Week 2 CEDO 565 Using Data to Improve Schools

This week we were talking about using data to drive instruction so that student achievement would improve.  To gather this data, we need to use assessments.  For a classroom, both formal and informal assessments are able to be used to help address the needs of our students.  One of the formal assessments that we can use to help classroom teachers is the MAP test.  The data generated from this test shows us specific weaknesses and strengths of our students so that we can address these within our instruction and creation of groups in the class.  To find out how a school is doing, only formal assessments are able to get enough non biased data to be able to assess the schools performance.  In MPS, we use the MAP tests and the WKCE test.   These tests gather data on the reading and mathematics abilities of our students and the knowledge of science and social studies of 8th graders.  For a teacher to access the data from these tests, he or she needs to have a login and password for  NWEA or use WINSS to be able to see test data from the WKCE.  The nice thing about WINSS is that there is more data than just academic data on the WINSS system.  Using this data, administrators and teacher leaders are able to address problem trends that might be developing in the school in order to be proactive for the good of the school community.