Data Based Decision Making

In a context where schools are held more and more accountable for the education they provide, data-based decision making has become increasingly important. This book brings together scholars from several countries to examine data-based decision making. Data-based decision making in this book refers to making decisions based on a broad range of evidence, such as scores on students’ assessments, classroom observations etc. This book supports policy-makers, people working with schools, researchers and school leaders and teachers in the use of data, by bringing together the current research conducted on data use across multiple countries into a single volume. Some of these studies are ‘best practice’ studies, where effective data use has led to improvements in student learning. Others provide insight into challenges in both policy and practice environments. Each of them draws on research and literature in the field.

This book will help you understand how to integrate data-based decisions into the daily work of the school. It is a practical and relevant handbook for converting data into wise decision-making and planning. It will give you the skills to successfully make data-based decisions, measure student learning and program effectiveness, evaluate student progress, use data to improve instruction, integrate a "Dynamic Planning" process into the daily operation of your school.

Digital disruption is accelerating. Implementing a successful digital transformation strategy requires that senior managers make trade-off decisions to reinvent a business. Equally important all decision makers must learn to ask the right questions, use data and computer support in decision making, and increase their knowledge and skills. Creating a data-centric culture and rewarding data-based decision making leads to successful digital transformation. Join the digital journey. This book is targeted at managers, especially middle-level managers who are trying to come to grips with using data-based decision making in a transforming organization. The authors explore a number of broad questions including: How can managers become data-based decision makers? How can digital transformation become part of an organi­zational strategy? What new skills do managers need to implement digital transformation? How will we know an organization has been successfully transformed?

This workbook will serve as your guide to incorporating the data-driven decision making process into your organization’s culture and behavior. O’Neal leads you through setting up teams; warehousing, accessing, and examining data; and finally reflecting on your process. Understand what’s happening in your school environment and how you can make better decisions that will keep you on a path to success.

Your company's data has the potential to add enormous value to every facet of the organization -- from marketing and new product development to strategy to financial management. Yet if your company is like most, it's not using its data to create strategic advantage. Data sits around unused -- or incorrect data fouls up operations and decision making. In Data Driven, Thomas Redman, the "Data Doc," shows how to leverage and deploy data to sharpen your company's competitive edge and enhance its profitability. The author reveals: · The special properties that make data such a powerful asset · The hidden costs of flawed, outdated, or otherwise poor-quality data · How to improve data quality for competitive advantage · Strategies for exploiting your data to make better business decisions · The many ways to bring data to market · Ideas for dealing with political struggles over data and concerns about privacy rights Your company's data is a key business asset, and you need to manage it aggressively and professionally. Whether you're a top executive, an aspiring leader, or a product-line manager, this eye-opening book provides the tools and thinking you need to do that.

Connect data and instruction to improve practice Gathering data and using it to inform instruction is a requirement for many schools, yet educators are not necessarily formally trained in how to do it. This book helps bridge the gap between classroom practice and the principles of educational psychology. Teachers will find cutting-edge advances in research and theory on human learning and teaching in an easily understood and transferable format. The text’s integrated model shows teachers, school leaders, and district administrators how to establish a data culture and transform quantitative and qualitative data into actionable knowledge based on: Assessment Statistics Instructional and differentiated psychology Classroom management

Excerpt: ...tribe. He had faculties. He had also various idiosyncrasies. He was undeniably the best hunter and trapper and trainer of dogs to sledge, as well as the most expert upon snowshoes of all the Indians living upon the point, and he was, furthermore, one of the dirtiest of them and the biggest drunkard whenever opportunity afforded. Fortunately for him and for his squaw, Bigbeam, as she had been facetiously named by an agent of the company, the opportunities for getting drunk were rare, for the company is conservative in the distribution of that which makes bad hunters. Given an abundance of firewater and tobacco, Red Dog was the happiest Indian between the northern boundary of the United States and Lake Gary; deprived of them both he hunted vigorously, thinking all the while of the coming hour when, after a long journey and much travail, he should be in what was his idea of heaven again. To-day, though, the rifle bought from the company stood idle beside the ridge-pole, the sledge dogs snarled and fought upon the snow outside, and Bigbeam, squat and broad as became her name, looked askance at her lord as she prepared the moose meat, uncertain of his temper, for his face was cloudy. Red Dog was, in fact, perplexed, and was planning deeply. Good reason was there for Red Dog's thought. Events of the immediate future were of moment to him and all his fellows, among whom, though no chief was formally acknowledged, he was recognized as leader; for had he not at one time been with the company as a hired hunter? Had he not once gone with a fur-carrying party even to Hudson's Bay, and thence to the far south and even to Quebec? And did he not know the ways of the company, and could not he talk a French patois which enabled him to be understood at the stations? Now, as fitting representative of himself and of his clan, a great responsibility had come upon him, and he was lost in as anxious thought as could come to a biped of his quality. Like a more or less...

"Goldring and Berends provide practical and strategic counsel on what data should be collected, how data can be productively analyzed, and who should be involved. Their book positions this advice deftly in research on leadership and organizational change. As school leaders confront the challenges of meeting the needs of all students through continuous school improvement, they will find this book an essential resource." —Willis D. Hawley, Professor of Education and Public Policy University of Maryland A comprehensive, practical guide to using data effectively for school improvement! For any educator focused on enhancing student outcomes and schoolwide performance results, knowing how to collect appropriate data isn′t necessarily enough. Understanding how to analyze and use data as a pathway to improvement is the key. This comprehensive, hands-on guidebook discusses the essential statistical and assessment information that principals need to know, what types of data to look at, how to analyze the information, and how to use what they′ve learned to make critical choices for teaching and learning. Full of examples and recommendations, this book illustrates proactive strategies for collecting data and generating change while focusing on other measures of learning and school organization, including data about professional development, allocation of resources, family involvement, and community standards. Part of the Leadership for Learning series, this resource: Provides leaders with support in developing and sustaining schoolwide capacity for continuous improvement Links data-based decision making with accountability issues and shared mission and goals Includes numerous examples and cases, a glossary, school improvement template, sample forms, and data tools Leading With Data demonstrates how administrators can apply knowledgeable analysis of meaningful data for continuous, sustainable, and significant school improvement.