Back-to-School & Data: Is Three Weeks Enough?
This morning, I sat in on an ARD meeting for one of my clients. The committee was meeting to revisit the student’s IEP (Individualized Educational Program/Plan), and it was noted that students had only been back in school for three weeks, so data was limited. That statement brought up a thought for me…is three weeks enough time to have meaningful data? The answer to that question is simple, but not easy.
As a researcher, I know that everything we see, hear, and experience is data. The relevance of that data is subjective, but data is everywhere if you are paying attention. Data is everywhere and, when taken together, tells a story. When I moved into education as a teacher in both general and special education self-contained settings, I brought that mindset with me. While those first days and weeks of school were not heavy on the academics, the data I was most interested in about my students was not measurable through assignments and assessments. Don’t get me wrong, those things did help me form a baseline for where my students were regarding the content eventually, but the most meaningful data I collected was related to what had the greatest impact on their academic performance…their behavior and their mindset regarding their capacity to learn.
In an article published in Discovery Education, former classroom teacher and administrator, Kendell Hunter, highlights key types of data that educators can and should leverage and use to drive decisions regarding how they support students socially, emotionally, and academically. I believe that these data types are also important for families to know about when it comes to communicating with schools, especially families of children and youth with disabilities and mental health disorders. The data types Hunter highlights are:
Formative assessments
Summative assessments
Student behavior
Student growth
Formative assessments are those that are not particularly formal, but they are given while students are still forming their knowledge and understanding of content. Admittedly, this type is focused on academic instruction, but that is not its only use. Formative assessment can be given to assess students’ attitudes regarding their learning environment, the people in it, the invisible elements they carry with them each day, and what motivates them. Summative assessments, as the name indicates, are given at the summation or end of the learning for a concept or unit of study. These might be end-of-chapter, end-of-unit, or even end-of-course tests. These assessments, just as with formative assessments, can help gauge patterns that emerge over time and may speak to important changes that are needed for the student. Student growth, also typically linked to academic performance data, is measured from one point to another and across the course of time. When we compare how a student performed at the beginning of the year to where they are at the quarter-mark, we have an idea of their strengths and progress towards mastery. Further, when we look at student growth data, we are also looking for gaps in learning and making decisions on next steps to remediate or even recommend additional assessment for the presence of learning differences and disabilities.
Student behavior, although it is shown as a separate data type, actually impacts every aspect of the school experience. and is present in each of the other key data types. For behavior, I am not just talking about the disruptive type — the kind that results in disciplinary referrals; I am talking about those seemingly innocuous behaviors that may actually signal an underlying challenge. Is every behavior a signal that something is wrong? No, but it does warrant attention, monitoring, and communication. Students who constantly seem disengaged or detached from what is going on around them, sleeping in or arriving very groggy to class regularly, tardiness, and consistent requests to leave class are not inherently disruptive, yet schools issue disciplinary referrals for these behaviors. Taking in the data, a student who seems disengaged or detached from what’s going on might be struggling with self-esteem or socialization challenges, depression, or may just be more introverted than their peers. A student who consistently arrives to class groggy or falls asleep might have sleep challenges related to screen time, may take medication that has drowsiness as a side effect, or the behavior may be a signal of a deeper issue. Tardiness, albeit annoying at times, was not a cause for me to issue a referral to a student. Instead, I was interested in the antecedent — what was going on immediately before the tardiness? Could it be loitering in the halls to avoid the tasks or a person in class? Could the tardiness have more to do with time management, organization, or executive functioning than just being late to be late? Consistent requests to leave class are also behaviors that seem innocuous at first, but may be a sign of something more. While task avoidance might be one reason, it might have to do with a bladder or bowel issue, anxiousness, or seeking out something or someone more preferred are also possible reasons. All of these actions are meaningful data that help tell the story of our students and their unspoken needs. The best way to gain this data is by paying attention. Well, that and asking the right questions. Then, it is crucial to communicate about the data you’ve collected with families, fellow teachers, and leaders.
Going back to the original question, is three weeks enough time to collect meaningful data? Again, the answer is simple, but not easy. I believe three weeks is plenty. If we pay attention to the patterns of behaviors our students exhibit independently and with others, watch them as they enter the room and walk the halls, notice their gaze or lack thereof, and listen to how they speak about themselves, we gain a significant amount of meaningful data that can help us make informed decisions regarding our approach to them and how we can best support them in the classroom and beyond.
Everything we see, hear, and experience is data, and it is all meaningful to our students’ stories. We just need to pay more attention to the things we can’t measure on paper.
https://www.discoveryeducation.com/blog/educational-leadership/using-data/
