To apply the learning that took place in this course we completed several field experiences including an elevator speech to get the staff enthused about the data analysis process, a data team summary, a data inventory, an instructional initiatives inventory, a data overview, and an action plan. The one that I found to be the most valuable was the data overview. For this field experience I took longitudinal data for the past five years of the CRCT/Milestones assessments for seventh grade life science at Dalton Middle School and compared and contrasted the results. By taking an in-depth look at this particular set of data I was able to pinpoint certain strengths and weaknesses that I could present to my colleagues in a visual form through a series of charts and graphs.
As I move forward, I plan to continue using and applying this learning of analyzing data in my school by spending more time on data analysis for the unit assessments and checkpoints throughout the year. Often times this process is reserved for the end-of-year assessments when it can be more beneficial used on a regular basis to drive daily instruction routines and strategies. While I see the importance of using the Data Wise or UDP, I anticipate having a challenge in creating a Data Team within my school because of the time out of the classroom it would require. As my school adjusts to new administrators in the coming year, I feel that we have too many teams and committees already in place and convincing them of the need for such a team might be challenging.