How does data driven instruction affect my school's vision and mission goals?

My school situation is in a unique position to utilize data, in that we have a constantly rotating student body from various parts of our school system. We also have students from elementary, middle, and high schools, and even have parent chaperones and staff at times for training or staff development. Because we have such a diverse population, with such diverse goals, for such short periods of time, we have elected to focus more of our data gathering on quantitative objectives. In short, much of our data collection involves how many people we serve, and not what they've mastered cognitively.

One of our biggest challenges is to ensure that our programs are delivered equitably across the county, and our participation data can let us know if we are accomplishing that. We can gather in an Excel database, for example, the number of students, staff, chaperones, etc. from each school to participate. We then identify schools which seem to have lower participation rates and use the myMCPS porthole to look at school data such as FARMS and MSA scores. When we look for commonalities in the under-participating schools, we see that schools with higher FARMS and higher numbers of Spanish speaking households in the community, for instance, also send fewer kids to the Outdoor Education programs. We cannot deliver quality learning experiences to the kids (equitably) unless their parents are willing to send them to us!

Thus, we have used the participation data to develop strategies which we hope will educate parents from these targeted schools about our programs. They will see the safety, the value, and the tremendous benefits their kids will get as a result of participating in Outdoor Ed.

We do, however use formative assessments to determine the effectiveness of our own instruction. One of the major tools we employ when we work with MCPS staff is a feedback form. Professionals who have taken our courses are asked to rate their own competence in the subject matter and the effectiveness of our instruction. This simple questionnaire technique has allowed us over the years to alter instruction to better suit our audience.

We also use an MCPS survey tool to gather similar data from teachers and parents who have participated in our programs, "test pilot". As a team we created survey questions for three different audiences: teachers who have participated in our programs, parents who have participated themselves, and parents of children who have recently participated in one of our programs. A link to the surveys is sent out, and data is collected from the responses returned. Already participants have given us enough information for us to know where to make changes when necessary.

I believe we might better use some of the data from myMCPS, like school test scores, to show the administrators at some of our under-participating schools how their test scores are likely to improve with participation in our types of hands-on learning. After all, there is already a strong correlation between schools that send 100% of their kids to Outdoor Ed and schools that have demonstrated high levels of mastery on state assessments. If we can start to refine that data, and show some causality, we might be able to convince principals and staff development teachers of the many benefits of getting their staff and students to participate in Outdoor Education.

That would be a tremendous step in helping my program achieve its mission.