Webcast Details
Aired on: April 12th, 2011
3:30–4:30 p.m. (ET)
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Our Guest(s) This Week
Jen Morrison
Jen Morrison is an assistant professor at Newberry College and Assistant Director of the RETAIN Center of Excellence, a program funded through the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education to improve teacher retention in the State. Jen presents and writes around issues of data, assessment, teacher leadership, and Web 2.0 technology. Her most recent article, “Why Teachers Must Be Data Experts,” was published in Educational Leadership. Jen graduated with her BA in English from the University of South Carolina and went on to study Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand on a Fulbright scholarship.
Cindy Johnson-Taylor
Dr. Cindy Johnson-Taylor is the Chair of the Education Department at Newberry College and an Associate Professor of Education. Dr. Johnson-Taylor came to the College from Winthrop University, where she served as Director of the Teacher Education Program for nine years. Prior to entering the higher education arena, Dr. Johnson-Taylor was a high school assistant principal and a high school English teacher. Her academic credentials include a Bachelor's Degree in English and a Master's Degree in Secondary Education from Winthrop University. She also has an Educational Specialist Degree from the University of South Carolina and an earned doctorate from the University of South Carolina, both in the field of Educational Leadership.
This Week's Topic
Data-driven decision making and data-driven instruction can be overwhelming for all educators, already stretched with all the challenges they face in their schools and classrooms each day. Yet knowledge and a real understanding of the different kinds of data—and it’s not just standardized tests—can help educators become the creators of the significant, student-centered learning at-risk students need to be successful. This session can start you on the road to being “data literate”! Data literacy gives teachers a daily, classroom-based lens through which to view data, ask questions of it, and use it to inform and improve practice. Improving data literacy across a school can become the agent of deep, sustained change and educational improvement.
- See how data means more than test scores
- Learn how to build on current data and assessment practices to improve data literacy in individual classrooms and across schools
Resources:
An Interview With James Popham. (2001). Frontline.
Data Tools and Resources. http://www.scoe.org/pub/htdocs/data-tools.html. (2011).
(2008). Finding Balance: Assessment in the Middle School Classroom. Middle Ground: The Magazine of Middle Level Education, 12(2), 12-15.
(2003). How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning. Educational Leadership, 60(5), 6-11.
(2009). Is Assessment Literacy the “Magic Bullet”?. Voices In Education.
The Best Value in Formative Assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 14-19.
Using Classroom Assessment to Improve Teaching.
Using Classroom Data to Improve Student Achievement 
.
(2010). Why Teachers Must Be Data Experts. Educational Leadership.