Guide to Actionable Student Data Part 1 — How Teachers Should Take Actions with Student Data
Nowadays, while myriads of EdTech products generate a mind-blowing amount of educational data, they also change teacher’s life. Once upon a time, the main job of a teacher was only teaching, but as soon as an EdTech product is introduced into school, teachers are expected of, among other things, data literacy to handle data produced by the products, including reading and understanding data, making decisions on data, and addressing individual students with the power of data.
Without any doubt, it could be a frustrating process for teachers, not only because of the steep learning curve of technological tools, but also due to the difficulty of turning student data at hand into decisions and actions (Admittedly, some EdTech companies don’t provide effective student data, which adds to teachers’ burdens. This issue will be discussed in Part 2 of “Actionable Student Data”.). When the gap exists between static data and real actions or when the sheer quality of data is suspect, it is understandable that some teachers would have this question in mind:
Is Actionable Data A Good Solution for Teachers?
Of course, it is. Compared with non-actionable data, the perceived advantages of actionable data for teachers include the following:
- More time saved for addressing educational needs. Originally, teachers needed to manually collect student data such as attendance, final exam scores, academic progress. With the help of actionable data, time originally spent collecting and analyzing student data could be saved and teachers could focus more on teaching and addressing student educational issues;
- More transparent student academic information. Traditionally, it’s impossible for teachers to evaluate individual student’s academic status. A student could be struggling with a task or be several lessons behind his peers in understanding a concept without teachers knowing it. However, actionable data help teachers care about their students individually, and in turn, inform teaching and decision-making at a personalized level;
- More solid evidence to support actions taken. Without a traceable record of data, teachers might find it hard to justify their decisions, whether it’s a change in their lesson plan or a remedial approach for a certain group of students. Actionable, effective data stand by teachers as solid evidence. This is helpful for teacher’s communication horizontally with other teachers and upwards with school leaders, and also advises future decision-making.
Though challenges do exist, actionable data stand as a desirable solution to the increasingly crowded schedule of teachers. Equipping yourself with data literacy is, without any doubt, a worthwhile investment for your career as a teacher.
After agreeing on the advantages of actionable data, the next question would be on the practical side: ideally, how should a teacher make student data actionable? To answer this question, we first need to take a step back and define what effective use of data looks like.
A Complete Cycle of Educational Data Use
The following graph illustrates the complete cycle of educational data use, according to the National Cooperative Education Statistics System. Effective educational data use is a cyclical and systematic process consisting of five steps:
- Define goals and questions: understanding the questions at hand, and defining the ultimate goals that you would like to achieve with your data. This step is essential for you to select the right data to fill the informational gap and to address the specific needs;
- Access and gather data: collecting data that are most relevant to the above-mentioned goals and questions via different channels;
- Analyze and interpret data: looking for patterns in the data to build sound evidence to inform decision-making and action;
- Act: the data user drawing on the analyzed data, along with real-world experience and understanding of the organizational processes to determine and carry out appropriate interventions/actions;
- Evaluate: evaluating how the intervention/action changes the educational situation, which would generate further key questions and more informational gaps, which creates a complete iterative process.
Usually, EdTech products handle Steps 2 and 3 for their clients, and Step 3 is where most teachers stop in managing educational data, due to various reasons. In such cases, student data is collected online and turned into appealing visualizations on teachers’ devices, but the process stops there. If teachers are not empowered or encouraged to leverage these analyses for insights or actions, these data simply sit statically on the screen and are not put to use. While having effective data requires a proper tool, knowing how to utilize it requires extra skills and knowledge.
At this point, we have come to this critical question: supposing that teachers have access to effective student data,
How Could A Teacher Make Student Data Actionable?
Based on my expertise in EdTech and my observation of successful and unsuccessful classrooms in different parts of the world, I would like to highlight three reminders for teachers to turn available data into actionable data.
1) Start with defining your questions
Before jumping into a large pool of data and getting yourself confused, you first need to understand your priorities and define the most relevant questions: do you want to identify at-risk students and classes? Are you curious to see the progress school-wide over a certain period? What are the most difficult concepts for students to master? What type of intervention works best in improving student learning outcomes?
Since different questions involve different types and levels of data, thinking through your target helps you rapidly locate the right type of data from the tool you have at hand. Also, remember that these questions can be answered not only by quantitative data from the products, but also qualitative data which requires an understanding of your students or the educational system, such as student learning habits, family support, and other noncognitive factors.
2) Act, even before problems occur
In October 2016, Gartner Consulting published a framework for data and analytics, where four types of analytics are identified (see graph below).
According to Gartner Consulting, when using data, most companies (not only in the EdTech industry) stop at Step 2 and use only descriptive and diagnostic analytics. This would be sufficient in discovering previous trends, understanding and remediating a challenging situation, but is far from enough in driving a preventive action.
In the educational field, a teacher should not only understand the patterns and the trends from the data analysis presented to them, but also develop the vision to predict problems — even before they occur — based on existing trends, and plan relevant interventions to prevent foreseeable issues.
3) Follow up with your actions
After you have completed the practices or interventions, don’t stop there. Bring your data experience to a higher level with the right follow-ups. The following two approaches would help you.
a) Evaluate closely the results of your actions and take notes of the findings
As shown in the cycle of data use, evaluating the results of your actions helps you seek more useful information by refining the questions that are being asked or by bringing in new questions, which leads to another round of data use. Hence, make sure that you use spreadsheets or notes to keep a record of the actions taken, the rationale behind them, and the results of the actions. This will help you keep track of the development of issue at hand, form stronger acumen in asking better questions and taking meaningful actions.
b) Communicate data insights with your colleagues or school leaders
Educational systems involve multiple stakeholders other than classroom teachers: school principals, educational ministry, subject leaders, etc. It is important that teachers disseminate actionable data with a broader audience instead of keeping the data to themselves. This kind of communication welcomes more helpful questions, attracts more valid insights, wins support from the top, and builds up the teacher’s own career.
Bring it all together…
All things considered, it is critical to remember that turning available data into actionable data is a cyclical process, and takes not only high-quality data from the EdTech providers but also adept skills and experience from teachers who use them. Effective use of data can be a frustrating process from time to time. Teachers need to be keen-eyed to identify the right questions, tech-savvy to interpret the data, decisive to take actions, and patient to build up communication for a broader impact.
How does your school make student data actionable? What sort of data is available and what is being used? What kinds of decisions/policies have been made based on data? What channel of data communication is working for you? Share your experience with the community by commenting below.
