Supposing that teachers have already deconstructed historical state assessment data, teachers might begin by revisiting those performance indicators that were aligned to items that students struggled with over time. Coming to understand what the performance indicator truly means is an important and often overlooked first step. Discovering what the items aligned to it challenged students to do can help teachers better understand how to respond instructionally.

For instance, many states have adopted standards or subskills or performance indicators or whatever it is your state is calling it that articulate the need for students to use graphic organizers. As a teacher, my interpretation of that skill would inspire me to begin using many graphic organizers in the classroom and to train my students to use them effectively. However, when you revisit some of the state assessment items mapped to this skill area, interesting realizations are made. For instance, students are sometimes presented with a passage and a question to respond to. They are asked to represent their response by using a graphic organizer. The challenge? The organizer itself is already partially complete. So in this case, using graphic organizers isn’t as simple as the PI would lead you to believe. In this case, using graphic organizers also includes inferring the thought process that is already partially played out in the test booklet before them. In this way, using graphic organizers becomes a highly critical task….it becomes very much like a mathematical process.

When teachers are provided the time and the guidance that is needed to begin having meaningful conversations about assessment data, powerful discoveries are made. And when they are given the time and the guidance needed to revisit items that have been an issue historically, what is uncovered is that much more significant.

Working through these processes collaboratively allows teachers to begin targeting skills in a much more specific and strategic manner. Constructing classroom assessments around these well-targeted areas of provides teachers with the kind of data that leads to significant change.

Processes like this provide teachers with the tools that they need to be real “architects of change”…and I love being a part of that kind of work.

As a classroom teacher, I was not a fan of NYS Assessments. Not at all. First of all, a large portion of them involved multiple choice questions, and if you read my last entry, you already know how I felt about that. Also? In my mind, “teaching to the ELA Assessment” meant familiarizing my students with the construct of the test and allowing that construct to heavily influence the construct of my own classroom assessments. What did this mean to me? It meant tossing out five of the ten performance-based assessments that my students found engaging and replacing them with assessments that looked a lot like the NYS Assessment. This is what we call a knee-jerk reaction, and I, like many of my teacher-friends, spent most of the 1990’s embracing it as a powerful instructional tool.

Here’s the thing: State Assessments can be evil. They can be used in a variety of ways that range from meaningless to destructive, and the fact of the matter is this: that will happen when people aren’t informed about how to use them well. For better or for worse, though, they aren’t going away. Once I wrapped my head around that notion, I began to develop a deep interest in how standardized tests, such as the NYS ELA Assessment, might be used in meaningful ways by TEACHERS and STUDENTS.

What if, instead of simply teaching TO a test, we started teaching FROM it?

For example: the NYS ELA Assessments are given once a year. They are a standardized measure of how students perform during one quick moment in time each year. Drawing conclusions off of that score alone is a good place to begin a conversation, but in my mind, the NYS Assessments provide mere clues for teachers about where instruction might be improved. And this happens only when teachers are invited to delve into the test and into the data generated from it. Together. Collaboratively.

In order to understand what the NYS ELA test demands of students, teachers gain a lot when they are given the opportunity to take the test and collect information about the content of the test, the construct of the test, and all of the skills required to perform successfully on it. During my first year as a consultant, Marie Perini, a colleague of mine, suggested that I engage teachers in perception mapping, a process used frequently at that time by Jennifer Borgioli, who now works with Giselle Martin-Kniep at Learner Centered Initiatives. Although I was unfamiliar with Jenn’s process, I did some research, got the hand of it, and encouraged teachers to use it in several districts soon after. In the end? Gathering perception data revealed so much to the teachers that I worked with that I now hesitate to roll out data before working through this process.

Once we are clear about our perceptions regarding test performance, digging into the data becomes very interesting. In many cases, we learn how incorrect our perceptions are….mine included! And suddenly, teachers begin to realize how necessary data is…..and not just standardized test data. Classroom data.

Case in point: if I roll out trend data revealing that students at a particular grade level  have struggled with items testing knowledge of the story elements for the last ten years, it would make sense for teachers to collaborate about the potential causes for that. In our region, this process is faciliated through the English Language Arts Deep Curriculum Alignment Project. Teachers involved in this project work together to identify Power Performance Indicators and deconstruct test items aligned to them. What we’ve learned is that while assessment data might suggest a historical weakness in test items relevant to “story elements”, when the items themselves are revisited, there were many other skills embedded within them. Students could be struggling with any of those skills. How do we uncover what the real problem is?

We teach FROM the test. We use the test to provide us with information about where we may need to improve. We revisit the items. We determine which literacy and thinking skills were finer parts of the item as a whole. And then? We align our instruction and a number of our assessments to those discoveries. We gather THAT data. Because THAT data will give us a clearer idea about how our students are struggling and what kinds of instruction are leading to improvement.

Classroom data provides teachers with evidence about what works, instructionally, and what might not. It can guide effective decision-making. It brings an end to department battles, based on hunches, over which instructional strategies are “best.” It can lead to more efficient teaching and easier learning. It simplifies our struggle.

It also makes meaningful use of those assessments we hate so much.

Angela Stockman

But of course, time was always an issue.

And I had too many kids.

And most of them were apathetic. None of them did their homework. And their parents didn’t care and our class periods were too short and I had to get them ready for the state assessments and last year’s teacher didn’t prepare them well enough and I needed new resources and I was being pulled out of my classroom too often and the temperature was too warm in my room and my computer printer was jammed and I was trying to differentiate my cooperative learning-driven literature circle. That was differentiated. With the differentiation. Cooperatively.

*Sigh*

And anyway shouldn’t the kids have COME to me having learned this material already? Hmmmm?

It’s funny, the perspective you develop when you step out of the classroom and into the role of staff developer. It’s been an education, and some days, I truly do wish that I could go back and do it all over again. Better. I think everyone in my position does. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the definition of “better” is always, well……getting better. Evolving. Some people are frightened by that. I find it exciting.

The notion of using data to inform instruction is something that has moved well beyond the district office planning room and into classrooms across our region. Teachers who were once skeptical or overwhelmed by data-driven conversations and processes are now considering how the use of data might actually help them target areas of student need with better precision, align their instruction, and provide rich opportunities for collaborative discussion that might truly create meaningful change. The fact of the matter is this: when instructional decisions are based on evidence, the teacher’s ability to respond effectively becomes a simpler road to travel.

I began teaching two years before the first waves of the English Language Arts assessment crashed upon the shores of New York State. I was a proponet of Nancy Atwell’s workshop model, performance-based assessment, and cooperative learning. I truly believed that if I were to distribute a multiple-choice test in my classroom, I would then have to sit back and plug my ears as my students’ brain cells erupted in shrieks of pain before receeding to their ultimate demise.

You might say I had some strong opinions. I’m sure I was a joy to work with.

At any rate, the notion of using data during that time was something lost on me and every other teacher I knew. It just wasn’t done, and it didn’t have to be. Accountability was a distant nightmare for those of us in the classroom at that time. In fact, the first time that I was asked to consider data was in reaction to the NYS Assessments. And it wasn’t fun. For anyone. And all of us, everywhere, were doing it.

Unfortunately, that early trauma still lingers, and each time I use the dreaded *D* word with teachers today, I can practically hear their jaws clench as they brace themselves against another blow. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Using data to inform instruction gives teachers better information about what their students need and how well their curriculum and instruction is providing it. Gathering data, having conversations about it, and forming pro-active responses to the conclusions drawn puts teachers in better control of their practice. It eliminates the fear of the unknown and the frustration that so many teachers feel when it dawns on them that they spend a good deal of time firing shots at a target that seems to keep moving.

When I roll out assessment data to teachers, I’m often confronted with justified skepticism over what the assessment is TRULY testing. Some teachers still feel that if they focus on drilling the content of the test, their scores will improve. Others feel that if they focus on test-taking strategies, their students will have it made on testing day. And sadly, some teachers have resigned themselves to the perception that SED is just trying to “trick” their students, confuse them…..abuse them.

How do we teach well in a standards-based, data-driven climate? How do we continue to deliver rich curriculum that engages students and inspires teachers to want to be in their classrooms? These are important questions to consider, and I don’t claim to know the answers. I am, however, willing to share what I’ve learned about better practices (understanding, again, that “better” just keeps getting “better”), and I plan to do that over the next several entries.

What I do feel certain about is this: using data to inform instruction seems to make a lot of sense. And data are defined well beyond assessment scores. Data goes much deeper than the reports used by the folks in district offices. The most important data is classroom data. Data can be gathered about anything.

Understanding which data you might want to gather is key. And that’s where I’ll pick things up next time.