Reading Guide: Chapters 3-5:For each chapter, refer to the pages as you read. I will highlight important passages. Please respond to the questions or passages provided below.
Be prepared to discuss in class.
Chapter 3: Creating a Data Overview
What is an educational question? (pg. 60)
“However, the main goal of any plot or graph is to convey information in a simple, clear manner so that questions of educational significance can be understood, debated, and resolved.” (75)
“School leaders we have worked with who successfully involve teachers in addressing learning problems suggest it is not enough to put copies of charts of state assessment results in faculty mailboxes or to give a lecture about what the charts show.” (76)
“To maximize the potential of data to help generate questions, school leaders we have worked with have found it extremely helpful to use a structured protocol.” (77)
Provide three tips for creating a data overview.
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What will you take away from this chapter?
Chapter 4: Digging Into Data
“Before committing to a particular course of action or investing time in developing possible solutions, it is important that you fully understand the earner-centered problem, which we define as a problem of understanding or skill that underlies students’ performance on assessments.” (81)
What is a typical assumption of schools when they have low scores? (82)
“The process of using data to identify the learner-centered problem is an iterative, inquiry-based process.” (83)
What should you consider as you begin to analyze data? (84-86)
“Examining student work helps to surface and challenge many assumptions-- assumptions about what students can and cannot do, about which students can do what, and about why students are or are not able to do something.” (88)
“Making significant changes in what you do often requires changing what you believe.” (88)
Why is it suggested you should triangulate data? ((89-92)
List some strategies for using data to build a shared understanding of content among faculty members. (93- 95)
“Deeper knowledge about the nature of the problem and how to solve it are the building blocks of your school’s theory of how to improve learning and teaching.” (95)
How could you use the bulleted list on page 96 with the staff of your school? What would be the benefit of doing so?
What will you take away from this chapter?
Chapter 5: Examining Instruction
“What we educators do have under our control in schools is teaching. Teaching, therefore, will be the focus of the solutions in the action plan.” (98)
What is a problem of practice? (98)
“To improve the quality of teaching in a school, leaders must push the conversation about the learning problem past the level of what students are or aren’t doing to look at what teachers are or aren’t doing.” (100)
List the three qualities necessary for examining teacher work. (104)
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“Just as we can think students have learned something until we look at their work and see otherwise, as teachers, so can we think we’ve taught something until we look at our work and see otherwise.” (110)
What will you take away from this chapter?