Discussion Questions
1. Volumes have been written about the effects of the lack of parent involvement in their childs education. One research study reports that parents sometimes are intimidated about and by the meaning of student learning data. In a minimum of one detailed paragraph, explain what information would be helpful to you in your professional role (administrator/principal, content leader/coach, master teacher, educational diagnostician, educational technologist, special education teacher, early childhood educator, etc.) for parents to know about the student learning data of the school. Include examples of ways that you (in your chosen role) could contribute to educating parents with that information. Be sure to respond to the post of two of your classmates.
2. Please reflect on your current practices as an educator as it relates to data collection and analysis. Reflect on the processes used in your current classroom and school as it relates to planning for student success and instructional improvement (assessing teachers) using data. How did you get to where you are as an educator? What has worked and what has not worked in terms of student outcomes in your classroom and schools? The age-old question must be considered, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about the condition of your classroom or school? Can the problems or issues be fixed?
3. Consider the data that is collected in your classroom and school. How is this data used to make classroom level decisions? How is this data used to make school wide decisions? Think about the data that is collected by school leaders to assess and improve instruction. Identify the types of data that is collected to inform instructional decisions and to improve instructional outcomes.
4. Locate one or more peer reviewed research articles on continuous school improvement process. You may wish to focus your research on aspects of improving instructional outcomes, assessment, evaluation (teacher and/or student). Please address the following prompts in the discussion forum.
Answer the following questions: (1) What are the 3 ways that continuous school improvement uses evaluation? Which of the 3 ways are or will be most significant to your current or proposed professional role in the school? (2) Discuss (1) why and (2) how evaluating school goals and objectives is related to but different from evaluating school programs and processes.
