Probing for Improvement

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How You Can Use the SEC
SEC / SCASS Planning Meeting Baltimore November
10, 2003
Diana Nunnaley Diana_Nunnaley_at_TERC.edu
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The teacher survey tool

• Collects data on what content is taught and how
  it is taught.
• Produces reports indicating the degree of
  alignment between the taught (enacted) curriculum
  and state assessments or standards.
• Collects data on teacher beliefs, readiness to
  teach the content and readiness to instruct
  special groups of students.
• Provides a rich source of information to support
  teachers analysis of student learning challenges.

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The SEC can help your schools

• Align curriculum, instruction, and assessment
  including vertical alignment
• Improve instruction within and across grade
  levels,
• Determine professional development needs
• Focus teacher planning and development on
  instructional practice and its effects on student
  performance
• Focus coaching and mentoring activity around
  content and practice

4
The SEC can

• Help teachers monitor changes in practice as a
  result of implementing new curricula.
• Help teachers and leaders determine areas of need
  when planning for professional development.
• Help teachers see areas for deepening content
  expertise and knowledge of how students learn
  that content.
• Help teachers identify gaps/redundancies in
  curriculum weak materials to support instruction

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The SEC has helped teacher teams

• Identify weak or missing curriculum content,
• Identify redundancies in content coverage with no
  increase in cognitive demand from level to level,
• Highlight where teacher beliefs were affecting
  teacher expectations,
• Focus staff professional development,
• Initiate reflective teacher talk about standards,
  content, and instructional practices.

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Simulation Activity Building the Container

• Group by science, math, English/LA groups.
• Read district background. Look at achievement
  data. (Use your own student learning data. The
  three slides that follow are only examples of
  student learning data.)
• Have a phase 1 dialogue - charting their
  expectations. Given their own experiences, what
  would they anticipate for the big learning
  challenges and corresponding teaching challenges?
  
• Groups report.
• Have a Phase 2 dialogue. Observations, Questions.
• Phase 3 inferences What additional data needed.

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Organizing Data-Driven Dialogue
Phase 1 Predict
Phase 3 Infer/Question
Phase 2 Observe
Adapted from Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman
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English Language Arts
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Data-Driven Dialogue Achievement Data

Phase 1 Predict

• What are some assumptions we have about how our
  students will perform? What are our strengths?
  Our weaknesses?
• What predictions would we make about what groups
  arent improving?

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Data-Driven Dialogue Achievement Data

Phase 2 Observe

• What pops out? What is surprising?
• What are some patterns or trends that are
  emerging?
• Describe the gaps.
• What questions do you have about the data?

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Data-Driven Dialogue Achievement Data

Phase 3 Inferences

• What are some tentative inferences you are
  making?
• What new questions do you have?
• What additional data do you need?

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SEC Activity How Well Is Our Instruction Aligned
to Standards? State Assessments? Curriculum?

• Have a phase 1 dialogue - charting expectations.
  Where do we anticipate having the closest
  alignment of enacted curriculum to what is
  assessed? Topics? Cognitive Demand?
• Given the initiatives in the district, changes in
  teaching staff, new curricula, what would they
  expect instructional alignment
• Groups report.
• Have a Phase 2 dialogue. Observations, Questions.
• Phase 3 inferences What additional data needed.

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Organizing Data-Driven Dialogue
Adapted from Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman
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Data-Driven Dialogue Alignment

Phase 1 Predict

• What are some assumptions we have about the
  degree of alignment between what is being taught
  in classrooms and what is being assessed?
• What predictions would we make about the kinds of
  instructional activities the majority of our
  faculty are using?

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Data Driven Dialogue Alignment

Phase 2 Observe

• What pops out? What is surprising?
• Describe the degree of alignment between the
  taught curriculum and the assessed? In what areas
  is there a high degree of alignment for both
  content and cognitive demand? Where are the gaps?
  

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Data-Driven Dialogue Alignment

Phase 3 Inferences

• What are some tentative inferences you are
  making?
• What new questions do you have?
• What additional data do you need?

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English, Language Arts, Reading

• Phase 1-Predictions
• Phase 2-Observations
• Phase 3-Inferences

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Science

• Phase 1-Predictions
• Phase 2-Observations
• Phase 3-Inferences

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Math

• Phase 1-Predictions
• Phase 2-Observations
• Phase 3-Inferences

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ELAR Alignment Map
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Math
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Science
Science Alignment Map
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SEC Activity What kind of instructional
practices do we use? What are our beliefs?

• Have a phase 1 dialogue - charting expectations
• Given the initiatives in the district, changes in
  teaching staff, new curricula, what are the most
  prevalent instructional practices we expect to
  see in our data.
• Groups report.
• Have a Phase 2 dialogue. Observations, Questions.
  (Charts F, G, H, I, O, Q, R).
• Phase 3 inferences What additional data needed.

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Science F1
Chart F-1 Instructional Activities in Science By
Grade Level
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Chart F-1 Instructional Activities in Math By
Grade Level
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Current SEC Disaggregations
Which of these charts might be useful comparisons?

• Grade Level
• Level of Achievement
• Amount of Professional Development
• Percentage of minority students
• By class size
• By percentage of LEP students
• By percentage of Female students

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DT 2.4
This chart may assist you in triangulating
several sources of data.
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Your own category
Your own category
Use this chart to brainstorm possible reasons for
your problem.
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Team Planning Questions

• What points, thoughts, impressions from this data
  investigation provide insights into our planning
  process?
• What are our goals / needs?
• What data will we need?
• Sources / availability of data?
• Next steps