What You Will Learn

Discover a step-by-step process for using student assessment data—from daily class work to annual standardized tests—as a catalyst for improving the quality of education in your school.

Program Overview

Schools and districts have access to vast amounts of assessment data, but this data is often underutilized as a resource for improving teaching and learning. Whether you are fine-tuning instruction to meet the needs of individual learners or launching a major program overhaul, the ability to analyze and interpret data can help you and your colleagues make sound decisions.

Data Wise is designed to support schools and districts that need to understand how to use multiple types of data to improve teaching and learning. In a hands-on, interactive format, you will analyze assessment data, learn a powerful protocol for examining instruction and cultivate the habits of mind that are essential to any effort to make meaningful instructional improvements. Working collaboratively with colleagues from your school, you will create an overview of your own school's data, developing both your technical skills for analyzing data and your leadership skills for using it effectively. Through case studies, large group presentations, small group discussions with colleagues from around the world, you will explore best practices as well as the challenges and rewards of using data wisely.

Program Objectives

• Understand the Data Wise Improvement Process as a way of organizing the work of improvement that your school may already be doing
• Cultivate the habits of mind that can improve the effectiveness of team meetings and help foster a supportive culture of inquiry
• Experience more than ten protocols that you can bring home to engage your faculty in the collaborative use of data
• Develop your skills in using Excel® and PowerPoint® to analyze, display and tell your data story
• Learn the five key elements of observing practice and appreciate the importance of examining instruction to the work of improvement

Who Should Attend

• School-based teams composed of a principal and one or several educators in leadership roles
• Districts are encouraged to consider sending multiple teams together—within one year or over several years—with one or more central office personnel committed to learning what Data Wise can look and feel like at the school level

Faculty Chairs

Kathryn Parker Boudett is Lecturer on Education and the Director of the Data Wise Project at HGSE. Her research and teaching focus on helping educators make effective use of a wide range of data sources to improve instruction and student achievement. She is coeditor of Data Wise: A Step-By-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning with Richard Murnane and Elizabeth City; Data Wise in Action: Stories of Schools Using Data to Improve Teaching and Learning with Jennifer Steele; and Key Elements of Observing Practice: A Data Wise Facilitator's Guide and DVD with Elizabeth City and Marcia Russell.

Elizabeth City is Lecturer on Education and Executive Director of the Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program at HGSE. City has served as a teacher, instructional coach, principal and consultant. In each role, she focused on helping all children, and the educators who work with them, realize their full potential. Some of her publications include: Strategy in Action: How School Systems Can Support Powerful Learning and Teaching; Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning; and Data Wise: A Step-By-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning.

Additional faculty to be announced.

Enrollment Instructions

Data Wise is an application program. Applicants are responsible for submitting a supplemental essay with their online application. Admission decisions are mailed three weeks after the application deadline.

Participants will be selected based upon the match between their stated objectives and the goals of the institute. To maximize the learning experience, the institute aims to bring together as diverse a group as possible.

Fees

The comprehensive program fee includes all sessions, instructional materials, refreshments and special events. Payment or purchase order must be received within 30 days of admission. Participants are responsible for their own travel expenses.

Cancellation Policy

Cancellations must be submitted via fax or email. Full refunds will be given up to 30 days prior to the start of the program. Due to program demand and pre-institute preparations, cancellations received 29–14 days prior to the start of the program are subject to a fee of 10% of the program tuition. Cancellations received within 13 days prior to the start of the program and no-shows are subject to the full program tuition. Please note: cancellation fees are based upon the date the written request is received.

Since the Harvard Graduate School of Education is not responsible for non-refundable travel arrangements or other expenses incurred, it is recommended that you not make lodging and travel arrangements until you are admitted to the program. The Harvard Graduate School of Education reserves the right to change faculty or cancel programs at its discretion. In the unlikely event of program changes, the school is not responsible for non-refundable travel arrangements or other planning expenses incurred.