Massachusetts Teaching and Learning System

Last week's Commissioner's Update shared information about a RTTT project focused on the development of a comprehensive teaching and learning system that will provide educators an integrated suite of tools and resources, including:

• data dashboards and reports,
• an expanded early warning indicator system,
• a "test builder" for formative and interim assessments,
• model curriculum units and lesson plans, and
• compelling multi-media and print resources to support instructional lesson design and delivery.

The folks at ESE are seeking input and feedback from school and district representatives as they develop this system over the next few years, which has a major focus on timely and easy-to-access information that can be used to improve teaching and learning.. Please visit the Teaching and Learning System page on the ESE Web site for further details and information about how you can get involved.

Data News from MassCUE

I attended one day of the fabulous MassCUE conference at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday 10/28, and wanted to share some of the things I learned. I will come back and post links to the session resources here once they are up on the MassCUE Web site.

I attended a session entitled, "Formative Assessment using Google Apps," presented by the Harwich Public Schools. They have used Google Forms to easily create online quizzes to check student understanding...with instant results tallied to a Google spreadsheet! I have used Google Forms for surveys and the like (similar to Zoomerang and Survey Monkey, but free and unlimited, with data automatically collected in a back end spreadsheet) but it was interesting to see it used to check student understanding and used immediately to inform instruction.

Jeff Comenitz from the ESE's Data Warehouse team had a plethora of information about the DART tool, the growth model, the SIF project, and the new Student Course Schedule (SCS) data collection. (Of course, if you're a follower of this blog, none of these topics are new to you!) He shared some sample teacher-level Data Warehouse reports which are being developed for next fall, once the teacher and student data are connected in the Data Warehouse.

Associate Commissioner Bob Bickerton spoke on "Using Data and New Tools for Decision Making and Continuous Improvement." He highlighted not only the various data collection initiatives (SIMS, EPIMS, SCS, SIF) but also plans for the RTTT-funded "teaching and learning system." He acknowledged the performance challenges that the Data Warehouse is currently encountering, and described how the SLDS grant funds are being used in part to re-architect the Data Warehouse to improve performance and support wider use of the tool.

I spoke with many of the student information system vendors as well as some vendors offering data management tools. I would like to better understand the capabilities of the various systems to handle local data, so that I can help districts in our region understand what options are available to them based on the tools that they may already have in place.

We did get to hear from Jonathan Kraft at lunchtime, however, rain prevented the Patriots from taking the practice field so, sadly, I don't have any Tom Brady sightings to report.