Sunday, August 7, 2011
CEDO 565 - Week 2
This week I have learned a lot about data retreats. Every year my school has a data retreat at the beginning of the summer. Honestly, I don't usually sign up to participate because it's always the day after school gets out, and my brain is so fried by then that I can't possibly consider mulling over data for two days. I wouldn't be much of a contribution to the team. So, with that said, I think the first weakness we have with our retreat is that it's not a consistent group of people. Each year my principal asks for volunteers to be on the team. They do evaluate data, but as far as I know it's pretty much achievement data from state testing and demographic data. I don't believe program data is looked at much, and I know perception data is not formally assessed. The committee consists of classroom teachers, reading specialist, and the principal, and the superintendent. Then the information is taken back to the district level and it's presented to the staff at one of our inservices. We do look at the strengths and weaknesses and see what areas we need to focus on for the year, but I don't see a lot of goal-setting that can be monitored or much overview of programs that are working or programs that need to be changed. I also think we could use some perception data to drive some of our direction. Of course we worry about the perception of parents, students, and community members, but we don't formally survey them to get specific feedback about what we are doing. When I meet with my principal this week to get more specific answers to some of the data answers for my assignment, I will discuss some of these other aspects with her.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow! I do not blame you one bit for not signing up for a data retreat if it's the day after school gets out! I would be wiped out too and the last thing that would be productive to me is analyzing data. The data retreat would be a good idea if it happened during the year while teachers could still make changes with that group of students. I also liked your point that it is always different teachers looking at the data. While it's nice to get different perspectives, it would be hard to really analyze year-to-year data with new faces each time!
ReplyDeleteWe also do not formally survey parents to get their perceptions on things. We have comments made here and there, word of mouth type things and that's all. I wonder what districts do survey their parents?
The timing of your district's data retreat is probably not the best! Does the district pay the volunteers to participate? I do think it's important that staff participate in one of these at least once but at a time when they are going to be a valuable part of the team and not ready for a break!
ReplyDeleteWe've tried surveying parents but we have not had a lot of success with this. One easy way to survey parents is to use the Speak Up survey in the fall. This is a free survey and it is set up to survey students, teachers, administrators and parents on "Learning in the 21st Century". The survey changes each year and in the spring the district has access to all of the data. If you can get parents to participate it would be valuable information!
Andi, I wonder why they choose to do the data retreat at that time? I'm sure they understand that most teachers at that point need a much deserved break. This year is the first year that our system is having a data retreat. I overheard my principal asking one of the teachers in the science department to be part of the team. Being that I'm in an elective area, I think our department often times get pushed aside with explaining the information (test results, etc) and they focus on making sure the core areas understand and use the data to drive instruction. I would be interested in learning more about all of this (specific to my school) even though I might not be able to directly apply the data.
ReplyDeleteAndi, that is great that you are meeting with your administrator to go over some of this information we have gathered. At my school, we have no such group who meets to go over the data. If we do, it is not by volunteers and could possibly be hand picked by the administration or just completed by the administration. Either way, I see that this has some serious room for improvement at my district.
ReplyDelete