4/6/2020 Courses and Materials | Data Wise

educators collaborating so EACH student thrives

Courses and Materials

Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Professional Education offers a

complete suite of on-campus and online courses.
To get started with a free, self-paced 8-hour course, check out
Introduction to Data Wise.

Meeting Wise: Making the

Most of Collaborative Time
The Revised and Expanded
for Educators identifies
Edition of Data Wise: A
improving meeting agendas as
Step-by-Step Guide to
a high-leverage strategy for
Using Assessment Results
changing how people work
to Improve Teaching and
together, and offers tools for
Learning (Harvard Education
developing a common language
Press, 2013) shows how
for discussing and improving
systematic and thoughtful
the quality of meeting design
examination of a wide range
and the templates to help you
of data can be a catalyst for
get started. It provides tips for
important schoolwide
setting up, facilitating, and
dialogue. These conversations
participating effectively in
can help schools tap
meetings, and supports the
into teachers' knowledge,
reader in developing a strategy
foster collaboration, identify
for making a fundamental shift
obstacles to change, enhance
in how collaborative time is
school culture, and improve
used.
student learning.
Explore: Meeting Wise
Resources

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Data Wise in Action: Key Elements of Observing

Stories of Schools Using Practice contains a series
Data to Improve Teaching of short videos that invite you
and Learning (Harvard into classrooms and meeting
Education Press, rooms at the Richard J. Murphy
2007) focuses on eight very School in Boston, a school that
different schools as they uses data wisely. It comes with
integrate the Data Wise a Facilitator's Guide that lays
Improvement Process into out a professional development
their daily work. sequence in which teacher
It highlights the leadership teams use these videos as a
challenges that schools can springboard for working
face at each step of the together to design their own
process and illustrates process for learning from
how educators use creativity classroom observation.
and collaboration to Watch: An interview about
overcome those challenges. the DVD

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Scaling Up Data Wise in

Prince George's
County (Harvard Education
Press, 2017)
describes ambitious efforts to
scale a collaborative data-
driven improvement process
across 199 schools from
2014-2016. It details the
strategic choices that Deputy
Superintendent Dr. Monique
Davis and Executive Director
of the Office of Continuous
Systemic Improvement Dr.
David Rease make to elicit
buy-in and support at all
levels, the primary challenges
they have to overcome, and
the ongoing dilemmas they
continue to negotiate.

Subject: K-12, Data Use

Setting: Prince George’s
County Public Schools in
Upper Marlboro, Maryland

Sustaining a Continuous Improvement Culture in Educator

Preparation: A Higher Education Network Based on Data Wise
Supported by a grant from the Massachusetts Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education, the educator preparation
program at Endicott College integrated the Data Wise Improvement
Process into its practice.
Journal of Practitioner Research, January, 2019
Using Data Wisely at the System Level
Introducing the “Universal Data Wise Improvement Process” and
showing what it looks like in action
Phi Delta Kappan, September, 2017
Teaching Educators Habits of Mind for Using Data Wisely
Describing the ways of thinking and being that underlie courses on
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collaborative data inquiry at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Teachers College Record, 2015

Eight Steps to Becoming Data Wise

Here's how school-based teams get the most out of their data-inquiry
meetings
Education Leadership, October, 2015

The Path of Data Wisdom

Celebrating 10 Years, the Data Wise Project unveils a new portfolio of
resources
Harvard Graduate School of Education, April, 2015
Lessons from the Data Wise Project
Three habits of mind for buidling a collaborative culture
Harvard Education Letter, HGSE May/June 2013
The “Data Wise” Improvement Process
Eight steps for using test data to improve teaching and learning
Harvard Education Letter, HGSE January/February 2006
Leadership Lessons from Schools Becoming "Data Wise"
Stories of schools using the process
Harvard Education Letter, HGSE January/February 2008
The Heart of Data Wise
School Practices that Support the Work of Improvement
Usable Knowledge, HGSE 2009

Why use protocols?

Protocols can help you and your colleagues cultivate the habit of mind
of intentional collaboration. By offering structure to conversations,
protocols allow groups to delve deeply into important issues, make the
most of limited time, and ensure that all voices are heard. Some of
our favorites include:
Coherence
Purpose: To allow teams to acknowledge the work they are
already doing to use data to improve learning and teaching, to
create a sense of coherence between that work and the Data Wise
Improvement Process, and to help identify a point of entry into the
Data Wise Improvement Process (for use after the Stoplight
Protocol)

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Constructing the Improvement Process

Purpose: To help a group of people come to a common
understanding of how they view the improvement process and
discover for themselves that improvement processes are not linear
and that there is no one “right” way to do it.

Hopes and Fears

Purpose: To give participants an opportunity to get expectations
and concerns out in the open so that they can begin to establish a
group commitment to addressing them.
Inquiring Introductions
Purpose: To practice skills of inquiry, listening, and responding to
evidence. As a side benefit, it also gives members of a team an
opportunity to get to know one another.
Norm Setting
Purpose: To come to consensus about how a group will work
together.
Stoplight
Purpose: To inform participants about the steps of the Data Wise
Improvement Process and provide an opportunity for reflection
about where a school is with respect to the process using the Data
Wise Arrow handout. It also helps participants cultivate the habit
of mind of maintaining a relentless focus on evidence.
Great Sources for Protocols
The School Reform Initiative offers an A-Z index of helpful
protocols for educators, including protocols for norm-setting and
looking at student work. Protocols used frequently in the Data Wise
Improvement Process include the Affinity Mapping, Consultancy,
and Compass Points protocols. Note that protocol instructions are
available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
The Power of Protocols is a book that presents a strong case for
how protocols can transform the way educators collaborate and
then provides detailed instructions for facilitating protocols for a
wide range of occasions.

Supporting Collective Learning

The following resources are used in our courses and described in
the Data Wise book.

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*Right click and select "save link as" to save each document to your
computer.
Assessment Report Scavenger Hunt
Purpose: To provide a structured way of understanding the
attributes of an assessment report so that you can understand how
results are reported.
Data Wise Journey Presentation Template
Purpose: To provide a format for capturing your team's journey
through the eight steps of the Data Wise Improvement
Process. Why start from scratch when formatting your presentation,
when you can use a template that has been field-tested by
educators from around the world? There is also a universal
version of the Journey Presentation Template which is best for
system-level teams. (See Data Wise, p. 215)
Data Wise Arrow Handout
Purpose: To provide the eight steps of the Data Wise
Improvement Process on a single page; useful with the Stoplight
Protocol or as a handout or poster. (See Data Wise, p. 5)
Data Wise Arrow Handout in Spanish
Purpose: To provide the eight steps of the Data Wise
Improvement Process on a single page; useful with the Stoplight
Protocol or as a handout or poster. (See Data Wise, p. 5)
Note: For Spanish transcripts of over 40 Data Wise videos, enroll
in the free self-paced online course: Introduction to Data Wise.
Data Display Checklist
Purpose: To serve as a reminder of how to format your charts so
that readers can easily interpret the information they contain.
(See Data Wise, p. 82)
Meeting Wise Checklist
Purpose: To encourage you to consider the meeting elements
related to purpose, process, preparation and pacing when planning
or reflecting on a meeting.
Meeting Wise Agenda Template
Purpose: To provide an example of how a meeting agenda can be
structured to take into account all of the items on the Meeting
Wise Checklist.
Meeting Wise Rolling Agenda Template
Purpose: To show how to structure a single shared document that
contains all of the agendas for a series of meetings. (For more
information about rolling agendas, please see Meeting Wise:
Making the Most of Collaborative Time for Educators.)
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BPS Inquiry Faciliation Application

Purpose: This is an application that the Boston Public Schools
(BPS) Inquiry Facilitator team created for schools to use when
applying to receive focused coaching and support from Inquiry
Facilitators. This application might be useful to you for a similar
purpose or, more generally, for explaining and identifying key
elements and competencies needed for inquiry.

Data Wise evolves as educators share their best practices. Our

Introduction to Data Wise video below shows where the Data Wise
Improvement Process itself came from; and our ACE Habits of Mind
video shows the specific habits of mind that educators cultivate when
using the process:

The two videos below show facilitators from Prince George's County
Public Schools engaging in Step 3 of the Data Wise process:

The videos below are a series of tutorials for chart-making on

Windows, Mac, or Google Sheets.
Making a Clustered Column Chart in Excel for Windows (10:36)

Switching Rows and Columns in a Clustered Column Chart:

Troubleshooting for Windows (1:57)

Making a clustered column chart in Excel for Mac (8:18)

Switching Rows and Columns in a Clustered Column Chart:

Troubleshooting for Mac (2:24)

Making a Clustered Column Chart in Google Sheets (3:32)

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