Joy in Data: Part I
I had a chance to sit down with my incredible team members prior to the winter holidays and reflect on the joy all of us find in data. These conversations were an opportunity to look back on how our unique trajectories have shaped the positive potential each of us sees in data and to look forward at the type of future we believe that the skillful use of ed data can build.
Our hope is that the two articles that came out of these reflections help you start the New Year (Happy 2023!) with even greater optimism about the power of data to revolutionize education for the better. While our conversations covered a broad range of topics, this article will focus on what kicked off our collective love affair with ed data and what has kept the flame alight after so many years in education.
When did you first fall in love with data?
Rebecca: For me, the love of data started early, with Mr. Tabor’s AP Statistics class in high school. He was one of my favorite teachers. I remember having to do a general project about the role that statistics plays in your life. My partner and I did a project on the number of french fries contained in a small at McDonalds versus in a large. We set out to figure out which one was most economical (the answer: two small). Mr. Tabor made learning about math and data fun and engaging, which - when I look back on it - was the start of my really appreciating data.
Christiana: My love story has a similar origin. For me, it was my Accounting 101 course in college. I’ll never forget what my professor said about looking for “the story in the data.” That phrase really stuck because it brought data to life for me. Ever since, it’s played a major role in shaping how I approach data and how I try to present it to others.
Christiana (circa 2016) in love with a spreadsheet!
Melissa: My love with data came later on. I can even pinpoint the year: 2016, towards the end of my first year of teaching. To be honest, I had hated data up until that point. I felt that it held so much consequence: people on the outside had access to information about my classroom that I didn’t know how to gather or interpret, but the responsibility for “bad” data was still on me. It was a very defeating experience.
My relationship with data began to turn around when it came time for science mastery season. During that period, I received a lot of coaching so that I could get my students in top shape for the upcoming state exams. I finally started to see why data was so useful and got a handle on how to tie joy to data quite concretely, because it helped to make student growth so visible. I also had a principal who was good at making data manageable and, by the end of the year, had taught me systems on how to use student data on a daily basis.
Devon: I’m in a similar boat to Melissa - I didn’t really fall in love with data until I started working with ed data specifically. I’d say it kicked off during my first year out of college, when I worked at MATCH as part of the tutoring core. I had different groups of students for different tutoring blocks. Every day, we had a meeting at 7:15 AM which was all about reviewing student data, like assessment scores and more qualitative data. Having the opportunity to implement the insights that came out of these conversations and see how data could impact my students positively was really powerful. Prior to this experience, data for me meant school assessments that were ultimately all about my own learning. Now, I see data, especially ed data, as an invaluable tool for helping people.
“As much as I disliked data when I first started working, now I can’t think about teaching without thinking about data. It’s so useful in connecting people, in giving you a common ground and language.”
And what has kept you in love with data?
Christiana: I love spreadsheets. It’s a way of mastering chaos - everything goes where it’s supposed to and you can organize everything!
On a more serious note, I love how data helps me as an educator understand and appreciate my kids on a whole new level. Oftentimes, people think of data as cold, clinical numbers and as something that’s usually pretty punitive. But I’ve seen how, if done well, data can reveal new and special ways to find and celebrate big student triumphs that I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise.
Another thing that’s kept me in love with data is how it can create a really collaborative environment among stakeholders because it gives us concrete goals that everyone can work towards. This kind of collaboration is a huge part of making schools better for kids.
Melissa: As much as I disliked data when I first started working, now I can’t think about teaching without thinking about data. It’s so useful in connecting people, in giving you a common ground and language. Not just between colleagues, but between teachers, parents and students as well. I’ve had and seen so many heartwarming conversations about how well a person’s child is doing that were made possible by data.
Devon: What’s kept me in love with data… I think it’s the technical skills that I developed while working at Success Academies. It was very empowering to learn how to do different Excel and Google sheet tricks. I got to a point where I knew how to take crazy data things and make it useful for people. I found it really empowering that I could work with school leaders within our network as a person who could take confusing data sets and figure how to use them. Knowing that I could really use data also increased my confidence when speaking about data.
First-year Melissa learning to love data!
Melissa: Oh! Another thing that’s kept me in love with data is that it means I’m never starting with a blank slate. I struggle with blank slates. Data helps make things actionable. For me, when things are actionable, I have direction. Data also builds out my capacity to focus on the kids because I had a better handle on what I was doing and where I was going as a teacher. Data ultimately made my life as a teacher more efficient. This made me love my job as opposed to simply going to work.
Rebecca: I went back to grad school and studied education. I wanted to challenge myself and revive my former interest in statistics, so I took the higher level series of data analysis classes that were offered at my school. The teachers were great. They used examples that were very specific to education and gave us a chance to look at all of these studies where ed data was used to inform impactful policies. I got a lot out of all of the awesome discourse around data in the world of education, like challenging the efficacy of using test scores for accountability. So I suppose that’s what’s kept me in love!
Devon: I would completely agree with this. Our grad school does a great job of incorporating data into all of their classes. I took a class on student support in college, where we discussed reinventing student success and what it means. We all had to define what we thought it meant at the start of the course and then again at the end. It was fascinating because, by the end, we could all see how subjective something like student success is and how important data is when you make these big changes.
We’ll be back next week with the second part of this conversation! Want to tell us about what you love about ed data. Join us on our K12 Data Professionals Facebook Group.
