As a leader, how do you guide appropriate use of data and for what purposes?
School districts have devoted significant resources to the development of data management systems. There is an enormous amount of information available to us - sometimes so much that we don't know where to begin. And, when we do take the plunge, we worry that perhaps the data are being used incorrectly, or even that some data should not be used at all.
When considering the potential uses of data, it is important for us as responsible professionals to also consider and be cautious of potential misuses. There are two significant issues. The first issue is balancing the individual's right to privacy with the staff's need for access to the data necessary to make decisions that will improve instruction and increase student achievement. ...
The second potential misuse of data comes from the overwhelming amount of data now available to us. Data mashups are integrations of data from various sources. When those mashups make use of data that legitimately belong together, the interpretations made can be helpful and even insightful. However, when well-intentioned but untrained individuals combine disparate data sets that do not belong together, the results are misleading and any interpretations of the data are invalid.
Issues of data mismanagement are best addressed through attention to school culture and to processes that mitigate concerns. They cannot be allowed to derail efforts to use data appropriately to improve instruction and increase student achievement.
From: The Evidence-Based School by Karen Hume
Published by: Pearson
Showing posts with label Pearson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pearson. Show all posts
Friday, 10 June 2011
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Evidence-based Decision Making
As a leader, how do you use evidence for decision-making?
It used to be that decisions were based on experience, intuition, and philosophical beliefs. It used to be that an expert was someone who had done the exact same thing dozens, if not hundreds, of times. While change is slow and "used to be" is often still current, even in some educational environments, times are changing.
Evidence-based decision making has long been recognized in the corporate world as resulting in increased focus, increased efficiencies of time and money, and (sometimes) increased effectiveness. So, it is hardly surprising that governing bodies, whether they are the governments that pay for health care or the taxpayers who fund our schools, want to know that important jobs are accomplished with full consideration of all evidence that might help achieve greater success.
There is a second reason for the increasing emphasis on evidence-based decision making. We make greater use of data simply because technology has made it more accessible. The advances in technology have provided us with the opportunity to store huge quantities of information, maintain large databases, and access the databases of others. (Not all schools and districts currently have the technology to do these things; fortunately, effective data analysis and interpretation do not depend on them.) Technology even allows us to merge information from a variety of databases to create data "mashups" - integrations of data from various sources.
From: The Evidence-Based School by Karen Hume
Published by: Pearson
It used to be that decisions were based on experience, intuition, and philosophical beliefs. It used to be that an expert was someone who had done the exact same thing dozens, if not hundreds, of times. While change is slow and "used to be" is often still current, even in some educational environments, times are changing.
Evidence-based decision making has long been recognized in the corporate world as resulting in increased focus, increased efficiencies of time and money, and (sometimes) increased effectiveness. So, it is hardly surprising that governing bodies, whether they are the governments that pay for health care or the taxpayers who fund our schools, want to know that important jobs are accomplished with full consideration of all evidence that might help achieve greater success.
There is a second reason for the increasing emphasis on evidence-based decision making. We make greater use of data simply because technology has made it more accessible. The advances in technology have provided us with the opportunity to store huge quantities of information, maintain large databases, and access the databases of others. (Not all schools and districts currently have the technology to do these things; fortunately, effective data analysis and interpretation do not depend on them.) Technology even allows us to merge information from a variety of databases to create data "mashups" - integrations of data from various sources.
From: The Evidence-Based School by Karen Hume
Published by: Pearson
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