Instructional Management Systems June 17, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Book Review, Data, Opinion.trackback
My district is evaluating instructional management systems (IMS) and it brings to mind two thoughts. First, I’m a firm believer that data is not information. Access to data is important, but teachers and administrators need to know what the data is, what it means, and how it should inform their instruction. Data itself is just numbers. So while I applaud the potential for an IMS, we need something to collect all of our data repositories so there can be some intelligible voice from the current volume of noise, I can’t help but think that the missing piece is change in teacher practice. I’m reading Schmoker’s “Results Now” (yes, it’s a book) and if you put in crayola curriculum, you’ll still get crayola results, even with an IMS.
Second, I’m struck by an ongoing conversation in one of my online classes around the issue of online grade books. Teachers seem pretty clear about seeing the benefits of parent (and student) access to assessments and the improvement in communication between the classroom and the home. At the same time, there is a reluctance on the part of some teachers to open up their assessment information. There is concern that it opens up criticism of the assessment practices of the professional educator, and the possibility that parents will complain if their students are not receiving the type of scores they expect their child to earn.
Both of these thoughts are connected. More data is a good thing for everyone involved in the education of our students, but more is still needed. We need to know what the data really is (attendance or standards for example,) how to interpret the data (how to read the details,) and what the data says about changing the learning environment. Data is not information, but it can be helpful in improving achievement. An IMS may be a helpful step, but it won’t by itself solve the problem of moving from a crayola curriculum to a learning environment characterized by rigor, relevance, and relationships.
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