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June 15, 2002
The Administrator's Guide to Data-Driven Decision Making (cont'd)
STEP 4 Make Changes and Define New Strategies
If you've identified relationships or gaps in your data, then the final and most important step is to take appropriate action. Whether the decision for change is big or small, the key is to make the most informed decision possible given the data you have available.
In the case of the professional development program in my school district, once we transformed the data into a useable form and joined it to information from other databases, we were able to make adjustments to our instructional technology training program to improve its focus and effectiveness. For starters, we joined the professional development participation data with data we had collected about teachers' technical and instructional skills. We learned that teachers who completed our training program were more technically proficient in using computers for their schoolwork, but were not making commensurate progress in instructional methodologies involving computer technology. As a result, we revised our training program to focus on developing technology-rich, standards-based curricular materials and embedded technical skill development in a more instructional context. When we evaluated the results of the revised program the next year, we saw that teachers were making dramatic improvement in both their technical abilities and the quality of their teaching methods. We then began looking at the impact of the program on student performance.
As this example shows, we never stopped analyzing the data. Demographics change, personnel turns over, and school regulations update each month and year. We learned to look continually at the answers to old questions, include new information as it became available, and make new, more informed decisions. Once these decisions are made, the process of identifying relationships, determining causation, and implementing remedies begins again.
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