place to negotiate the deep meanings of these two statements.
Building awareness and buy-in are two important steps. All instructional decisions should be driven from
and should support the realization of the schools vision. To measure meaningful progress toward the
realization of my schools vision, the data team should analyze cross-curricular data and extracurricular data.
My schools vision depicts a 21st century environment where students can showcase their creative and
problem solving skills, as well as their depth of knowledge and dispositions in three main areas: general and
content specific academic content knowledge, special area content, and character development and global
citizenship. The effectiveness of the collaborative inquiry efforts would be assessed by looking at
summative assessment data and formative assessment data. I would note the fact that the data team should
also look outside of the academic curriculum demands and analyze character development qualitative data
in order to fully measure the schools progress towards the realization of our schools vision.

Purpose & Roles of the Data Team:

The data team members will collect and chart data, will analyze strengths and barriers, will identify student
learning problems, will establish goals, will examine patterns and trends, will reflect on educational
practices, will design and implement instructional research-based data driven instructional scenarios, and
will promote data literacy throughout the school. The data team will focus on improving teaching and
learning through systematic collaborative inquiry and data driven decision-making.
Some of the roles that the member of the data team could take on are: data technician (gathers data from
teachers), timekeeper, recorder (takes minutes), focus monitor (refocuses dialogue), and engaged participant
(collaborative inquirer).
B. Data Team Formation, Rationale & School Structures:

The data teams at my school would be comprised by grade level teams or pairs of grade level teams, which
will be strategically organized by the school leadership team. Each team will have about 6 or 7 people who
will be representatives of the school and diverse in terms of perspectives and culture. The teams will
typically include the principal or other administrators, English as a Second Language (ESL) support
teachers, Arabic teachers, technology coordinators, and teachers from each grade level. Because my school
is still relatively small (Vision International School, Qatar, an gender segregated American International
school) and the majority of the grade levels have only two teachers (one teaching the girls, and one teaching
the boys), all the classroom teachers will be involved in the data process. I would also note that the role of
the ESL teachers and the Arabic teachers would be crucial since about 80% of the school population use
Arabic as their first language. Ideally, each team would have a member who could mentor other teachers on
using data for instructional decision-making, one teacher with strong leadership skills and the ability to
motivate the team, a staff member who would be able to serve as a good liaison, a staff member that is best
equipped to support a culture focused on collaboration, and staff members who have knowledge and interest
in data analysis and interpretation. Everyone in the school would be expected to be part of the data process.

One of the classroom teachers or one ESL teacher will be responsible for organizing and preparing the data,
which will speed up the process and will make the data team meetings more effective. Desoff (2005)
claimed that, if you want school-level buy-in, you have to have school-level ownership (p. 72).
Scheduling data teams meetings consistently is a critical element in organizing for data analysis. This
process can be effective if meeting times are built into the school calendar. For my school, the weekly
Professional Learning Communities (PLC) time could be repurposed and could target data analysis.

The teams would be selected in this manner for many reasons. A collaborative approach to analyzing data
fosters shared responsibility. It also gives the leadership team an opportunity to be part of the data team. An
essential benefit of forming the teams in this manner comes from the fact that as teachers discuss findings
collectively, shared instructional solutions to student learning problems emerge.

C. Decision-Making Authority:

The school leadership team (the three school principals, the curriculum director, the IT director, and
learning support staff) will create the data teams and will work towards building data literacy in the school
by employing the Using the Data Process (UDP) model. The input of parents and stakeholders will be
sought at critical points in the process. The leadership team will establish a climate of trust. The school
leaders will avoid the conglomeration of mixed PLCs in order to prevent the devaluation of various
disciplines that are part of the curriculum. The school leadership will employ a tiered model. While teachers
need to take ownership and feel empowered, there will be a need for guidance, structure, and coherence.
Therefore, investing in the basic capacity of everybody is important, but since my schools has a high
turnover, which is typical in international schools, it would benefit from having a select groups of teachers
work as Data Support specialists (data savvy teachers, IT coaches for technical issues, instructional coaches
etc). The data support specialists will make sure teachers have the opportunity to make strategic changes to
their instruction at least every six weeks. By creating data-driven dialogue opportunities the teachers are
more responsive to their students needs. Using the cultural proficiency continuum and building cultural
proficiency would be key at my school given the great diversity of our school population.
Outreach Plan Refer to Table 2.1, p. 31, Data Coachs Guide
Audience
District Administrators
School Administrators
School Faculty
Check in with key people to see
Department Chairs
Instructional
Leaders/Specialists
Potential Data Team Members
How will you engage
them?
N/A
Present an overview of the
school data plan and the UDP
process; ask for support
Provide teachers with an
overview of the school data
plan and of the UDP process;
provide regular updates and
guidelines through the data
team representatives
if they need more information
or support; address concerns
Conduct formal and informal
meetings and one-on-one
conversations to clarify issues
and provide support and
resources
Having a meeting to inform
what the data team entails and
Their role in sustaining
collaborative inquiry
N/A
Communicate the vision
clearly negotiate meaning
Provide an administrative
member for the data team
Provide the data team time
to meet
Provide teachers with
timely access to data
Help the team with
resources
Provide professional
development to support the
school goals
Actively support and
participate
Actively participate in data
team meetings
Actively use data plan to
make changes in the
classroom
Take collective
responsibility for
improving teaching and
learning
Be a supporter
Stay informed with changes
Model data use in the
classroom
Stay informed with team
ideals and needs
Be a supporter
Stay informed with changes
Model data use in the
classroom
Help collect and analyze
data
 what and when meetings will
happen
Email board members a
presentation to show what the
School Board Members
school is doing and trying to
accomplish
Attend a School Improvement
team meeting (leadership team)
School Improvement Team to discuss how the Using the
Data Process can support the
teams work
Provide parents information
nights; Provide parents up-to-
Parents
date data through the school
website and blog
Meet with curriculum and
Data or Assessment
assessment team to help
Coordinators
develop a plan of involvement
References:
Desoff, A. (2005). Learning how to use data. District Administration, 72.
Help in developing
common assessments
Investigate problems and
help implement a plan
Share successes and
challenges
Support policies that provide
time and resources for data
teams
Allow the data team to be
part of the monthly meeting
Model data throughout the
school
Support decisions
Support the data team by
completing surveys
Stay up-to-date of school data
collection
Support by helping create
and implement common
assessments
Send a representative to
data team meeting
Provide systems for timely
access to local data