Empowering Students with Data

Although data is a high priority in schools across the country (and world), a key piece that is often missing from school data conversations is the involvement of students. Data is most impactful when it is known by people who can actually do something about the insights and trends that the data uncovers. When students become data-informed learners, they have a better understanding of their ability and potential, they are more readily able to identify opportunities for growth, and they are able to have more specific and targeted conversations about what they need to do to improve.

The use of data in schools has gained worldwide attention and priority over the last two decades. Schools are microcosms of society, and because data permeates every other aspect of our lives, it is unsurprising that schools have become awash with data.

As a result, system leaders, school leaders, middle leaders and teachers are having to rise to the challenge of using data to inform their practice, to set school improvement agendas, and to monitor progress towards achieving their goals, and their students’ goals. In the worst examples of data use in schools, teachers and leaders are held almost personally responsible for student results, and some teachers are paid accordingly. However, this is not the way that data should be used. The use of data in our schools has the potential to empower more targeted teaching and learning strategies that better cater to the needs of individual students. Data can be used to demonstrate the great growth and learning that happens for individual students, small groups, classes, cohorts and schools.

While data use is an area gaining increased interest and priority for educators - largely due to policy and framing documents that influence teaching practice around the world - a key aspect of the use of school data that is often omitted from the conversation is the involvement of students. Like everything that we do as educators, we know that when we engage students in the process, we get more buy-in, are more likely to provide solutions that work for young people, and can work in partnership with students to help them achieve their goals.

Unfortunately, much of the discourse to date relates only to teachers and leaders using data for their work and their own tracking. When teachers use data that they collect on their class for their own professional practice, this has a range of outcomes for students in terms of planning, differentiation and pedagogical choices in the classroom. When middle leaders use data, they can identify trends and patterns in curriculum areas, adjust pedagogy and build capacity in their teams to cater for different student needs more efficiently. When pastoral leaders use student wellbeing, attendance and behaviour data in conjunction with learning analytics, they are provided with a fuller picture of the progress and achievement of each student. While the importance of any of these examples cannot be argued, without involving students in the process, we are missing a key piece of the puzzle.

You can lead a horse to water... so they say.

To maximise the impact of our use of data in schools, we must involve students in the process. When we use data with students, it has a much greater impact than if they are kept out of the conversation. When data is used with students, it has the power to help them:

• build metacognition about how they are as a learner
• develop their understanding of their learning and achievement
• articulate their goals more clearly
• identify their current progress and challenges
• establish what they need to do to improve.

Data has the power to remove the guesswork and ambiguity of what is expected of students in terms of their learning and assessment, and our expectations and hopes for them. It provides actionable, objective, evidence-based information about their learning and progress.

Dr Selena Fisk This piece is drawn from Dr Selena Fisk’s new book Data-informed Learners: Engaging Students in their Data Story.

In her book, Selena unpacks three main purposes for using data with students: goal setting, learning dispositions or behaviour, and the quality of student learning or understanding; as well as the five main modes by which this can occur: data walls, success criteria, student-generated assessment, conversations, and data on walls in classrooms.

These three reasons and five modes create 15 intersections for using data with students. Using practical examples from teachers across the country, this book unpacks these reasons and modes, and provides examples of the 15 intersections to provide practical ideas for implementation in schools and classrooms.

Image by Marcus Spiske