Developing Focused Strategies

The purpose of data is to understand what to do, and the purpose of the instructional data team is to act on what the data tells us.  Once the team has effective methods for gathering data, and once the team has enough data to make assessments and determinations about that data, the team is ready to develop a plan of action.

This plan should involve several actions:

1. Create a set of goals based on what the data tells you.
2. Make sure to encompass all available classroom assessments, input from teachers, and anything else you have learned about students.
3. As a team, create a set of realistic actions that can be used to achieve your set of goals.
4. Name all actions that have been used so far which have had success.  Cite measurable methods used to determine this.
5. Name all actions that have been used so far but have not been successful.  Cite measurable methods used to determine this.
6. Based on an action's success, or lack of success, determine which ones should be continued and which should be discontinued.

Throughout the process, the team should continue to revisit the data-gathering and data-assessment stages as needed to better inform the entire process.

An educational consultant can help the team move smoothly through this phase of the process by helping to determine best ways to analyze and understand the data, and to help develop actions that make sense based on the actual data.  The consultant can also help make the sometimes difficult determination about which actions are working and which are not, and what to do about that.