Creating a Data-Driven District

Informing instructional strategies

There are a variety of steps that administrators can take to create a data-driven district culture that will help teachers use the right data in the right way to address the diverse learning needs of students and lead powerful learning outcomes across schools.

This web seminar focused on ways to create a data-driven culture. The executive director of curriculum and instruction from Rio Grande City CISD in Texas discussed the importance of quality data, and how to foster a data-driven culture, achieve buy-in, and use data to inform classroom strategies and drive academic achievement.

Speakers

Serapio Trillayes

Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Rio Grande City CISD (Texas)

Karen Ingram

National Education Consultant

Istation

Serapio Trillayes: How do we create a data-driven district? Well, there has to be support from the central office, of course, and monitoring. As central office administrators, we need to support our principals, so our principals can support our teachers.

In these past two years, we have met monthly with principals and teachers in every elementary campus to go over data with them. That makes a big difference. The conversations that come out in those sessions are excellent—conversations that you wouldn’t have with those teachers and principals otherwise. You also have to be visible in the classrooms, and you also have to be visible in the computer labs, especially when they’re assessing with Istation’s Indicators of Progress (ISIP‚Á‘¢). The message we’re sending is that we care about the students’ success, we care about the teachers’ success and we care about the program.

The first year you implement a program, it is essential to hand-hold teachers, because you need to let them know that you’re going to be there to help them—to assist, to facilitate. Even though they’re knowledgeable professionals, they still need that assistance.

All of our tier groups had a steep trend line of growth during our first year of implementation. Teachers were excited. At first, there was some resistance—not all the teachers were receptive to this program. But, when teachers see the success and growth of their students in the classroom, that will motivate them and, in turn, they will motivate the students.

With Istation, the students assess on their own. They go to the computer lab, they put on their headphones, they go into the assessment. We took human error out of the equation, and teachers quickly understood that the data was jiving with the students’ performance in the classroom.

This process has worked. We’re going into our third year, and we purchased the system for two years. Teachers are now excited about the program, and are very happy with how we analyze the data and have those data sessions at the campuses. It’s all about working together.

Karen Ingram: Istation provides engaging, individualized intervention instruction for reading, Spanish literacy and math. Istation’s award-winning pre-K through eighth-grade educational technology program supports educators and students for these grades.

Istation is an extremely effective product when used in a blended learning environment as Mr. Trillayes just described. Students begin by completing a formative ISIP assessment, which takes about 30 minutes to complete. This fun assessment is computer adaptive, which means the level of each question changes depending on the students’ responses.

When students complete the ISIP, it seamlessly places them into an individualized learning path that contains a research-based, engaging interactive curriculum. The game-like interactive lessons are intuitive and are able to route students to re-teach lessons when necessary. In an effort to support educators, Istation has personalized data profiles generated from Istation’s nationally normed assessment and the interactive curriculum. The data profiles are generated instantaneously to help educators, teachers, administrators and parents plan instruction and monitor growth.

As teachers monitor student progress, they have access to over 2,800 resources that include scripted teacher-directed lessons, projectable lessons, and a vast library of fiction and nonfiction books and passages. Students can continue working on the exciting electronic lessons at home, and the parents have access to reports and instructional activities that address their students’ needs. To assist educators in using this program with fidelity, Istation offers face-to-face professional development with experts in the field as well as several online implementation tools and live virtual support.

Feel free to visit istation.com to review the validity and reliability research. Istation believes that every child deserves to feel like a superhero, and consistently strives to empower students and change lives.

To watch this web seminar in its entirety, please visit districtadministration.com/ws091318

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