Teaching and Learning

Data Literate Educators

The goal of the Brown Deer School District is to provide teachers with the time and resources to become data literate educators. According to the Data Quality Campaign, data-literate educators continuously, effectively and ethically access, interpret, act on, and communicate multiple types of data from state, local, classroom, and other sources to improve outcomes for students in a manner appropriate to educators’ professional roles and responsibilities.  

Data Resources

Formative assessments are also used in classrooms on a daily basis. Formative assessments help paint a portrait of what students know and understand, as well as topics that they are having difficulty grasping.  Serving as checkups, formative assessments give you the chance to correct students’ mistakes and iron out any difficulties early in the learning process.

Data in our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)

PLC's entail whole-staff involvement in a process of intensive reflection upon instructional practices and desired student benchmarks, as well as monitoring of outcomes to ensure success.  PLC's enable teachers to continually learn from one another via shared visioning and planning, as well as in-depth critical examination of what does and doesn't work to enhance student achievement.

Teachers use summative and formative data on a weekly basis to identify areas of growth and collaborate on curriculum implementation and instructional best practices.


Data Inquiry Process for Continuous Improvement


Student data needs assessment provides the pathway to inquiry and analysis of root causes in practices. A practices needs assessment provides a solid informed basis for implementing improvement actions.

Plan:
Identify specific improvement actions, barriers and necessary data inquiry to develop a blueprint for implementation and ongoing monitoring
Do:
Follow planned implementation of actions and data collection with fidelity
Study:
Analyze both student and practices data to determine the degree to which intended outcomes are being achieved; clarify and communicate findings
Act:
Apply adjustments in actions as determined from analyzing and interpreting the student and practices data studied to improve the process and outcomes