1. Data Driven Dialogue

2. Data Driven Dialogue
• This protocol leads a team to begin by
thinking of questions about student
achievement.
• National School Reform Faculty
– Data Driven Dialogue
• Article from ASCD, “Answering Questions That
Count” December 2008/January 2009, pages
18-24.
• Links to documents are on my web site

3. Getting Started
• All participants have equal voice.
• This will assist groups in making shared meaning
of data.
• Helps to replace hunches and feelings with data-
based facts.
• Examines patterns and trends of performance
indicators.
• Generate “root-cause” discussions that move
from identifying symptoms to possible causes of
student performance.

4. Overview
• Phase I—Predictions
– Surfacing perspectives, beliefs, assumptions,
predictions, possibilities, questions and expectations.
• Phase II—Observations
– Analyzing the data for patterns, trends, surprises, and
new questions that jump out.
• Phase III—Inferences
– Generating hypotheses, inferring, explaining and
drawing conclusions. Defining new actions,
interactions, and implementation plan.

5. Before You See the Data
• Activate prior knowledge, surface assumptions, and
make predictions to create a readiness to examine and
discus the data.
• Hear and honor all assumptions.
• I assume ….
• I predict ….
• I wonder ….
• My questions/expectations are influenced by …
• Some possibilities for learning that this data may
present ….

6. Consider
• “When important questions drove the
dialogue about school effectiveness, school
staff quickly learned how to identify and use
different types of data to answer those
questions. (Lachat& Smith, 2004)
• Organizing data around essential questions
about student performance is a powerful
strategy for building data literacy.

7. Possible Essential Questions
• How do student outcomes differ by
demographics, programs, and schools?
• To what extent have specific
programs, interventions, and services improved
outcomes?
• What is the longitudinal progress of a specific cohort of
students?
• What are the characteristics of students who achieve
proficiency and of those who do not?
• Where are we making the most progress in closing
achievement gaps?
• How do absence and mobility affect assessment
results?

8. • How do student grades correlate with state assessment
results and other measures?
• What percent of the students improved, stayed the
same or declined from last years achievement?
• Are students making sufficient grade-to-grade
progress?
• How many of the lower performing students in grade 4
are still lower performing students in grade 5.
• What is the variation in students’ scores within each
course or grade.

9. • “Asking questions such as these enables
administrators and teachers to focus on what
is most important, identify the data they need
to address their question, and use the
questions as a lens for data analysis and
interpretation.” P 18
• Limit the number of questions to no more
than five or six crucial questions that get at
the heart of what they need to know.

10. What is Needed?
• Time to look at data, analyze data and ask more
questions.
• Time to look at the data rather than time spent
creating the graphs and charts.
• Teachers need opportunity and support to plan and
implement improvement strategies and then collect
data to see if the strategies work.
• Opportunity to ask questions and then find data to
answer the question.
• Data that is sufficiently disaggregated
– By broad categories, male, female, economic
status, programs
– Combinations of categories ie female and low SES

11. Phase II—Just the Facts
• The terms; because, therefore, it seems, and
however may not be used.
• Use these sentence starters
• I observe that ….
• Some patterns/trends that I notice ….
• I can count ….
• I am surprised that I see ….

12. Phase III—Inferences
• I believe that the data suggest …. Because …
• Additional data that would help me
verify/confirm my explanations is …..
• I think the following are appropriate
solutions/responses that address the needs
implied by the data ….
• Additional data that would help guide
implementation of the solutions/responses and
determine if they are working ….