4.6a/b

Coaches model and support the use of qualitative and quantitative data to inform their own instruction and professional learning. Coaches:

A. Assist educators and leaders in securely collecting and analyzing student data.
B. Support educators to interpret qualitative and quantitative data to inform their decisions and support individual student learning.

The sixth ISTE Coach Standard is called Data-Driven Decision-Maker. This standard relies heavily on collecting and using data to base their instructional and professional learning decision making on. I chose to combine the first two indicators, a and b, due to their similar nature. Indicator a speaks to the collecting and analyzing of student data while indicator b moves to the next step of interpreting that data in order to base your decisions and support off of. There were two main experiences that I had while completing the DEL Graduate program that helped to mold my understanding of this coaching standard. 

1. The first experience in collecting and analyzing data that I jumped into was the search for a formative assessment helper. I was struggling as an educator in my role of gathering formative data in a timely manner that would enable me to quickly check my students’ understanding levels so that I was then able to make decisions on what learning needed to be retaught or focused on in a different way. This led me to my post, Tools for Analyzing Formative Assessment. In it you will find three separate digital tools that I tried out that was able to help me securely collect student data.
   
   
2. My more intensive opportunity in focusing my learning in the data-driven decision-maker role was in my final quarters in the DEL program. We were tasked with learning about needs assessment, and then creating and administering one in our school or district. This was a wonderful opportunity and I learned so much about data collection and interpretation. My teammate and I focused our needs assessment on an area that our school district had a huge gap in, social studies curriculum. Through the process, we created a needs assessment survey that collected qualitative and quantitative data from staff members throughout our school. Included were stakeholders such as teachers, administration, specialists, and paraeducators. We learned the process on how to analyze the data that we collected and were able to create an in-depth report for our school and district administrators summarizing the exposed needs while offering our suggested action items. It was truly a great learning experience and helped to bridge my understanding of this ISTE Coaching Standard.