Coaching is the key to helping school leaders appropriately use assessments and other data points to inform instruction across the ecosystem. Our coaches also help leaders think through the design and implementation of district-wide curriculum strategies, school-wide instructional priorities, and improvement practices. In part two of this blog, our ANet coaches share how a coach helps leaders turn their data into actionable insights.
Our four-part series includes:
- Part 1: Coaches on Coaching: What's The Role of a Coach?
- Part 2: Coaches on Coaching: How Coaches Enhance Data
- Part 3: Coaches on Coaching: Boosting Curriculum and State Standards
- Part 4: Coaches on Coaching: How Can A Coach Help Me?
Let’s say a leader you’re working with wants to be better about making data-informed decisions. How do you help increase their understanding of the data at their disposal and usage of different data sources?
It’s helpful to create a master list of all the data available to the school leader - when is it gathered, where does it live, what is its purpose, who is it for? From there, you can identify which pieces the leader should review at which frequency based on their goals at that time. As with any new skill, breaking it up into manageable chunks is helpful and keeps things from feeling too overwhelming.
-Julia Davis
To increase the leader’s understanding of making better data-informed decisions, I would take the following approach (below):
- Overemphasize the importance of analyzing multiple measures of triangulated data by looking for assets/celebrations (e.g., subjects, grades, students, etc.) first. This approach avoids a culture of “deficit orientation” and only looking for what is/or went wrong.
- Analyze and synthesize the data to determine why students learned or didn’t learn, what was successful, or not successful, and why.
- Facilitate a data and action planning meeting with teachers to create teacher action plans to reteach standards that were not mastered, aligning with any misconceptions, and grouping students by misconception.
- Leaders should observe teachers’ reteach lessons, provide teachers with immediate, real-time feedback (so students and teachers do not fail in their presence), and strengthen instruction and culture by making necessary adjustments based on observation data.
- Finally, I would strongly encourage the leader to facilitate an end-of-unit/cycle reflection meeting with teachers to reflect on what went outrageously well, what needs improvement, and any next steps/actions to take for the next unit/cycle.
-Rashid Johnson
We usually talk through their different data sources, academics, social-emotional, culture climate, parent/family, and overall district initiatives. Then we do some triangulation with data. The ELE (Empowering Learning Environment) pilot has a protocol we have been using to do this.
-Colleen Kelly
How do you help leaders prioritize and focus in on the data that matters most to their needs?
Ground in the data that’s most connected to their goals and/or what they’ve outlined in their school or strategic plans. Often leaders will create goals without identifying the measurement tools and data sources and outlined frequencies for analysis. Crafting goals alongside the articulation of how and when they will be measured ensures leaders can focus on the “just right” data to determine progress and ultimately impact.
-Katie Tabbert
Having a clear measurement plan based on the goals they set. If we are going to do X what is the data set we need to look at?
-Colleen Kelly
We know leaders often feel like they're data rich but information poor. Learn more about how coaching helps leaders change their practices on our page www.achievementnetwork.org/coaching.
This blog is part of the 2024 Coaching Week! Explore Coaching Week Content below.