Episode 038: Fostering Student Success through Data-Enlightened Instruction with Dr. Emily Davis

Dive headfirst into the enlightening world of educational data with our special guest, Dr. Emily Davis! She's here to shatter the myth that data is just a series of intimidating numbers, revealing how it can become a teaching superpower. Together, we navigate through the nuances of quantitative and qualitative data, unlocking the stories and patterns that can transform your teaching methods and boost student outcomes.

Our journey with Emily takes us through the intricacies of educational data, examining how it can be a supportive ally rather than an overwhelming foe. We discuss the magic of self-reflection through video, the clarity that comes with goal setting, and the beauty of data in tailoring teaching strategies. These revelations pave the way for you to embrace data with confidence, ensuring that every student's learning experience is as effective and engaging as possible.

As the curtain falls on our captivating chat, we celebrate the joy of connecting with fellow data enthusiasts. Emily also spotlights the fantastic work of Teacher Development Network LLC in nurturing early career teachers. We wrap up, inviting you to continue your journey toward educational minimalism with us, Tammy and Christine, while the melodious tunes of Gaia Moretti play us out. Don't miss the chance to be part of this empowering narrative in our next episodes of the Minimalist Educator Podcast.

Dr. Davis is the founder of Teacher Development Network LLC, whose mission is to support educational organizations in developing and enhancing induction and mentoring programs for early career teachers. Dr. Davis is a sought-after consultant and professional developer on topics including mentoring, facilitation, and professional learning and is the author of numerous articles and blogs on those topics. She was also named an emerging leader in the field of education by Phi Delta Kappan and ASCD and was recently selected to be a Fulbright Specialist.

Website: www.teacherdevelopmentnetwork.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dremilyldavis

This episode is sponsored by Teacher Development Network.
Collaborating to Create Customized Systems of Support ​for Early Career Teachers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about pairing down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musiowsky-Borniman and Christine Arnold.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Today, emily speaks with us about all things data. Far from something daunting, data can be utilized by teachers to enhance all aspects of our practice. Dr Emily Davis is the founder of Teacher Development Network LLC, whose mission is to support educational organizations in developing and enhancing induction and mentoring programs for early career teachers. Dr Davis is a sought-after consultant and professional developer on topics including mentoring, facilitation and professional learning, and is the author of numerous articles and blogs on those topics. She was also named an emerging leader in the field of education by Phi Delta, kappan and ASCD and was recently selected to be a full, bright specialist.

Speaker 3: 1:21

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today we are looking forward to having conversation with Dr Emily Davis.

Speaker 4: 1:33

Welcome, emily. Hi Tammy, thanks so much for the invitation. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 3: 1:38

We are excited to have you. And how are you today, Christine? I am doing well.

Speaker 2: 1:44

How about the both of you?

Speaker 3: 1:45

All good, here the birds are chirping.

Speaker 4: 1:49

A little gray and rainy here in Pennsylvania, but it's all right, it's holiday season time.

Speaker 3: 1:54

Awesome. So I'm excited to talk to you today, emily, about one of your specialty areas. I mean, you are a master coach and mentor, but I remember a session that you put on for our emerging leader alumni affiliate in the summer and it made me think about data slightly different data and feedback, and so I'm excited to talk to you about that today, which is funny because data can be a scary word to teachers or a boring word to people who don't like information, but the way you approach data, it feels different, it feels comfortable and easy to use. So can you talk a little bit maybe first about how you became so interested in data collection and using it in your work? Yeah, sure?

Speaker 4: 2:48

Well, I'm so glad that's the way you feel about it. I mean, I think you write a lot of teachers dear data and it's like this scary four-letter word, right, Like that we don't want to spend time talking about in our work. I think I've become a data geek I don't think I started out that way, but I think that I have found that it is so powerful in our work that we have to spend time with it, right, we have to really get in there with it. It's the one thing that we can look at and play around in and understand. That really helps us to make a difference in our classrooms, right? So we have to figure out how to make it our superpower instead of the scary thing. So I think that's where it started. It started in my own work as a classroom teacher and definitely has become much more clear just how important it is in my work as a coach these days.

Speaker 3: 3:41

When you mention lay around us data, can you talk a little bit about?

Speaker 4: 3:46

that, yeah, absolutely. I mean okay. So let's, let's start with some, some misconceptions, because I feel like a lot of folks think about data and they have all these scary thoughts because I know I have them as well right, like, oh, it's all numbers and I hate math. I'm bad at math, I'm not a math person, so I can't be a data person. I am not a math person either by training, you know, I learned to be a math person through my work and my doctoral program, but it, it, it is. It is a scary thing, I think, when people think about it that way. So it is not all math. So I just want to say that, and it's not all numbers.

Speaker 4: 4:21

I think other people think, oh, it's too complicated, I I don't know how to look at it, I don't know how to like do something with it, so kind of throw up my hands because that's something that, like people with you know, accounting degrees do not something that I do, right? I think some people go Well, it just takes too long, like it takes too long to look at. I already know my kids. Why should I spend time looking at the data? It's not gonna tell me anything that I don't already know, right, but I think that's where a lot of people go. So I think the first thing that it's helpful to think about when we think about data is that you know it's anything that you can collect that helps you to see and understand emerging patterns, and something that you can do something with right. So, yeah, sometimes it's numbers and honestly, I love quantitative data because it often points us at something right. It tells us that there's something going on there that's worth our curiosity and our time to look at a little more closely. But a lot of times it's other, more quantitative stuff like engagement, pattern analysis or pacing or the types of questions that get asked and answered in the question, or that interesting look at student writing or error analysis and math, right. It's all of these other things that get our curiosity up and help us to understand patterns that are emerging when we have an understanding about patterns and we can do something about that, right. So I think it's just important to kind of like start there and think about what it actually is, because I think once we unpack that a little bit, it's a whole lot less scary, right, and then it is something to play around in, right, we can look at those pieces that we've pulled up like a puzzle. I love puzzles, right, and the puzzle pieces. Once we start to put them together to help us to understand more about what's actually Happening in that speak right. And then again, that creates efficacy for us as teachers, right? If I know what's happening and I know where it's happening and I know why it's happening, then I can do something different with that, right? Yeah, I think also, I mean for educators, data is super important for a lot of other reasons.

Speaker 4: 6:22

I mean we all know. I mean, when I was a graduate student, our motto was know thy students, right? So data is one of those ways that you do that. You have to know your students to teach them that data. What do you? How do you know your gut?

Speaker 4: 6:35

I mean, that is an inherently unreliable way to do that.

Speaker 4: 6:39

We know. I mean all the brain science we've been looking at lately. It tells us that our brains are pretty lazy. They take shortcuts to save space and so we make judgments and then we continue to look for data that confirms those judgments. That's confirmation bias, right?

Speaker 4: 6:52

So data pushes us to really look, to look at where kids are right now, and we all know the kids change and they grow. They're not always the same. Some stuff is harder for them at some points and easier than for them at other points, right. And if we're just working from that unreliable guts base, we tend to just keep doing the same thing for students all of the time, right? John Hattie says that teacher estimates about student achievement are the third most influential on student outcomes. So if we got it wrong, we're really doing students a major disservice, right? That gut, I think post COVID as well. When we're trying to figure out how to help all the kids get back up to speed Instructionally and socially, data is the best tool that we have, right to figure out how to help make sure they're always kind of working in that zone Approximal development or the only ones that can do that, for the only ones that can shape the instruction in our classroom. So if we're not actively using data to help us make better choices, our kids are missing out.

Speaker 2: 7:51

Right, yeah, for sure. Before I ask this question, I'm going to add myself as also a data geek as well. I love the data. Yeah, I just love the spreadsheets. I love all of that. But what would you say to people who would come across the argument of you know when people? This is a human enterprise that we're in, and it's not always so easy to to quantify Humans in that way or or measure humans in that way. What would you say to people who are coming from that point of view?

Speaker 4: 8:26

I love that question. That's a great question and because I work in coaching world and my work is about people, right, I think the best kinds of coaching is and we can talk more about this is when really smart people sit together and think through things together. That's why I got into coaching work, is why I didn't become a school leader or something else I figured out. When really smart people sit next to each other, great things can happen. So when we think about data like only as like a quantifiable thing right, we do do that. Like I said, I think sometimes the numbers they point us at something, right. So when we look at standardized test scores or when we look at benchmark assessment data, or that you know exit ticket at the end of your math class, that those numbers, like the six out of 12 or whatever, do tell us something, but they don't give us the whole story, right. I think as educators, we have to thoughtfully triangulate across several sets of data to really get at what's happening here. So that's one piece of data, it's a snapshot, it's a moment in time and hopefully you get to hear curiosity and you begin to ask questions like why is that the way it is? What else do I know about the situation? What is happening here? What factors might have caused that to happen? What else do I know about this person that might have led to this thing today?

Speaker 4: 9:45

Right, and all of that stuff is qualitative stuff. Right, it's deep, rich, thick, descriptive stuff that helps us to kind of round out and inform our work. Right, it tells the story behind those numbers and that data, and for me, I mean I heck, I wrote a 400 page qualitative dissertation, so I mean that is the data that I love the most and I'm happy for that data, and I think that's the data that most educators are drawn to as well. Right, the stories about why things are the way they are, what's happening with kids we get into this because we love kids and people. Right, and that work. So, yes, I think that is really important data. So I don't want people to hear data and only think numbers. I think that's just a very small part of this much bigger story and we struggle in education with this. Right, that's the only metrics we tend to want to like, look at and publish, but I think all these other metrics are the places where we really get to get down in the work and figure out what's going on and make change.

Speaker 3: 10:46

And I mean I love observing, right, it's fun to go into a classroom and just like watch the kids and you know their interactions and listen to what they say. And it's hard to capture all of those things unless you're like recording everything or like really good at jotting notes and things like that. But I do get my phone out at school a lot because I want to capture some things that kids are doing or things that they're they're saying. So I do record a lot of that. And that data collection process can be pretty overwhelming, right, Because there's there's so much happening all the time and you want to capture as much as possible. And then because you know you have to report that to parents and you're writing up student reports for to show their growth over time or lack of growth. So how do you work with your teachers to kind of pick the best data to use, maybe because there can be so much collected? So how do you kind of reduce that overwhelm or help teachers work through the overwhelm of so much information?

Speaker 4: 11:50

Yeah, that's a great question. I think our goal is to avoid being data rich and information poor, right? So being really clear about what you're looking for and what you want to spend time on is always where we start when I'm doing coaching work with teachers, right? So we're going to ask the question like what's our goal, like what's the thing that we want to know more about, and then let's just spend some time really zeroing in on that thing, put that set of glasses on that lens on the space, right, and see if we can kind of tune out some other data at this point in time. So when I go to observe that's what we do, right we're going to say we're super curious about how kids are interacting when they work in small groups today. So obviously, I'm not a machine and I'm not a camera, though video is a phenomenal data collection tool and I always highly recommend it.

Speaker 4: 12:37

Even if you don't have a coach with you, you can always record your own class and watch it back. Once you get past the like terribleness of seeing and hearing your own cell phone film, you learn so much about what's happening in your classroom, right, even without anybody else there to help you. But if it's me and I'm able to go in and get to sit in with kids. Even then, we know we can't see and hear everything, right. So we'll work together. Is there a group of kids that we have lots of questions about? Maybe I'm only going to sit with that group of kids and gather some data today. Right, it's a snapshot. It's a small sample, small scale sample of what's happening in the class as a whole, but it might tell us, it might illuminate some patterns for us, right? Or help us to unpack a little bit more, to triangulate with some other data that we've already got right About what's happening in that space. Or I might sit with one kid right For a while who we have a lot of questions about. Or I might sit back and just see what we can notice about broader patterns, because we're trying to figure out what's happening, you know.

Speaker 4: 13:35

So I think, like scale and lens helps us to know, but we have to base it on something like what's our goal, right? What's the thing we want to know more about? I think expert teachers do this, naturally, right. I'm taught middle school art for 40 years and every year she would call me and say, like this is the year that I'm going to work on this thing in my practice, right, and then when I run out of stuff to worry about, then I'll probably be ready for me to stop teaching. So I think this is what we do.

Speaker 4: 14:00

So when we worry about our, when we come up with our own goals, when we think about our own goals, we think about what data we might collect that will help us to get closer to answering those questions or meeting our goals. That's efficacy for us as teachers also, right, we're also teaching our kids a really important skill, right, but we want kids to be able to be informed practitioners as well, right, informed about their own work. So when we do this work for ourselves and we teach kids how to do the same work for themselves, to look at their own assessment data or whatever data they have about their work and make some decisions about what it means and figure out how to grow their their selves, they have efficacy as well, and we know that that makes a huge difference. So, again, I think I think about this work like a coach, right? So the stuff that I do with teachers is the stuff that I hope they're doing with their kids, right, all of this is best practice work at any level.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Yeah, I was going to ask that about any strategies or thoughts on how to share the data with our students, but also with the parents as well. What are some really good ways that we can provide that measurement for parents in a way that's helpful and understandable for them?

Speaker 4: 15:12

Yeah, great question. A lot of schools are moving to like student run conferences at this point and I think that's a really great strategy, especially if they're well organized and well set up. So I taught middle school humanities before I became a coach, and so for me, my students used to do things like keep portfolios of their work right, of the work, their writing work that they were doing or other work that they were doing in class. Over time they always bring a few things to fruition, but they had all the other stuff that they had been making and writing and doing, and so when we get to parent-teacher conferences, it gave them an opportunity to like pull a few things and to be able to talk about their growth and progress. Right, to be able to say, like this is where I was at the beginning of the quarter. Right, and these are the things that I realized, you know, when we looked at my writing that I really needed to work on and spend time on. So these are been my goals over the course of the quarter, and now this is the last piece of writing that I've done and you can kind of see evidence of how I've been growing in my work. Right, and these are the things that I did that helped me to get from point A to point B. And then I think that ability to kind of be metacognitive about your own work at a young age really sets you up for success.

Speaker 4: 16:26

As a parent now sitting on the other side of the table, when I get to hear my kids talk about their work in that way, that's also incredibly powerful, right, because they are owning their learning. It's not about whether they got an A in English class or math class or science class. Do they understand that transferable skill of how to learn? And I think data is a huge part of that. Can I? Am I data literate? Can I look at the feedback that I've been given or the information that I have available to me? Can I understand it and unpack it? Can I make a plan about how to do something different as a result of that feedback? As a lifelong skill? And we know that people need it at any field, right, and I think that that transcends the individual class and I think teachers and kids and parents will really appreciate that Everything that you're saying is very magical, because I'm a proponent of a person who's like we must teach skills, right, like the content is somewhat irrelevant.

Speaker 3: 17:28

They need, students need and we need skills to that transfer across whatever we're doing. So looking at data and analyzing it, talking about it, sharing it is one of those skills. So how do we collectively, I guess, break through some of those barriers of thinking about I don't have time to show my kids too much, I write the feedback on their paper, or you know, I have a quick conference and then that's it. Like we don't do anything else with the data I've given to them because they don't have time. There's like all this content to teach. So how do you work through that? Because we know that, like these are essential skills.

Speaker 4: 18:12

Yeah, great question, I think, for teachers. We have to realize that this is about. This is a working, smarter, not harder, activity, right, taking a few minutes to look at data in a reasonable way, and it really doesn't have to take that much time. I mean, you can do something as simple as make a like a little three column chart. When you look at an exit ticket right, kids names on the left, like areas of strength in the middle, misconceptions or areas for growth on the right put your goals and success criteria at the top, like what are you looking for? And just as you're grading those exit tickets, just write like a couple of bullets for each kid right. And then when you get to the end, you can just take a look at that and say, like what patterns have emerged?

Speaker 4: 18:56

What do I see about my kids as a whole, as subgroup of kids, as individuals? What am I missing in this data? Right? Like I don't know about you. Like when I look at data, it always more curiosity comes up. I have new and more questions.

Speaker 4: 19:08

I think that's like terrible cycle of data, right? So how do I build on that? Like? What do I do tomorrow? That's going to make sure I'm much more likely to hit kids where they need me to be than just planning broadly, right. I could spend myself in circles planning generic lessons for a whole year, right. So I can plan a whole lot more wisely. If I spend a couple of minutes looking at that data and making a decision about what I'm going to alter tomorrow. That's more likely to get kids where they are today and what they actually need. So I would start there.

Speaker 4: 19:42

I mean that is being an informed practitioner, right. The data helps us to better anticipate the outcomes of our actions and increase the likelihood that students are going to succeed. That's what it does, right. If you're a coach, I mean you got to. I can't do my work as a coach without data about the teacher, about the kids, about the content, about the classroom, about the environment as a whole. So model this in your work. If you're a coach, right. Support teachers in building those habits by doing it with them. Right.

Speaker 4: 20:17

Working around data when you're a coach does so many good things for you. It builds ownership, it builds relevance, it builds autonomy, it builds immediate application. All of those are things that we know adult learners really, really need. It builds trust, right, this thoughtful, transparent use of data and it also keeps you from having to have the feedback conversation that like, let me tell you about what I saw and what I think happened here, what my opinion of it is. I love it at you across the fence and hope you do something with it, and instead it helps us move to a coaching conversation, right?

Speaker 4: 20:52

The data becomes a third point that the two of us can sit next to each other together and look at and say what does this mean? What might we do as a result of what we're seeing here? How can I help you? What would you want to do? What could you imagine doing next that could help you be even better tomorrow for these kids, now that you've seen this data?

Speaker 4: 21:15

That's a totally different kind of conversation and that's what I think you were alluding to earlier, tammy, when we were talking about this difference between feedback and coaching and why I think this is so very, very important. It is central, the success of a coaching relationship in that way, like I said, it does all those other good things right. Each teacher's had to do this work and helps teachers figure out how to help kids do this work, and I think that's a game changer for our system as a whole. If we're ready to go there and do it. It's way more simple too, right, and a lot of the other things that we see. So if for a minimalist educator podcast, I think this is a perfect topic.

Speaker 2: 21:48

I hope this question is not going to be too controversial. I know we're risking going over time as well, but I am so curious as this thoughts all about data and like effectively using data for our students and for our own practice. What is your opinion about grades, about this practice that we have in schools of assigning grades? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 4: 22:15

Yeah, grades are hard right. Like again, grades are a data point, but in absence of clear criteria for their provision, they don't really mean anything, right? So if a grade was accompanied by a clear set of a clear rubric, clear matrix, clear set of criteria and we see this happening in some places this mastery grading strategy that's coming online, it makes more sense, right? I think parents kind of need your reaction as well. I understand a grade An A means that they did great and an F means that they did bad but we don't really know what that means. We don't know any of the transferable skills that went behind that. We can't understand any of the new learning that actually took place in that space. We also know I mean, I work in university settings we also know that A in one place and an A in another place are not necessarily synonymous, right? So they don't do much, honestly, in terms of conveying solid information for us at this particular point in time. So, yeah, I guess I would say I'm a proponent of mastery grading.

Speaker 4: 23:22

After having this conversation with you, christine, I think it's much more helpful, but it's a lot harder for teachers. We have to learn how to do all these other things that we've been talking about. It has to be built into the architecture of our work from the beginning. We can't kind of randomly assign mastery learning grades at the end. It has to be in all the time beauty of work. But maybe that's not the worst thing in the world, right? It helps us to actually see kids and the way that we've been talking about today and that's very powerful and help kids see themselves in the way that we hope that we're talking about today, so that they have ownership and efficacy in this work as well.

Speaker 3: 23:58

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for answering what can be a controversial question. So thank you. And it's at this point I mean I love talk. Yes, ok, third data geek in the group yes, yes, we come together and start talking about these things, and we could go on and on, but we're at the point in the show because we want to stay true to our minimalism principles, like keep it short and bite-size for people. We ask our guests for a paredown pointer at the end of the show, and that might be something you mentioned in the show. It could be something that you do personally as a coach. Anything, just a quick tip that you want to share as we wrap up the show.

Speaker 4: 24:41

Yeah, I think I would probably say that quick data analysis tool that we were talking about, that little protocol, is probably the tip that I would offer most. Before you sit down to look at anything that students have put forward, just think what are my expectations for success here? What am I looking for? And then make a little chart of your kid. What can they do in relationship to your goals? What would be the next step for them? Where is their misconception? And then just look at that. What can you gather from that? What are your trends? What patterns do you see? What does everybody need? What do some folks need? What does this one kid need? What am I going to do about that tomorrow? I might add one more question is how did looking at this data impact my thinking? We talked about lazy brain before, so what biases got debunked when I looked at this data today, and how's that going to impact the way I work with and look at that kid or that group of kids tomorrow?

Speaker 3: 25:36

Yeah, Excellent. Thank you, Emily. So much for today's episode and conversation. It was a happy place to talk about data. Thanks, Emily.

Speaker 4: 25:47

Thank you both so much. What a pleasure to talk with you. Have fun. Data geeks of the world. Data geeks tonight.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Today's episode was brought to you by Teacher Development Network LLC, collaborating to create customized systems of support for early career teachers. Find out more at teacherdevelopmentnetworkcom.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at PlanZPLS on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti уляzos during 조금omer days.