How to Gather Data

The first step for an instructional data team is to pull together the data that is necessary to assess for a school or district.

This can involve many steps, and may be changed according to the particular needss of any district.  But the general approach involves the following steps:

1. Collect data about students and look for significant strengths and/or issues affecting education.
2. Create visualizations with charts or graphs, and text exlanations, of how students perform year by year over a period of time
3. Visualize with charts or graphs, and text, the change in percentage of students who have demonsrated an understanding of main concepts
4. Locate and describe any groups within the general population that is behind the other groups

With this initial assessment effort, the Instructional Data Team can be prepared to begin acting on the data by setting realistic goals and developing methods for continuing to track the data.

At this crucial stage, an educational consultant can work with teams within a school or a district to help devise an effective data-gathering strategy that makes the whole process work more smoothly and with far greater benefit.