Week 5 Data FAQ and Updates

Wow. Can you believe the end is near? On behalf of the entire Department of Data (all 2 of us), thank you for all of your hard data-related work this summer! Before we jump into some nitty-gritty, we’d like to re-emphasize why we think data is important: it’s not really about numbers for the sake of numbers. We care about data because we care about kids. A focus on data supports student achievement this summer, when you’re in regions, and in planning next year’s institute. We hope you agree, but either way, we’d always love to hear what you think (via email or in comments on this blog).

With that, the Department of Data is in high gear this week. We’re guessing you might have a few questions, so here’s a few answers (we’ll keep updating them as needed).

Q: What ISAT Tracking Tools do I turn in, and when?

Excel Tip of the Day–Freeze Panes

Save time and freeze those panes!

Tired of scrolling back and forth between the cells in which you’re working and the headers at the top of the page?  By freezing panes, you can avoid this time-consuming headache.

Even better, it’s super easy (and totally cool).

Step 1: Simply go to the cell that is below and to the right of the rows/columns you want to always appear on the screen.  (Example: If you want to freeze what’s in the top row and farthest left column, just go to cell B2.)

Step 2: In the toolbar, click on Window, then “Freeze Panes.”

Step 3: Relax and enjoy the time you’ve saved, or use this trick to attract potential suitors.

Individual Whiteboards, a CFU-lovers dream

Earlier this week, I noticed a bit of a trend when stopping in some classrooms — quite a few teachers were using individual whiteboards with their students. If you haven’t seen them before, the name pretty much says it all. Just imagine taking the big whiteboard off the wall (just imagine, please don’t actually do it), chopping it up into about 18×18 inch pieces, and giving one to each student along with a marker and eraser.

I’ve seen them popping up all over the place — in Kindergarten classrooms at Rose Linda and a 7th grade classroom at Pastor, just to name a couple. I definitely fought back some tears of nostalgia as I thought back to my days using them regularly when I taught 7th and 8th grade math — they were one of my favorite strategies.

However, as you might have experienced if you tried them, just picking yourself up a set of whiteboards doesn’t magically equal student achievement. Like anything with teaching, there’s no silver bullet —  it’s how well you plan and execute that will determine their effectiveness.

So, in that spirit, the Department of Data is pleased to present the highly official DOD Guide to Individual Whiteboards, in our probably-overused FAQ format…

I get the basic idea, but what do I actually do, and when do I do it?

The 30 second data survey

A big goal for the Department of Data this summer is to try to create a positive culture around the use of data, and so, appropriately, we thought we’d collect some data on it by asking for your quick thoughts in a 30-seconds-or-less survey:

Click here to take the two-question survey.

One lucky corps member who enters will win a $20 amazon.com gift certificate to get something for his/her classroom and some school supplies for the entire collaborative. It’s our way of saying thanks for your time, since we know you’re just a little bit busy these days. But it’s not just a bribe – we’re doing it because we know the prize will benefit students (which, we hope you realize, is the whole reason we want to create a positive culture around data in the first place.)

Your response will help us support you after you leave institute and help us plan next year’s institute data projects. Thanks!

Rose Linda Elementary, the Michael Jordan of Clean Data

It was the upset of the century, folks.

After the results were tallied, the Rose Linda Bulls were in 8th place in the first Clean Data Competition.  Many thought they had no chance going into the second running of the Clean Data Competition and paid them no mind, setting their sights instead on Desert Edge Copper.

Big mistake.

Led by School Director Jennifer Wakefield (Mississippi Delta ’01) and rallied by School Operations Manager Robin Peterson (S. Louisiana ’07), the Rose Linda Bulls quietly exemplified the corps values of Continually Increasing Effectiveness (fixing data errors) and Relentless Pursuit of Results (results = a sweet title belt).

To find out more about these come-from-behind champs, the Department of Data recently took a visit to deliver the goods and to see what makes Rose Linda such a special place.

Mid-Institute Data Celebrations

Phew.  Has three weeks ever gone by so fast?

It’s hard to believe, but in just two weeks there will be 647 brand new teachers spreading across the country to diverse locales, from Greensburg, LA to Buckeye, AZ, Indianapolis to Jefferson Parish.  Everyone here is past the halfway point, and it’s hard for many to believe that (gulp) teaching-an-entire-day-every-day is almost here.

Back when I was a Corps Member (one year ago? has it really only been a year?), I remember this time of Institute being a strange mix of elation and anxiety.  I wasn’t where I wanted to be as a teacher, yet I also had individual success stories that kept me going.

So with that in mind, I thought it would be good for the Department of Data to help the 2008 corps step back and retarget those strange emotions that are swirling around.

How do you do that?  Why, by celebrating your successes, of course.  And what better way to do that than by looking at…

MID-INSTITUTE DATA!

(*Wild cheers from the crowd.*)

Yes, last week was a busy one for the Department of Data, as we collected all of your Student Achievement data (tracking tools), as well as Mid-Institute Surveys  and TAL Rubric data.  If you’ve spent any time around Teach For America, you can probably guess that we spend a ton of time focusing on how we can improve based on this data. So, we thought we’d take a moment here to celebrate the positives, of which there are many.

Chew on this:

• In just two weeks of teaching, corps members have reached an average of 28% of their TAL Rubric goals
• 96% of Corps Members have already met the goal for B-1, setting big goals
• 36% of Corps Members have already met their goal on creating a welcoming environment (I-5)
• 25% of Corps Members have already met the goal for E-1, clearly presenting academic content
• 80 students have already met or exceeded their growth goals, not even halfway through the summer!
• 93% of Corps Members turned in a Mid-Institute survey. Thank you!
• As of Mid-Institute, there were 16 CMA groups who gave their CMA 100% satisfaction ratings on the mid-institute survey
• 64% of CMs “agree” or “strongly agree” that university operations run smoothly, a high number for any institute (let alone a brand new one!) 
• The question “My Curriculum Specialist is helpful in my development as a teacher” averaged a score of a whopping 6.22 on a 7-point scale

As you can see, there is plenty to celebrate as we begin Week 4.  There is certainly a lot to improve, but for the next minute, sit back, relax, and breathe in the success you’ve already achieved.

Mid-Institute Cleanliness Craziness

The Clean Data Competition was in full effect last week for the big mid-institute data collection here at the Teach For America Phoenix Institute. (Clean data = accurate results and faster aggregation time.) Apparently at least a few of the SOMs have set up some hospital-operating-room-style sterilization procedures, as the data was so clean that there was a three way tie after the first pass (congrats to Pastor, Campbell, and week three up-and-comer Rose Linda).

The Department of Data had to dust off the IOC rule book to determine tiebreaker methodology, and after several painstaking rounds of review, the inclusion of co-evaluation cleanliness, and the hiring of third-party tabulation services from Ernst and Young , the winner is…

Random Excel Tip of the Day

Ok, well we don’t really do a tip every day, but today we received an urgent call on the data red phone asking us about cell coloring. So here’s the answer — it’s an old favorite that falls in the seems-much-harder-than-it-is category:

Q: In Microsoft Excel, how do I set it to automatically have cells change color (like red and green) depending on the value in the cell?

A: Highlight the cells, then choose “Conditional Formatting”, in the “Format” menu. It’s great for those visual learners among us. Type it in to the Help system or Google for more details.

Easy, right?

And the Clean Data winner is…

Q: What do you get when you cross a scorpion, the 29th element, and an unparalleled attention to detail?

A: The first-ever Clean Data Competition winners, Desert Edge Copper!

But Desert Edge Copper, led by the relentless Michelle Brown, isn’t just a school full of Excel-lovers.  Oh, no.  It’s much more than that.  As part of their prize for winning the Clean Data Competition (along with a little something else, pictured above), the Department of Data recently visited this bastion of student achievement in order to express our congratulations in person.  Here’s what transpired…

As Good As Gold (and some workshop materials to boot)!

Welcome back to the Wonderful World of Data, everyone. In the past week, CMs have had over 14,400 interactions with students and have seen the faces of the achievement gap firsthand. Before we look forward to your future successes and offer you some tips to help your students reach the high standards you’ve set for them, let’s look back and give credit where credit is due.

And so, before we give you some very useful workshop information…start the drum roll, cue the trumpets and scoot to the edge of your seats as we announce the winner of the first-ever Cleanest Data Competition…