How to Find Direction and Inner Peace as a Teacher

Day 6: Data Analysis

For today, this is not about building solutions (that’s for tomorrow). Today is merely for you to look over the data and begin to tell a story about your classroom.  Upon completion of the analysis, tomorrow you will be guided to make strategic plans for what you need to keep doing and what you need to improve?  

For my own analysis I have learned the framework as “Outcomes, Causes and Solutions” (OCS Framework). Here is an article that can break down this framework a bit more if you want to go deeper.   Today you will focus on the Outcomes and Causes. 

Step 1: Outcomes (Determine what happened/ is happening.) What is the data telling you? Build a story about the data.  Keep it factual.   

Example: The data show increase of students in their overall reading scores and even more narrowly this increase is for a subset of students in particular (Outcome).

Here are some questions to drive and focus your thinking:

• What do you notice about the overall scores? 

• What is consistent with your expectations or predictions? 

• What about the data that looks most noticeably different?  

• What differences in the data exist with your subgroups compared to all‐students? Are there outliers in positive or negative directions?  If so who/ what are they? 

• Are there any patterns that emerge across the data? If so, describe data patterns.

Step 2: Causes (Determine why it happened/ is happening).  Here you connect a why or a theory to the above data.  Consider what might be causing these gaps in achievement.  

Example: The data show increase of students in their overall reading scores and even more narrowly this increase is for a subset of students in particular (Outcome).You might theorize that this increase, especially for this subset of students is that they take every opportunity given to them to read, they are consistently having their reading logs signed to indicate they are reading at home and are taking Accelerated Reading Tests regularly to show what they know. (Causes) 

Here are some questions to drive and focus your thinking:

• What would you consider as the single‐most important factor contributing to the apparent successes/needs as indicated by the data points you have outlined as outcomes? 

• Looking at the data where a large percentage of students is below standard, how might the use of a particular instructional strategy support that gap?   

• How might the instructional time allotted to knowledge, skills, and abilities of a particular data point contribute to areas of strength/weakness observed in the data?

• How does your current classroom culture and practices, contribute to the observed successes and deficits in performance thus far in the year? 

Facebook Community Action Step:

Now share with the group one area your class is excelling (outcome) and why you believe this happening (cause) and be proud of what you have accomplished.  Being data driven is no small feat.  We will complete this framework tomorrow by applying solutions to our theories.