Being a Data-Driven Educator: Schools and Trainings for the Future

In our last article, we discussed the different basic data competencies educators think teachers and principals need. In this article, we round out our exploration of what educators think about data in education. More specifically, we will look at how many schools currently structure their data management and reflect on whether, if educators were equipped with the right data competencies, what possibilities there could be.

Teachers

• Data Analysis

• Data Communication

School Leader/Principals

• Data Collection

• Data Literacy

Data Literacy Competencies by Role

What does this tell us about the ways schools use data?

There’s a clear division here. On one hand, there are teachers who are responsible for inputting information and having enough skills to be able to grasp what it says. On the other, your school leaders are responsible for truly understanding, making decisions based on and communicating about data.

At first glance, this setup concentrates ownership over data in the hands of school leaders and principals. Of course, there are a lot of good reasons for this: school leaders often have access to data professional learning opportunities that simply aren’t available for teachers at the moment. They’re also - in general - looking at a wider set of data than classroom teachers are. But this means that the process of making education more data-driven falls on the shoulder of a smaller number of education professionals.

Does it have to be this way?

We can’t help but wonder what would happen if data competencies were further democratized within a school building. Yes, there is such a thing as too many cooks in the kitchen – the point isn’t that teachers and principals should be given the same data responsibilities. There is a lot of wisdom in having a dedicated data manager (we’ve written about them too!) or grade-level team lead who can take on tasks that bite into instructional time for classroom teachers. But here at Simplicity, we believe that the more data empowered professionals there are, the better. Education only has to gain with more date literate teachers, coaches and administrators.

Interested in our professional learning offerings? You can check them out here. We’re happy to work with you to craft a training series that will meet the data needs of your school.