How to Talk to Students about Ed Data
In the final article of this three-part series, I’ll talk about how to talk about data with students. While the basic principles of communicating about data stay the same for both families and students, it’s really important to adapt your strategies so that they are developmentally appropriate for kids. The three following steps will outline a number of ways to do so.
#1: Get Kids Involved
I like to think of getting kids involved as a major part of designing smart systems. Again, as a teacher, you should never do something a kid can do. Not only does involving students in the process build their investment level, but the time you invest in designing a strong system will free up important time and energy – two things educators never have enough of. These extra resources can then be devoted to the kind of careful data review that only you as an educator can do.
In terms of systems design, this means setting up your work streams so that they involve your students in ways that are age appropriate. I’m a big fan of scorecards, which a middle school I taught at for a number of years used. At the beginning of the testing cycle, we created a calendar of all the major data collection points. Each student’s scorecard had a place for the student to record their score for each major date. Our students kept this scorecard in their folders and they updated their scorecards so they could track their progress–since the folders were traveling home with them each night, this was also an additional resource for families to look at and monitor their student’s progress. This system not only saved me valuable time by getting students to do a rather menial–but important–task, but also got students actively engaged in their academic performance by tying growth and achievement to incentives.
Sample Middle School Math Scorecard (Ms. Sarah Breslin, TEP Charter School)
While scorecards worked really well with my middle-school students, I want to emphasize that it’s possible to involve younger students as well. Elementary school students, for example, can earn and add stickers to a data-based sticker chart, saving you hours of extra work managing the charts yourself. I’d like to mention that this was a system that worked surprisingly well for even my 7th and 8th graders–although, they preferred to wear the stickers on their face instead of allowing the stickers to make their way to the actual chart. Keep in mind with the younger students, and honestly even your older ones, you’ll want to make sure you spend the first few weeks of the new system checking their work and making sure that they’re not making any major errors.
Finally, when determining which data points you’d like to involve students in, you want to make sure that the goals and measurements they’re documenting are numbers that are relevant to them. So that students can see the connection, you’ll need to spend some time clarifying it – do not assume they will see it! The main thing you want to do with these explanations is to establish a culture of transparency around data within your own classroom and help students grasp how cause and effect express themselves in their data. Without this important link, the data tasks you’d like them to help out with documenting will end up feeling like busy work and your students will be less likely to dive in with energy and enthusiasm.
#2: And Keep Them Engaged!
Keeping kids excited about data isn’t just about making sure they get how the work they are doing is connected to their own outcomes. It’s also about keeping them engaged – for the whole year. This is tough, in large part because kids are kids and necessarily think short-term. Particularly in the lower grades, students need external motivation to stay invested. It is developmentally appropriate, for example, for younger children to be rewarded for positive data with things like lunch with a favorite teacher or extra time at recess.
You’ll want to be intentional about how you ladder these rewards for younger students, especially because taking them away can easily backfire. One of the teachers I used to work with shared a fun ice cream activity with me that her younger students loved. Each student had an ice cream cone posted around the room. Each time a student achieved an academic goal, they earned a paper ice cream scoop that they could decorate and add to their cones. The students loved that they earned a special arts-and-crafts activity for each target that they met.
I was most impressed with how my colleague created additional incentives that invested the whole class in not only reaching their own goals, but in supporting each other as well. For example, when each student earned at least one ice cream scoop, then the whole class would earn an ice cream party. While making student data public can be tricky, she did a great job of keeping the process joyful and minimizing the shame that students who hadn’t earned their first ice cream scoop might have felt. Throughout the year, the teacher would raise the stakes and increase the incentives to continue to utilize the ice cream system–continuing to motivate each individual appropriately as well as the classroom community.
With systems for older students, the trick to engagement lies in timeliness. While teenagers will still respond to extrinsic motivators, it’s transparent and consistent systems that provide feedback relatively immediately that really keep them caring about data. Of course, getting data to students quickly should be balanced against other important considerations such as quality of feedback. But know that, if a few days have passed and students still don’t know how they’ve done on an assessment at all, they’re likely to be less invested when results come out. They might even internalize that the time lag means that you, as the teacher, don’t really care about assessments which could lead to them putting in less effort on future exams.
Sample Pump Up Letter (Ms. Sarah Breslin, TEP Charter School)
#3: Link Data to Their Future
A key component of getting kids to really get their own data lies in linking data to their future. As a teacher of middle schoolers, I would contextualize their academic performance within the broader context of their educational and even professional careers. Being a doctor is a great dream – to make that happen, you want to make sure you go to a good college. You’ll have an easier time getting into a good college if you get into a specialized high school. To get into that, your middle school scores really matter. Explaining to children why and how their academic performance will impact their opportunities tomorrow has really helped them get invested in data. For older students, these types of conversations make it much easier to transition away from external motivators. These conversations also serve as an opportunity to model and teach students appropriate long-term planning and decision-making strategies that we, as adults, have to use all the time.
What I’ve shared here are some basic principles about communicating ed data effectively that I’ve discovered through my own experience. At the end of the day, communicating skillfully about data is an art that takes time to truly master – I know I still have a lot to learn after a decade in the classroom. I hope that these articles have given you some useful information that will help to smooth the often bumpy road of data communication. I can’t emphasize enough how impactful this type of communication with students and families can be. Student outcomes are a team effort and it’s through this communication that everyone – students and families included – gets on board.