Data-Driven Decision Making in Education

Data-driven decisions are an important component in education and can have a positive impact on students’ growth and success. These decisions can be made by teachers, administrators, and school districts in many areas as it relates to education. This may include curriculum, resources, programs, and student progress. For example, schools may use universal benchmark screenings and progress monitoring to assess students' performance. For many years, school management systems, administrators, teachers, and staff have collected, analyzed, and applied data to enhance student performance and target learning needs. Data should be collected from a wide variety of sources at the national, state, and local levels, it should be disaggregated, and be both quantitative and qualitative to reflect informal teacher observations of students’ needs. The use of technology has provided many opportunities for educators to facilitate this process.

Schools use data to focus on staff professional development, secure funds for programs and resources, and to inform stakeholders and the greater school community. In addition, data can help focus administrative tasks that enhance school goals. By collecting individualized and group student data, educators can obtain a snapshot of performance, competency, and areas where support is needed. Data-driven decision making uses factual information to help educators make informed choices as it relates to students’ progress and learning needs. It is a system of management and teaching practices that focuses on day-to-day learning and overall student achievement. This can include test scores such as formative assessments, summative assessments, teacher observations, and student files. In addition, data provides guidance to help teachers adjust teaching strategies and interventions to support students. Teachers continue to build students’ background knowledge to tap into what the students know. This leads to driving instruction and moving to what teachers want students to learn. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) explains that “high quality instruction, corrective instruction is not the same as reteaching, which often consists of simply restating the original explanations louder and more slowly.” Instead, the focus should be on corrective instruction which provides students with personalized learning and specific feedback about their progress. In addition, corrective instruction uses new strategies to help students who are experiencing difficulty understand the material and the opportunity to work towards mastery of skills and concepts.

Educators use data from various sources to personalize and differentiate instruction and experiences for students. With educators having the ability to track students’ understanding and progress, they are able to make the necessary adjustments in their lesson planning and preparation to meet the needs of their students. In this process of reviewing data, educators have the ability to collaborate with colleagues to generate questions once it has been determined the essential information that needs to be addressed. Some questions may include, but are not limited to, What is the performance level of students in English Language Arts and Math? What are areas of strengths and challenges? Are there common themes with students who exceeded expectations and/or fell below expectations? What interventions are being used for the students who are experiencing difficulty?

By using data, educators can gain a detailed profile of student growth and learning. In addition, educators can reflect on their own professional practice. Data is used as the road map in the journey educators are on along with their students. Information continues to be a powerful tool and with each lesson and assessment provided, adjustments can be made to the next day’s lesson with student success at the forefront.