More from the Victory Project
Today we are having a staff development day focused on data. Data is supposed to drive instruction. Data is supposed to be used to inform decisions. Data should do many things, but does it?
Take for example the simple decision to wear a jacket to go to school. It is March, and the thermometer reads 59 degrees. You have all the data you need right? Maybe. If you live in California like I do, I am going to grab a jacket. 59 degrees is cold in my view. If, like some of my family, you live in Minnesota, you might come to school in a T-shirt. The same data, but interpreted very differently.
My goal today will be to depersonalize the data. Data is not right, data is not wrong, it just is. It is a thing. It does not define a teacher, nor does it define a student. Most importantly, for my school, a test score does not define them and their work. It is a thing, a tool for understanding and improving their own practice.
In preparing for the discussion that I will be facilitating I have come across some interesting quotes.
“We are a society that is data rich, but information poor.” Robert H. Waterman
“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.” John Kenneth Galbrith
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