Our week 2 assignment in the 5301 Research course had us listen to 3 interviews and answer a couple of questions from 2 of the interviews. I chose to use the interviews of Mr. Briseno and Dr. Chargois. The following is what I took from the 2 interviews I chose.
I found this to be a very eye opening experience for me. During my first year of teaching, we had a new principal take over our campus and he was extremely data driven. He made sure that we knew everything about all of our students, especially our sub-populations. When I would speak to other teachers in my district, they always said that they did not have to do any of the things our principal was having us do. In less than two years, our campus went from being the lowest scoring middle school in the district on all of our district assessments to consistently finishing in first or second on every assessment. It was great to hear these gentlemen speak about action research because it helped me understand that this is growing trend in education. We weren't the only ones working this hard on data collection!
Mr. Briseno seemed to be very focused on quantitative data. He wants to know the numbers and look for patterns or areas for improvement. Dr. Chargois seems very strategic in his research methods. He plans things out and makes sure that any research being done in his district is being done to help increase student performance.
Data is our future. Businesses have been data mining for years now to predict what customers want and are likely to purchase based on their searches and demographics. I feel like education is starting to follow that trend now. We have so much student data available to us these days. Learning how to analyze and breakdown this data through action research inquiries is going to be key as we work towards making sure we meet the educational needs of ALL OF OUR STUDENTS.
I really liked the way Chargois wanted to use data to make predictions. I wish he had talked more about the software he used. I'm sure our district has some fancy software, but we don't have it at the campus level.
ReplyDeleteI am right there with you. Data is what should drive our teaching. This also mean like you said that we need to know how to interpret the data. Need to also be aware that it is easy to manipulate data. I have worked with teachers that when they did not like outcomes went back an manipulated tie data so it reflected a more positive outcome than it should have.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. I have seen that happen a lot on our district assessments. They will "forget" to turn in the answer documents for some of their lower performing students. I don't see the point in that. How can you improve if you are in denial?
DeleteWhat is your wondering, Adam?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on data, it is what we have to do. There has to be something to build on, and this is the foundation. My big problem with education is the theoretical crap that you read so often. I hope that you have a great study.
You can easily get lost in all the data that can be collected. I think with an action research project you can be more focused at look for certain patterns. Not everyone is wanting to do the "data dig" and get answers. It is interesting to see how different districts use their data and who has access to what,
ReplyDeleteOur district and especially our campus are extremely data driven. We use data to group students, guide tutoring and notice patterns over time. This can be very eye opening.
ReplyDelete