Five Big Ideas for Data Rigor….Without Mortis
Part IV of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Dr. Heather Weiss, Founder and Director of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP):
Education Sector’s five design principles powerfully reframe the conversation about how, when and where to use data to support student learning so that it will not die in vast data warehouses, but will live to guide the daily actions of teachers, families, afterschool and summer programs, tutors, and ultimately of students themselves as they assume responsibility for their own learning. While the principles are not now widely implemented, they are not just pie in the sky either—real communities, districts and schools are working on them and there is much to be learned from their efforts.
We are documenting early lessons from them in a set of papers about cradle to career data pathways soon to be available at the HFRP site. Our documentation shows that data systems incorporating the five design principles and accompanied by strong tools and outreach for families, afterschool programs and others can increase the chances of effective family engagement as families understand that the pathway to college begins in early childhood and that they, along with teachers and others, can help students stay on track through K-12 with the aid of data in the accessible form of GPS performance navigation system-type tools. At the cradle end we are finding early childhood programs providing regular developmental feedback and related ways families can support learning thereby creating the demand for actionable performance data when children start school.
