The Basics
Trent Sherman
Principal
Trey Arvon
Asst. Principal
Martinsburg High School
Samantha Veights
Teacher
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Teams: What are the roles?
 Trent Sherman
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Data: What do we have?
 Trey Arvon
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Data Team Process: How
do we use what we have?
 Samantha Veights
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12:30 – 12:40 Introductions
12:40 Teams: Building a dynasty!
1:05 Data: Crunching the numbers!
1:25 Break
1:40 Data Team Process
2:30 Once Upon A Time: Excellence in
Assessment
3:15 Motivation
“A Professional
Learning
Community is what
we are… Data
Teams is what we
do!”
Pages 2-3
Examine
Expectations
Curriculum
Start Over
Map
Common Post
Review & Revise
Assessment
Goals
Acuity
Post Assessment
Score &
Compile
As PreAssessment
Give Common
Post Assessment
5 Step Data
Acuity
Team Process
Instruction
Pg. 8
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The Data

The Team
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Great teams don’t develop overnight.
Be on time
Be prepared
Participate
Respect others opinions
Have an agenda
Data Teams have a
common focus
or common
standard, a
common formative
assessment, and a
common scoring
guide.
Data Team
meetings must
be scheduled.
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Instructional calendar
Data
Curriculum Map
The Process
Captain or Leader
 Secretary
 Time Keeper
 Data Technician or Data
Wall Curator
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Pg. 157
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What effects student performance?
 5 minutes – List it.
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Which of these can you control?
 Two columns
We can impact.
We have no
control.
• The key to the effectiveness of organizations is
the degree to which it uses evidence to drive
decision-making.
• Professional Learning Communities are hungry
for evidence of results - tangible proof students
are acquiring the intended knowledge, skills,
and dispositions. Members of PLCs use that
evidence to inform their practice and drive the
continuous improvement process of their team
and their school.
Rick Dufour
• Schools need to be more data driven
• In fact, schools have never suffered from a
lack of data. Data will never improve schools
or the individuals within them unless data are
used to inform individual and collective
practice.
Rick Dufour
30000 foot data
Westest II
ACT/SAT
15000 foot data
Exams
10000 foot data
Acuity
1 foot data
Quiz, exit slip, short com. Assess.
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Effect: Student achievement results from
various measurements.
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Cause Data: Information based on actions of
the adults.
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Pg. 30
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What CURRENT effect data (student
achievement) sources are you currently using
in your school?

What CURRENT CAUSE data (adult actions)
sources are you currently using in your
school?
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Pg 157
“Only by evaluating both causes and effects in a
comprehensive accountability system can
leaders, teachers, and policymakers
understand the complexities of student
achievement and the efficacy of teaching and
leadership practices.”
Reeves, 2006

Summative Assessment
▪ Assessment of learning

Formative Assessment
▪ Assessment for learning
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STAR
Acuity
Data Team must formulate
• Efficiency - by sharing the load, teachers save time.
• Fairness - promotes common goals, similar pacing, and
consistent standards for assessing student proficiency
• Effective monitoring - provides timely evidence of whether the
guaranteed and viable curriculum is being taught and learned
• Informs individual teacher practice - provides teachers with a
basis of comparison regarding the achievement of their students
so they can see strengths and weaknesses of their teaching
• Team capacity - collaborative teacher teams are able to identify
and address problem areas in their program
• Collective response - helps teams and the school create
timely, systematic interventions for students
We don’t have time to assess our students
because we are too busy teaching them. We
must cover too much content in too little
time, so we can’t assess students more
frequently because we can’t afford the loss of
instructional time.
Rick Dufour
• Frequent and timely monitoring of student
learning is an essential part of effective
teaching.
• Good teachers are assessing all the time.
• Students and teachers benefit if periodically
formative assessments are created by a
collaborative team of teachers (rather than an
individual) and given to all the students for
whom that team is responsible.
Rick Dufour
Pg 40
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Did you meet your goal?
Do you continue with the curriculum or spend
time on measurement? Why?
If you were to spend more time on
measurement, what additional
data/information would you want to know to
enhance your instruction?
What might be a better goal to have besides
looking at a class average of 80%
Pg 40
Where does the data come from??
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ACUITY BENCHMARK ASSESSMENTS
 Math, English, Social Studies, Science
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PRE-ASSESSMENTS
 Same as Post-Assessment
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COMMON FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
 Bell Ringers, Short Quizzes, Worksheets,
Homework, Class Activities, etc.
We use Common Formative Assessments to:
 Give timely and specific feedback to students
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Improve professional practice
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Identify student educational needs
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Evaluate teaching
Formative
Summative
Proficient
Close to Proficient
Far to go
In need
We don’t want your opinion; what does the data
say?
 Why did the students not achieve proficiency?
 Where were the errors?
 What were the errors?
 Are there common errors?
 Is there a trend?
 What is preventing these students from being
proficient?
 Are there misconceptions about concepts or
skills?
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Use the answers to these and other questions
to develop a …
SMART Goal
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Results
Timely
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Establish goals: set, review, revise
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Establish goals for different students
 Honors vs. Academic vs. Inclusion
 Proficient vs. Close to Proficient vs. Far to go vs. In
need
Specific: What will the goal accomplish? How and
why will it be accomplished?
 Measurable: How will you measure whether or not
the goal has been reached?
 Achievable: Is it possible? Have others done it
successfully? Will meeting the goal challenge you
without defeating you?
 Results: What is the reason, purpose, or benefit of
accomplishing the goal?
 Timely: What is the established completion date
and does that completion date create a practical
sense of urgency?
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Talk about individual students.
Who can we move to the next tier?
Who are the students who are urgent?
Revisit your goals
Algebra II Common Assessment vs
Preassessment
Percent Correct
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90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Question Number
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Broad Goal: I want at least 85% of my
students to score proficient on the
measurement test
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Specific: I will implement collaborative group work in
my classroom
Measurable: I will measure their progress through
weekly mini quizzes, homework examples, and bell
ringers.
Attainable: I will research best practices and find
relevant hands on activities.
Results: Having at lest 85% of my students score
proficient will greatly improve their chances of scoring
well on the measurement section of the state test
Timely: I will have at least 85% of my students score
proficient on the measurement test by __________
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SMART Goal: I will research best practices
and find relevant hands on activities that can
be implement through collaborative group
work in my classroom, while monitoring their
progress through mini quizzes, homework,
and bell ringers in order to have at least 85%
of my students score proficient on the
measurement test by ________ so that they
may be adequately prepared for the
measurement section on the state test.
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Arguably the most important of the 6 steps because
it leads to student learning
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Strategies are the actions teachers can take for
student development

Marzano’s 9 Instructional
Strategies
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The ability to break a concept into similar and
dissimilar characteristics allows students to
understand/solve complex problems in a
more simple way
Venn Diagram
Flow Charts
Metaphors
Analogies
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Promotes greater comprehension by asking
students to analyze what’s important and put
in own words
More notes are better than fewer BUT
verbatim note taking is ineffective because it
does not allow time to process information
Guided notes
Interactive student notebook
Cornell notes
Frayer Models
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Teacher’s responsibility to show the
connection between student effort and
student achievement
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Have students make individual goals
Have student track their own progress
Have individual conferences with students
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Recommended amount of homework varies
between grade levels and subject material
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Establish homework policies
Try to give feedback on homework
Always review homework in class
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Students are multi-learners … reach them on
all levels!
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Incorporate words and images
Use physical models and movements to
represent information
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Positive effort on overall learning
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Large vs. small groups
Interests vs. abilities
Always have individual AND group
accountability
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Objectives provide direction of learning
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Post objectives and goals so students are
aware
Keep feedback timely and specific (corrective
in nature)
Rubrics
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Have students explain their hypotheses and
conclusions
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What would happen if …. ?
What do you think?
Projects/Labs
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Pause after asking a question
Challenging questions
Differentiate instruction
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If this works what should we see on our post
assessment?
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What should our students be able to do?
What should we see
our students doing?
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If we use this strategy/activity ….. Then we can
expect _____this______ from our students
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Observing students more involved than usual
Data Teams
56
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Administer Post-Test and analyze/compare
results
Report results to principal
What if the results weren’t what we were looking
for? What if we didn’t reach our goal?
What should we still focus on?
How do we do that?
 Reteach/Remidiation
 Bell Ringers
 Homework
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Scale of 1 to 5
Sticky Note
1 = lowest
5 = Highest
Epilogue
“Once Upon a Time:
A Tale of Excellence in Assessment”
By: Rick DuFour
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
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A Tale of Excellence….Group 1
Collaborative culture
Teachers work together to help all students
learn
“Essential learning” – curriculum stressed only
10 key concepts each semester
Created curriculum pacing guide
Made an assessment calendar
Developed pre-assessments
Developed common assessments with rubrics
61
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 1
• Team studied results from state assessment
• Reviewed a correlation with their common
assessment and state assessment
• If students are successful on common
assessments then they will be successful on state
assessments
• Identify weaknesses on common assessments
62
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 1
• Share instructional and assessment strategies
• Strive to be better
• Mindset – by identifying effective strategies for
areas of need, it will help students achieve at
higher levels
“It’s just what we do here.”
63
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 2
• Established proficiency scores on assessments
• Shift from a general performance to more skill
analysis in order to determine areas of
proficiency and non proficiency
• Reviewed components of test and offer ideas for
teaching and assessing the concepts and skills
• Discuss prerequisite skill needed to be successful
64
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 2
• All teach same essential learning and administer
common assessment on the same day
• Debrief on how they thought the unit was going
• Practiced collectively scoring essays for
consistency – set guidelines for scoring
“His colleagues were supportive”
65
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 3
• Created rubrics and taught them to the students
• Checking for understanding on an ongoing basis
• Question, dialogue, clarify thoughts
• Goal setting for students
• Provide specific feedback
• Teachers shared scores – open and transparent
66
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 3
• Shared strategies and techniques
• Reviewed student performance
• Engage in lively dialogue about strategies for
teaching concepts more effectively
“Teachers were extremely open with their results.”
67
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 4
• Celebrate successes
• Implement improvement strategies
• There will always be the lowest 10% items –
attack them – mindset of continuous
improvement
• Provide feedback and allow students to redo
until they reach achievement
68
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 4
• Provide time and support for learning during the
day
• Clear expectation that all students can
demonstrate they have learned the essential
skills
• Steps:
-work in teams
-develop common formative assessments
-align assessments with state/national
assessments
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
69
A Tale of Excellence….Group 4
• Steps:
-Use results to guide instruction
-Identify what skills are needed for success
-Regroup students
-Provide specific feedback
-Give additional opportunities to demonstrate
proficiency
• Clear message to students – “They are required
to learn rather than invited to learn.”
70
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 5
• More efficient time to work collaboratively
together to plan, gather materials and develop
assessments
• All students have access to the same curriculum,
same assessments of equal rigor, evaluate
uniformly
• Self evaluative of one’s own strengths and
weaknesses
71
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 5
• Shift in mindset…assessment enhances learning
• Shift in mindset…there are school cultures and
structures that are more effective for helping
students learn
• Willingness to change the assumption and
practices that have characterized public
education for years
• Assessment can help build a collaborative culture
72
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401
A Tale of Excellence….Group 5
• “All kids can learn”
• Schools can be a place where even the adults
could learn
“Assessment can fuel continuous improvement and
serve as the driving engine for transforming a
school.”
73
Berkeley County Schools . 401 South Queen Street . Martinsburg, WV 25401