The Data Workout: How It’s Impacting Teaching and Learning

If you think data—in education, or any field—is cut and dry, think again. Working with data in the classroom, especially, can be either exhausting or exhilarating—depending on your fitness level. Data can be big, but also quite small. It’s often quantitative, but is increasingly qualitative. It’s predictive, but not always inclusive. It’s private, but not always protected. But one thing’s for certain: data has enormous power to impact teaching and learning.

It’s also here to stay. Which is why we put together this muscle-building guide about data and education. If these kinds of discussions push you outside of your comfort zone, rest assured you’ll find inspiration and actionable advice from the classroom. One teacher set up an online store to teach his students how to work with data. Another uses playlists to break her students’ data into trackable skills and goals. A seasoned educator shares why he now thinks of grading as a scavenger hunt. And a former therapist describes his school’s efforts to assess assess social emotional growth.

Administrators will find tips on using data to hire well, assessing the efficacy of data-driven tools, addressing data clutter, and how not to run afoul of student privacy laws. And for any data divas in the crowd, we’ve got you covered with insights into open standards, predictive analytics, and the ethics of responsible use.

Scroll down the page and you’ll also find a few handy resources, including professional development opportunities for educators who work with data, a run-down of what data-focused digital tools can do, and more. We'll be adding articles over the coming weeks, so please check back soon.

Whether you’re looking to do a little light stretching or some heavy lifting, we hope our data workout gets you in shape.

-Mary Hossfeld, Guide Editor

Illustration: Morgan Heslin; full size image here

21st Century Skills

The Next Amazon? 5 Tips for Launching a Student-Run Store — and Teaching Entrepreneurship

By Chris Aviles

Professional Development

The 4-Letter Word You Need to Know—and How Teachers and Administrators Can Embrace Data Literacy

By Josh Parker

Assessments

Alternative Assessments: How I Took the Dread Out of Grading—and Replaced It With Fun

By Andrew Larson

Personalized Learning

Merit Prep Personalizes Learning One Playlist at a Time

Sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Assessments

Not Just Numbers: How Educators Are Using Data in the Classroom

By Mary Jo Madda

Big Data

All Things Great and Small: 4 Ways to Build a Bridge Between Big and Little Data

By Robert Dillon

Assessments

3 Non-Negotiables When Teaching Students to Evaluate Their Own Learning

By Cindi Dunford

Efficacy

What Data Will Show That Edtech ‘Works’?

By Tony Wan

21st Century Skills

3 Tips for Developing and Assessing Soft Skills: First, Take Off Your Emotional Armor

By Daren Dickson

Hiring & Recruiting

Hiring Successful Teachers—Two New Studies Point to What Works and What Doesn't

By Dan Goldhaber

Big Data

Connect the Dots: How Michigan, Arizona and Portland Make Data Work Together

By Troy Wheeler

Digital Learning

How Can Learning Analytics Improve the Student Experience?

By James DeVaney

Technology Tips

3 Steps to Organize Student Data—and Find Joy

By Owen Willis

Digital Learning

Pursuing Academic Freedom and Data Privacy Is a Balancing Act

By Marguerite McNeal

Data Privacy

Practicing Privacy: Insights from Edtech Lawyer Gretchen Shipley

By Blake Montgomery

Digital Learning

Colleges Need to Use Predictive Data to Enhance—Not Hinder—Diversity

By Manuela Ekowo

Digital Learning

Stanford Calls for Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Ed

By Krysten Crawford

Here are a handful of professional development resources to get you started. All are self-paced; most are free. Have a suggestion? Please leave it in the Comments section at the bottom of this page.

Teachers report that a key challenge with digital tools—and the data they collect—is the time and effort it takes to understand, adopt, and put the information they generate to use. Many believe that data-focused tools are often overwhelming, incompatible, inconsistent, and too slow. Because teachers use multiple tools to assess, analyze and pivot their teaching, they must manually integrate data from each to gain a fuller understanding of their students' learning. Below are the distinct and separate roles teachers identify among data-focused digital tools, as reported by Teachers Know Best: Making Data Work for Teachers and Students; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2015.