1. Using Data to Inform Instruction
Dr. Grant A. Chandler Director of Professional Learning Office of K-12 Outreach, College of Education Michigan State University

2. Data Conversations using the Collaborative Learning Cycle Dr. Grant A
Data Conversations using the Collaborative Learning Cycle Dr. Grant A. Chandler Director of Professional Learning Office of K-12 Outreach, College of Education Michigan State University

3. Session Description
Powerful data conversations can lead to powerful changes in instruction and dramatic improvement in student achievement.  This session will engage administrators in how to create and sustain high performing groups of educators who can skillfully implement Wellman and Lipton’s Collaborative Learning Cycle. This simple yet powerful protocol will equip teachers and administrators alike with the tools to effectively and efficiently use multiple measures of data to solve instructional and systemic problems to increase student learning.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

4. Finding Common Ground Task Groups:
Find at least 3 things that your entire group has in common --
that would NOT be obvious to others
(and that might surprise us)
Groups at Work – Copyright MiraVia LLC – All rights reserved
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

5. Characteristics of High Performing Groups
Wellman and Lipton
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

6. Seven Qualities of High Performing Groups
Maintain a clear focus
Embrace a spirit of inquiry
Put data at the center
Honor commitments to learners and learning
Cultivate relational trust
Seek equity
Assume collective responsibility
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

7. Maintain a Clear Focus
HPGs clarify desired results and define success criteria.
HPGs agree on and protect priorities for themselves and their students, preserving precious time for focused engagement about the things that matter.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

8. Establish a Spirit of Inquiry
HPGs are both problem seekers and problem solvers. These groups seek external resources and data outside their own experience.
They inquire into data to explore who is learning and who is not, seeking patterns and root causes before pursuing solutions and planning actions.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

9. Put Data at the Center
HPGs use data to inform and guide group and student learning.
HPGs are assessment literate. They keep data central to the conversation, seeking out and using multiple sources and multiple types to inform their choices and plans.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

10. Honor Commitments to Learners and Learning
HPGs keep learning at the focus of their conversations.
HPGs keep their focus on what is good for students, not just convenient for themselves. They explore the process, performance, and products of learning.
They assess and monitor their own learning, reflecting on their processes and products and set goals for continuous improvement.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

11. Cultivate Relational Trust
HPGs operate with high expectations and positive intentions as central assumptions. It is safe to display both high competence and vulnerability.
HPGs rely on the integrity and competence of their colleagues inside and outside of the meeting room.
They hold high expectations for themselves and each other and have faith that those expectations will be met and even exceeded.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

12. Assume Collective Responsibility
HPGs make and honor agreements about who they want to be as a group/team and what they want to produce for their students.
They make data driven choices and are willing to be answerable for these choices.
This collective efficacy, or the shared belief that together the group will successfully achieve its goals, is a prime resource for sustained improvements in student learning (Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2004).
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

13. High Performing Groups
Recognize that their individual choices, both in the meeting room and in their own classrooms, affect everyone.
They willingly invest their time and energy, setting aside personal agendas to support the group’s work and its development.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

14. Peter Senge (1990)
Learning communities are groups of individuals who come together with a shared purpose and agreement to construct new understandings. A learning community is a critical contributor to becoming a learning organization – a place where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collection aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn together.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

15. What Matters . . .
Two different meta-analyses of research on the factors that impact student achievement found that the quality of instruction students receive in their classrooms is the most important variable in student achievement.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

16. Assumptions for Our Work
Schools can only be as good as the people within them.
If one of the most important variables in student achievement is instruction, schools must ensure high quality instruction in every classroom.
If substantive school improvement requires a coordinated, systemic, and collective effort (rather than isolated individual efforts), schools must use professional development strategies that are specifically designed to improve the collective capacity of educators to meet the needs of students.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

17. Assumptions
The best strategy for improving schools and districts is developing the collective capacity of educators to function as members of professional learning communities – a concept based on the premise that if students are to learn at higher levels, processes must be in place to ensure the ongoing-job embedded learning of the adults who serve them.
(DuFour & Marzano, 2012)
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

18. Collaborative Learning Cycle
Based on the book, Got Data? Now What?
Bruce Wellman & Laura Lipton, 2012

19. Analyzing data is like or not like . . . (choose one)
because . . .
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

20. Collaborative Learning Cycle
Activate and Engage
Generate predictions & surface assumptions
Explore and Discover
Analyze data & develop narrative statements
Organizing and Integrating
Generating causal theory and exploring solutions
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

21. Activating and Engaging
Discuss what the data might look like.
Make predictions and assumptions.
Provides psychological and emotional safety and readiness for interacting with colleagues and with data.
Process: develop predictions and assumptions concurrently, record them, use facsimile of the data display, accept different predictions or assumptions.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

22. Exploring and discovering: analyzing the data
Embrace the spirit of exploration and discovery.
Avoid explaining why the data look as they do.
Create a shared focus, provide time to orient to the data, develop a sequence and process for exploration, and apply protocols to balance participation, establish public record keeping, use concise language, depersonalize the data.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

23. Organizing and integrating: generating theory
Establishes the transition to formal problem finding and problem solving in two phases: causation and action.
Causation (curriculum, instruction, teachers, students, infrastructure)
Effective plans are SMART plans
Generate multiple theories of causation, allow multiple theories, seek triangulation of data, generate multiple theories of solution, utilize SMART plans, use decision-making process.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

24. What’s the Big Picture:
Utilize the collaborative learning cycle to carefully examine data:
Student performance data.
Demographic data
Perception data
Process data
Establish causal theories aligned to student data.
Establish narrative statements/causal theories in order to establish meaningful plans that will successfully impact student achievement and be the driving force behind our every day work.
Create building level school improvement plans that align with the district improvement plan but recognize the individual student needs of each building within the district.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

25. Exploring student achievement in
Writing

26. Activate and Engage Phase I
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

27. Building-Level Writing Grade 4 by Proficiency Levels
2013
2012
Blue (Advanced)
Green (Proficient)
Yellow (Partially Proficient)
Red (Not Proficient)
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

28. Building Writing – Grade 14 by Proficiency Levels – 2013
Econ. Advan.
Econ. Disadv.
Regular Ed
Special Ed
Boys
Girls
Blue (Advanced)
Green (Proficient)
Yellow (Partially Proficient)
Red (Not Proficient)
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

29. Predict
What do your top and bottom 30% look like in terms of proficiency levels in 2013? How do they compare to 2012?
% Blue
% Green
% Yellow
% Red
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

30. Predictions and Assumptions
Purpose is to surface and understand assumptions (not about right/wrong)
Prediction: something you expect to see in the data
Assumption: something that you think but that will not show up in data
Predictions Assumptions
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31. Pair, share, discuss Share your predictions with one person
Discuss – why? (your thoughts)
Form groups of 4 (or more)
Put your predictions on chart paper, discuss
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

32. Activating and Engaging
What are some of our predictions and assumptions about student achievement in WRITING at Pleasantville Elementary School?
What questions are we bringing to this discussion?
What are some possibilities for learning that this experience presents to us?
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

33. Activating and Engaging – FACILITATORS’ DEBRIEF
Discuss what the data might look like.
Make predictions and assumptions.
Provides psychological and emotional safety and readiness for interacting with colleagues and with data.
Process: develop predictions and assumptions concurrently, record them, use facsimile of the data display, accept different predictions or assumptions.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

34. Explore and Discover Phase II
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35. Explore and Discover What important points pop out to us?
What patterns, categories, or trends are emerging?
What is surprising or unexpected?
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

36. Analyzing Data - Process
Individuals look at data silently.
Individually document observations.
Report out in groups (Round Robin). Chart observations.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

37. Analyzing Data - Process
Individuals look at data silently. (2-3 min)
Individually document observations. (3-4 min)
Report out in groups (Round Robin). Chart observations. (10 min)
Refine observations by increasing specificity. (8 min)
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

38. Narrative Statements The girls did better than the boys.
In 2012 on the MEAP assessment in reading, the girls were 74% proficient and the boys were 53% proficient.
Chart five (5) narrative statements.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

39. Writing Grade 4 by Proficiency Levels
2013
2012
Blue (Advanced) 8 3
Green (Proficient) 54 62
Yellow (Partially Proficient) 35 30
Red (Not Proficient) 5
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

40. Writing – Grade 4 by Proficiency Levels – 2013
Econ. Advan.
Econ. Disadv.
*Regular Ed
*Special Ed
Boys
Girls
Blue (Advanced) 8 6 9
Green (Proficient) 58 46 55 20 53
Yellow (Partially Proficient) 32 43 34 37 33
Red (Not Proficient) 2 11 3 60 4
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

41. Exploring and Discovering – FACILITATORS’ DEBRIEF
Embrace the spirit of exploration and discovery.
Avoid explaining why the data look as they do.
Create a shared focus, provide time to orient to the data, develop a sequence and process for exploration, and apply protocols to balance participation, establish public record keeping, use concise language, depersonalize the data.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

42. ORGANIZING AND INTEGRATING
Phase III
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

43. Organizing and Integrating
Establishes the transition to formal problem finding and problem solving in two phases: causation and action.
Generate multiple theories of causation, allow multiple theories, seek triangulation of data.
Generate multiple theories of solution (SMART plans)
Use decision-making process to choose the strongest solution.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

44. Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University
Causal Theories
Infrastructure
Leadership
Curriculum
Instruction
Teachers
Students
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

45. Causal Theories Leadership Infrastructure Curriculum Instruction
Systemic planning and implementation, knowledge, skills, disposition
Infrastructure
Schedules, programming, and resources
Curriculum
Design and implementation
Instruction
Methods, materials, and resources
Teachers
Knowledge, skills, and disposition
Students
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

46. Causal Theory As a group select TWO observations to explore further
Individually generate multiple causation theories (why?)
Stay focused on things that we can control
Generate theories from MORE than one category
Identify additional data needed
Share theories, narrow to one or two, and identify additional data needs
Repeat for other observation
Prepare to share
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

47. Example
Observation
The gap from for ED students compared to Non-ED students was nearly 24%. This gap was closed to nearly 1% in
Causal Theories
Our PD has increased our teacher’s ability to reach poorer students (Teachers)
The number of ED student’s drastically increased from to (Students)
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

48. Prepare to Share Review other posters Observations Similarities
Create TWO posters, one for each observation
Include on the poster:
The observation
At least two theories from different causal categories
Additional data needs/questions
Review other posters
Observations
Similarities
Differences
Surprises
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

49. Potential Solutions In groups, identify 3-5 possible solutions
Can be very specific (professional development program) or general (align curriculum)
Create chart labeled “Potential Solutions”
Review other posters
Observations
Similarities
Differences
Surprises
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

50. Organizing and Integrating– FACILITATORS’ DEBRIEF
Establishes the transition to formal problem finding and problem solving in two phases: causation and action.
Causation (curriculum, instruction, teachers, students, infrastructure)
Effective plans are SMART plans
Generate multiple theories of causation, allow multiple theories, seek triangulation of data, generate multiple theories of solution, utilize SMART plans, use decision-making process.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

51. Process Debrief
How did it feel using a structured process to have a conversation?
How might this structured conversation assist you in doing your work with your team?
What additional support do you need in order to facilitate this protocol with your team?
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

52. References
DuFour, R. & Marzano, R. (2012). Leaders of learning: How districts, school, and classroom leaders improve student achievement. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Lipton, L., & Wellman, B. (2012). Got data? Now what? Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

53. Additional Information
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University

54. Dr. Grant A. Chandler Director of Professional Learning Office of K-12 Outreach Michigan State University
Office of K-12 Outreach, Michigan State University