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Getting MORE Excited About USING Data
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Getting MORE Excited About USING Data

Third Edition (Revised and Updated Edition)

Foreword by Shirley Hord



March 2017 | 280 pages | Corwin

Put data to WORK to better meet the needs of all students

Have you become hyper-focused on state tests?  Do you have important data collected, warehoused, and gathering dust? The time has come to dust off that data and put it to work for your students.

The new reporting requirements under ESSA, combined with the flexibility to act on that data, provide a huge opportunity for education leaders. This is your opportunity to rebuild data processes and rekindle excitement about using data for school and student growth. Getting MORE Excited About USING Data addresses both cultural and technical aspects of using data, starting with underlying beliefs about students, assessment, and individual and collective teacher efficacy. This updated edition features:

  • Guiding questions and protocols for effective professional learning communities, shared leadership teams and subject/grade teaching teams
  • New material on the use of formative assessment in schoolwide planning and instructional design
  • Renewed focus on the role of students 
  • Tips on the electronic challenges of storage, retrieval, privacy and security
  • Real-life examples from schools and districts ranging from specific data displays to sustained, long-term change 

The straightforward language, adaptable models, and focus on human elements make Getting MORE Excited about USING Data an essential resource for every leader. The time is now to use data to establish a collaborative culture with student success at its core. 

“Holcomb leads educators to use data as a catalyst to foster their passion for continuous learning, I highly recommend her pragmatic approach in looking at data as a means to stir the hearts and minds of educators for the sake of our future human resources: the students we serve.”
Kathy Larson, Author
Coaching for Infinite Results


"This book is full of practical supports, resources, and illustrations. It is well grounded in the work of schools and the importance of data to that mission."
Megan Tschannen-Moran, Professor of Educational Leadership
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA

 
List of Figures
 
Foreword by Shirley Hord
 
Preface
Why Another Book

 
What’s New Here in the Third

 
What This Book Is Not

 
What This Book Is

 
How This Book Is Organized

 
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
Chapter 1: Excited About Data—Really?!
Unexpected Excitement

 
The Urgency Remains

 
Excitement—Killed by Compliance

 
Every Student Succeeds Act Enters Amid Continuing Challenges

 
What Data Matters Now

 
Progress in Data Use

 
Excitement Extinguishers

 
 
Chapter 2: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . It Fits Your Beliefs
Espoused School Beliefs

 
Beliefs About Students

 
Beliefs About Assessment

 
Surfacing Beliefs and Acknowledging Differences

 
Collective Commitments and Courageous Conversations

 
From Caution and Compliance to Commitment

 
 
Chapter 3: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . It Feels Safe
Fear of Evaluation

 
Fear of Exposure

 
Fear Masquerading as Resistance

 
Surfacing the Fears

 
Responding to Concerns

 
Building Trust

 
 
Chapter 4: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . You’re Not Doing It Alone
Team Structures for Collaboration

 
Communication for Team Connections

 
Common Language for Collaboration

 
Norms and Protocols

 
Interdependence of Culture and Structure

 
 
Chapter 5: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . You See Faces in It
Seeing Faces of Diversity and Equity

 
Watching Faces Over Time

 
Features on the Faces Are More Than Scores

 
Hearing the Voices From the Faces

 
Helping Students Face Their Learning

 
Face-to-Face With Families

 
 
Chapter 6: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . It’s Easy to Get
Types of Data Displays

 
Key Features of Data Displays

 
Access to Data

 
Doing It Ourselves: A School Creates Its Own Data System

 
 
Chapter 7: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . It Fits a Bigger Picture
A Contrast of Cases

 
Components of the School’s Big Picture

 
Key Points for Stakeholder Involvement

 
Picturing the Work of Teaching Teams

 
Inquiry in Teaching Teams

 
Viewing Teaching Teams in Action

 
 
Chapter 8: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . It Saves Resources
Consolidating Multiple and Existing Plans

 
Testing Assumptions Before Seeking Solutions

 
Confirming Best Practices

 
Learning From Best-in-Class Schools

 
Vetting New Programs

 
Saying “No, Thank You”

 
 
Chapter 9: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . You Can Do Something About It
Stick to Your Own Sphere

 
Analyze the Offered Curriculum

 
Fill Curriculum Gaps

 
Critique the Culture

 
Compare Best Practice and Typical Practice

 
Determine What to Try—and What to Stop

 
Develop Action Plans

 
 
Chapter 10: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . You Have Time to Deal With It
Kinds of Time Needed

 
A System Look at Data

 
Studying and Repurposing Time Available

 
Using Time Wisely

 
 
Chapter 11: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . It Shows You’ve Made a Difference
Tending to Teacher Efficacy

 
Producing Evidence of Implementation

 
Generating Evidence of Impact

 
Using Data to Demonstrate the Difference You Make

 
Reaping Unexpected Benefits

 
Spreading a Little Cheer

 
One School’s Story

 
 
Chapter 12: You Get More Excited About Data When . . . You Have Appropriate Support
Touch the Talent in the Trenches

 
Deliver on Reciprocal Accountability

 
Redesign Professional Development for Learning

 
Model Use of Data for Continuous Improvement

 
Revisit Curriculum Roles

 
Dedicate Time

 
Tailor Tech Support

 
Test Data Warehouses

 
Protect Data Security and Privacy

 
Support Principals

 
One District’s Inside-Out Story

 
 
Chapter 13: Get More Excited
Review and Reflect

 
Choose Your Next Steps

 
Rock Your World

 
 
References and Suggested Readings
 
Index

"A wonderful style of writing; very approachable and practical. Dr. Holcomb offers great tools, ideas, and strategies on using data."

Jane Chadsey, Vice President
Educurious, Seattle WA

"Edie Holcomb’s materials are thorough and useful.  I utilized the previous edition of this book when teaching districts to use data to identify how to improve the academic achievement of students with disabilities."

Eva Kubinski, School Administration Consultant
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Madison, WI

"This book is full of practical supports, resources, and illustrations. It is well grounded in the work of schools and the importance of data to that mission."

Megan Tschannen-Moran, Professor of Educational Leadership
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA

"Dr. Holcomb provides vignettes and examples that offer insight into the day-to-day realities of school improvement issues. The ideas are presented in a logical manner and questions throughout the book provide opportunity for reflection."

Pamela H. Scott, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN

"When Dr. Holcomb published her first edition of “Getting Excited About Data”, I was intrigued. She was not only a colleague of mine, but the term “excited” about data held a curiosity for me as data, at that time, had a sterilized, impersonal , and even fearful perception for teachers who truly entered the field as caring, nurturing professionals that fostered student development in a wholistic framework. I came to think otherwise after reading her work. Now, with her third edition and Dr. Holcomb’s intent to lead educators to use data as a catalyst to foster their passion for continuous learning, I highly recommend her pragmatic approach in looking at data as a means to stir the hearts and minds of educators for the sake of our future human resources: the students we serve."

Kathy Larson, Author/Consultant
Coaching for Infinite Results

“Yet again Edie Holcomb has engaged her exemplary skills in creating a significant new edition. This third volume conveys for us rich new ideas, understandings, and insights in providing the culture, content, and processes that will ensure that our data use leads to increased teaching quality and better outcomes for our students.”

Shirley M. Hord, Scholar Laureate
Learning Forward, Boerne TX
Key features
  • Frequent references to changes in the law and their potential to redirect our focus and improve our outlook
  • Realities of how NCLB affected teachers – from fears of sanctions on their schools to use of test scores to evaluate their performance and in turn threaten their employment, which for most is also their mission in life
  • New material on tender morale issues – teacher sense of efficacy individually, collective sense of efficacy throughout a school, and cultures of trust – critically important for the adults and linked by evidence to student learning
  • Identification of technological advances that facilitate use of data, along with needed steps to counter the realities of threats to privacy and security
  • A more inclusive approach to discussions of leadership – shared, distributed, at all levels, drawing on personal influence as well as position power
  • Refined descriptions of the work of Shared Leadership Teams and Data Teams, with an entire new section on the use of data in Teaching Teams
  • Attention to the concepts and balance of formative, benchmark, and summative assessments and their appropriate uses in school-wide planning and instructional design
  • Increased attention to the role of students – resurrecting other sources of data that reflect the whole child and engaging students with their own data
  • Updated sources of best (evidence-based)  practices
  • Redefined roles of the central office in support of schools
  • Use of data to differentiate professional development among schools and individual teachers, and the positive impact that teacher evaluation rubrics could provide
  • New tools for team productivity, including the use of norms and protocols
  • Current case studies from a diverse set of schools not present in former editions

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 1


For instructors

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