Words, Words, Words

I found an administrator crying in the hallway today. It was because of this:

These are lists of words found on our K - 5 report cards. The words in each list only appear for students in those populations. The words are ordered from most frequently used to least, although in some cases, "most" might only be 2 or 3 times. It is important to consider these as a type of gestalt—where the whole picture is more important than the parts.

unwillingness, refused, defiant, unhappy, tantrums, severe, scribbles...

This list and its brethren brought the administrator to tears, and while I cannot say that I reacted to the same degree, I have had more time to come to terms with these lists.

They are part of the most recent district data story I built. We are looking at the comments teachers write for student report cards. This contrast between general education and special education is one of four. I also did the analysis to contrast comments for students of colour (vs. white), students from low income backgrounds (vs. not), and students who identify as female (vs. male).

When conducting research, we often look to reject the null hypothesis. The basic concept is that there shouldn't be any difference between two groups that are being compared. And while I will not claim that I was following any stringent statistical guidelines with this work, I will just say that I was so hoping that I could accept the null hypothesis this time around. I would love to tell you that we talk about the performance of boys just the same as we do girls. But I can't. I can't tell you that we view students who qualify for free/reduced lunch the same as every other kid. Ditto for our students of colour and their white peers. Our words are different. Our biases are revealed. Our words are not just words.

This is not to say that there aren't commonalities. There are. At least 97% of the words are the same between any two groups. That's pretty significant.

In fact, these 50 most common words are pretty much what you might expect for an elementary comment. It's just the little variations that make us take notice...and, perhaps, even bring us to tears. It is my hope, of course, that they also bring us to action...to conversation...to change ourselves and our words.

 

You can learn more about how we built this data story over on my Excel blog.

Lucky 13

Ye Olde Blog is thirteen years old today. A teenager on the web can be a dangerous thing, but I am hopeful that although the pace of posting has slowed in the old age of this space, measured thought is replacing youthful exuberance. I also hope that I am not so aged that I start to scream at young blogs to get off my lawn.

I still think that blogging has a place in education---and for educators---even after all this time. There are more forms available now than when I started, whether it's microblogging via Twitter, Facebook posts, or WordPress sites. But the goal is the same...one of personal reflection in a public space. I don't deny that this terrifies some people, either when I do it or when they think of doing it for themselves. I feel sorry for those who believe I want to use this platform to talk about them...who have missed the message that I am only talking about myself. Perhaps they are worthy of attention, but that is all the more reason they should be blogging, too. Your ideas are valuable. Put them out into the world and stop worrying about what others think. That was over in middle school.

As always, I am grateful for the community this blog has built over the years. I have met so many of you at national conferences, workshops, and in other spaces. I could not have found you without this space, and I would not be the educator I am today without these connections and conversations. It may have not always been smooth sailing, but I have no regrets about this blog. It has enriched my life and career in ways that nothing else has.

What does Year 14 hold? Hmmm...I want to talk about agency and empowerment. I'll be at the ASCD annual conference in March. I'm planning on spending my winter holiday writing a book (!). I want to be with you here, when I can.

Those Darn Kids

A couple of weeks ago, I had several conversations where someone used a term such as red kids or bubble kids. Now, I have heard these terms a lot over the years. I'm pretty sure I've referred to bubble kids myself. But for whatever reason, these labels whistled at me in a way that they haven't before.

What do we really mean when we refer to red kids? Is this a convenient way to categorize struggling students, students-at-risk, low performers, etc.?

And then a couple of days later, I saw this tweet in my timeline:

https://twitter.com/TracyZager/status/923968258541105152

I started to think about these labels. They are from Mismatch: Historical perspectives on schools and students who don't fit them (2001). What would we add to the list from the current decade or so? Perhaps...Red kids. Title kids.

Those kids.

It made me wonder what we mean with these labels. Who, exactly, are we categorizing?

So, I pulled some data on our current sixth graders. What I learned was that the students we are including as red kids are disproportionately male, low income, and receive special services.

I won't claim that this is what the label means for all grades, schools, or districts. But the qualities of ours made me ponder the concept of privilege a bit further. Being a low-income white male might be a disadvantage on state tests, but it is certainly not a detriment for society as a whole. No matter how much these students may struggle in school, they will not have to struggle as much in life as those who are low income and black...female and Hispanic...or others who may be more successful at the present time. To be clear, I don't want any student to struggle or not find the support they need while they're at school. But I also have to be real about the work we have to do as a society.

I am hoping to prompt some conversation and some reflection about all of this within my district. So these data are the source of my most recent data story. If you're interested, you can read more about how we constructed this display or view the data summaries for yourself.

Climate Change

The terms culture and climate are often used interchangeably when referring to schools. But these refer to slightly different traits. A building's culture is demonstrated through its way of doing things: how PLCs function, norms, and so on. It's internal to the system. But the climate? That's sensed by outsiders. When they walk into your building, do they feel welcome? Is there a sense of safety?

I've had the privilege in visiting dozens and dozens of schools over the last ten years. And I can tell you that climate is a very real thing. You know instantly if a school is a pleasant space to be and whether you would be willing to work there. I realize that doesn't sound very scientific. That's because it isn't. It's very affective based, but real nonetheless.

I recently posted about my Dear Principal project this year. As I visit more and more buildings, it is interesting to see the climate reflected in the data I collect and represent. One school, which I would not have identified as having all that positive of a climate, had the largest number of student to adult interactions. Kids were incredibly friendly. Many of them readily struck up a relaxed conversation with me---and I had a great time chatting with them. It was a very pleasant surprise. And then another school turned out to be not that way. Remember, for this first round of data collection, I am documenting the number of smiles I see. In this particular school, I made two rounds through the classrooms...and I only found one instance of a kid smiling at another kid. One. The number of other interactions was also depressingly small. No joy in Mudville, my friends. But there could be any number of explanations: time of day, length of my visit, or even chance.

Now that I'm nearly done with my first round with schools (we have 10 schools and my goal is to do three post cards for each this year), I'm starting to notice some other trends and ponder other ways to collect and represent data about schools. While I am asking principals for what they wish people knew about their schools, here are some things I'd like to pay attention to:

• How often to teachers talk to girls in their classrooms and what is the nature of these interactions?
• How often are their words of praise or encouragement?
• Where do students of colour sit in the classroom (especially with relationship to the teacher desk)?

I am trying to stay away from things that principals would monitor or talk about with teachers as part of the evaluation model. As interested as I am in the idea of student engagement, I can't touch it with my project. Nor can I count things related to school improvement or building goals. I don't want to mix my purposes with theirs. But I do want to try and represent my "noticings" about their schools...to raise some awareness about how their buildings might be perceived. There is no good or bad, no goal to set or reach with these data. They're simply a snapshot...a moment in time from my visit. But maybe by pointing toward something other than achievement, we can change the climate of how we view our work.

Data Academy Session One: What is effective data use?

The goal for the first session is to dig into thinking about effective data use. What do we mean by this, how do we know it when we see it, and how do questions support this work? This session is divided into three chunks:

• How the hell did we get here? A brief history of data use in education.
• What do we want to "here" to look like? Building a framework for data use that we own.
• Where the hell are we going next? The role of questions and how we know when we have the "right" one.

And, okay, maybe I will be slightly more eloquent in my delivery of those points, but there's no need to pull punches in this space. We're all friends here.

Part One: How the hell did we get here? 
Look, this whole data use in education thing was not my idea. Nor is data use in our field a new idea. Our modern leanings---the approach of "data first, questions later"---starts in the 1980's and, like most poorly thought out concepts in education, had it's start in the business world. The Baldrige Framework, the Total Quality Management approach, and similar ideas continue their creep into educational systems throughout the 1990s, and when No Child Left Behind is passed in 2001, looking at disaggregated data as a starting point is pretty much codified for schools.

But we can go even further back than that...all the way back to The Enlightenment.A philosophy develops around the idea that the world should be understood through individual reasoning. And there’s this tension that develops between science and magic…science and religion…with the idea that the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the approach itself is very calculated and cold. The numbers don’t lie. Observe first…then infer. This is still a process we apply to most of our work with data.

I don't want to say that we've been doing it wrong for a few hundred years, because for the most part, this approach works just fine. And even within the last 20 years, I can point you toward some schools where this path through data has been the start of some amazing changes for students and families. I do want to say that this is not the only way to use data. I think we can do better than a one size fits all approach.

Part Two: What do we want "here" to look like?
I am an unabashed fan of a good framework...a tool that outlines the scope of a topic and hints at the qualities that lie within. I even used the Baldrige one when I was working on my admin credential a couple of years ago. And there is plenty of good quality educational research out there about what supports data use. There are all sorts of factors from information systems to data quality to the culture developed, PD provided, administrative support, and more. We're not starting from scratch and we don't need to decide what shape to make the wheel this year. But, we are going to look at data from a new angle and that needs to meld with other initiatives.

In this part of the workshop, we'll divide and conquer a draft framework for effective data use based on some current research from both education and data science, our instruction and evaluation models, and other sources. Groups will review one resource and put big ideas onto sticky notes. These will be placed on one of four posters that form the armature of our framework. Then, groups will take a poster and organize the ideas.

I did this activity with teachers last week and they are very interested to see what their principals come up with.

Part Three: Where the hell are we going?
It is not unusual in education to find a "data first" approach---that is, the data are the starting point. However, there's plenty of good research out there to show that an inquiry approach supports engagement with data. I've asked all my participants to identify a question they want to use as the driver for their work over the next few months. 

We'll talk a little about the Goldilocks question---the one that isn't too big or too small, but fits our purposes just right. There is nothing wrong with the big and small questions, mind you. Those are important, too. But we have only so much time and resources during these workshops. There is little point in learning an answer which is already published or one which requires so many resources (or new skills or some bending of ethics) that it can't be answered within the confines of our workshops.

In the vernacular of the place where I grew up, we "kick this pig" on Tuesday with administrators and then with our instructional coaches a couple of weeks after that. By then, teachers will be ready for their second session and we'll keep rolling from there...all the way through March.

I've asked participants to respond to some questions about their skills, what they think their question will be, and one more important piece: What is one thing you wish people knew about your school? I've been asking this question at conferences recently and the answers are fascinating. I am really interested to hear what people in our district will say.

Want to follow along? Resources for this session are here, and you can see the overview of this project in an earlier post. I'd love to hear what you think...as well as what you wish people knew about your school or district.

Introducing Data Academy

In my previous post, I shared some of my impetus to build professional learning opportunities around data use. Now I want to preview the full story arc---9 hours built around starting with a question and ending with a data story.

There are five chunks. Not pictured is how the stories will be shared this spring. The role of an audience is both unique and critical when storytelling with data...so we'll definitely need a space and opportunity to engage with that. But I'm still pondering what that piece will look like. Each session will have some time to learn together, and some "lab" time for independent practice with the concepts. Here's what we have planned:

Session one: What is effective data use?
We will explore current frameworks and research around data use in schools. Topics will include data literacy, student-involved data use, and classroom “look fors.”

Session two: Frame questions and find data
We will focus on asking high-leverage questions, then using data mining, canned reports and extracts, and other options to pull relevant data from Skyward and Homeroom to answer these questions.

Session three: Clean, organize, and explore
It’s time to sharpen your skills with Excel, including how to join data from multiple sources, build pivot tables, as well as formula basics.

Session four: Visual(ization) literacy
Many of us were taught to read and write text, but few know the basic rules of creating and interpreting powerful visuals. We will focus on elements of visual communication, including color, chart choice, and other attributes.

Session five: Storytelling with data
A data story combines text, data, and visual elements. During this session, we will consider the ethics of design choices, the responsibilities of communicating data in equitable ways, and how we can use basic statistics to know when we have a story.

I am sure that these descriptions and the path we take through them will morph along the way. Although I built these sessions from the lens of my own background and work, I was pleased to see it reflected in an article by Ellen Mandinach and Edith Gummer entitled What does it mean for teachers to be data literate.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X16301391

The bottom row of their framework envisions something similar to the arc I identified. They have

• Identify problems/frame questions
• Use data
• Transform information into decisions
• Transform data into information
• Evaluate outcomes

I'll post some additional information about each session as we go along this year. If you are interested in the materials that support the work, please visit the repo on GitHub.

What Lies Beneath

I've spent the last 7 or 8 years thinking about the role of data visualization in the classroom. I am not an expert, but rather an enthusiastic student of the subject. And I feel incredibly fortunate to work in a role and a district that gives me an opportunity to grow my knowledge and skills in that arena. This year, I get to extend that by facilitating some professional development.

We're calling it "Data Academy" and there are three flavours: one for administrators, one for instructional coaches, and one for classroom teachers. We'll have them start with a question, pull and organize data, then visualize it and tell a story with it. That's the basic nuts and bolts of a process we'll manage between now and March.

But there's always a hidden curriculum, is there not? Something unspoken, yet more important, that  underpins things. Like a good foundation garment, it shapes and supports...and maybe even provides a little sex appeal.

And what lies beneath my story arc this year is the need to create some change. Schools are using data the way they did in the 1980s. I'm tired of that. I'm tired of the curiosity and expertise of educators being stifled. I can't look at another red/yellow/green coded spreadsheet or endure another conversation that has a goal of merely admiring an achievement gap.

We need a different narrative.

I spent my time off in July outlining what this could look like, then pitched this idea as a series of after school options for teachers and principals. But my boss thought differently...that we would roll it out to all administrators and instructional coaches. Um, okay.

I was hesitant at first---and still am, at least a little bit. First of all, I don't want to drag anyone through this content. These are adult learners and should have some meaningful choice about where their professional learning takes them. And secondly, this sort of large scale rollout gives me some serious imposter syndrome.

There are ways to mitigate both of these concerns. Administrators might not get to "opt out" of this work, but they can choose their own question to investigate and story to share. I am working with a group of teachers in the after school series who are there for themselves (we're not paying them to participate) and I can test out each piece with them before I meet with principals.

But beyond that, this is the work I want to do...not the work I have to do. I see a different vision for data use in education, and maybe this is a good first step toward that.

https://twitter.com/DianaDDrumm/status/653369061808709632

The tweet above references a scene in the 1954 version of A Star Is Born:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047522/quotes/qt0459497

So, I'm dreaming a bit bigger. I've invited some reps from our regional educational service district, as well as some of my previous co-workers from the state education agency. I've also reached out to former colleagues who work with our state school board association and principals' groups. If we're really going to change conversations about data, then we're going to need a bigger room and a bigger network. I can't be the only voice in the wilderness demanding something better.

I'm building a repo on GitHub for the materials and thinking about what the denouement this spring will look like. I should have (roughly) 50 people involved in telling unique data stories this year. I want some sort of culminating event...a story slam...where they can share and celebrate. But I have no idea yet what this will look like.

For now, what lies beneath are lots of hopes and dreams and fears. But I am making my peace with that and trying to focus on the future. In the next post, I'll share some of the more concrete plans and tools we'll be using this year.

¡Viva la Revolución!

Dear Principal

You might be familiar with the Dear Data project, "a year-long, analog data drawing project by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, two award-winning information designers living on different sides of the Atlantic." I can't think of another creative project that has brought me so much joy and inspiration---and if you haven't heard about it, then have a look at the site and definitely buy the book.

As for me, Dear Data first inspired the data stories I have been building and posting in my school district. But I've always found the original post card idea charming and daunting. It's a more intimate way to communicate, as well as an opportunity to connect about different types of data. But I just don't have the stamina (or a partner) for a weekly exchange.

Instead, I am starting small. I have blocked out time on my calendar every other week to spend in schools. And while there, I want to capture data about something that we wouldn't ordinarily notice. Later, I'll create a postcard and send it to the principal.

Yesterday was my first attempt. I visited our two middle schools. I counted the number of smiles I saw from the moment I walked into the building to the moment I walked out.

This was definitely a challenge. How do you capture this? What are the categories? I started with a simple chart that I could make tallies on. The top line represented who initiated the smile (adult or student) and the side represented who received the smile (adult or student). But, of course, nuances arose. Did my smiles count? (I decided they did.) What about someone who was just sitting there smiling to themselves? (I decided that counted.) What about people who greeted me by name...or the autistic kid who saw me and said, "Hello, stranger." in the manner of a western movie. (I didn't count them, but I recorded them.)

I spent about 3 hours between the two buildings, connecting with people, sitting in on classes, and surreptitiously making tally marks. Back at the office, I summarized the data and then thought about how to display it.

I ended up using arrows to show the direction of smiles between people, with the widths representing the number in a particular category. I decided on a consistent measure (.03" = 1 smile) and then drew the arrows in PowerPoint to scale. I cut them out and used them at templates to draw the cards.

Here is the first one:

And here is the second one:

They're not perfect---not even close. (I haven't had an art class since 5th grade, in case you couldn't tell.) I liked the idea of using school colours, but I could have used colour better with the design. I am sure there are better designs for communicating the data. Some of my writing is a mess. However, it is important to me to get these out into the world. I can't spend days or weeks on them, because the data might not be as relevant. And, I have other things I have to do in the meantime! So, I am doing my best to let go of some of my more perfectionistic tendencies and just make something happen.

Meanwhile, I find the data on these cards interesting. One school had far more students smiling at one another, but far fewer adults smiling at kids. That same school had relatively even numbers of kids and adults smiling at adults, but the first school was disproportionate. Both had the same number of kids and adults smiling to themselves.

Principals don't know that I am doing this work this year. I don't know what they'll say or if they'll care. I don't know if they'll spend time with the cards to decipher them and think about what is represented or what it could mean...or if they'll just think this is weird. My hope is that, if nothing else, they will find a little bit of inspiration. But more on this in another post.

I was both excited and sad to put them into the district mail today. I'll never hold the cards in my hands again, even if I have the images. I like to think of them as seeds I'm sowing. I'll only learn later what I will reap.

Where Was I?

With only a handful more days in the school year, we have reached the end of state testing. Our first assessment window is open on the first day of school and we've filtered through several different opportunities since then. The busiest, of course, is spring.

Spring is a marathon. Ten schools. Nine grade levels. Five different flavours of tests (only three, depending upon grade level). Not to mention managing paper/pencil vs. online, getting tests to our kids who are educated in programs outside the district (for example, at the school for the deaf), scheduling translators, and all the other details. But we're at the end of all of that for another year.

For 6 - 8 weeks, assessment is all-encompassing. It is the first thing that gets checked in the morning and the maintenance it generates becomes the final tasks for the afternoon. Other work moves along in fits and starts, 15 minutes at a time. It's an odd rhythm that I settle into. And now that the dance is over, I am finding myself a bit at loose ends.

My calendar looks like this:

I'm not complaining. After months of claustrophobia-like conditions in Outlook, I like that I have some breathing room. It's just that after all the hullabaloo, I don't quite remember what it is I was doing. I hope that I captured some good notes back in March so that I can figure out what sorts of projects people were expecting me to complete.

The year is winding down. I am planning on taking off most of July, but once the spring score file drops on August 4, it will mark the starting line for another year. I am hoping, though, that for the next few weeks, I can decompress and find my bearings again.

Year in Review: The Job vs The Work

A week or so ago, I received my annual evaluation from my supervisor. I completed the expected tasks with the expected work ethic and to the expected standards. All is well and I am employable for another year.

Reading through the narrative made me realize that there is a difference in how I see my accomplishments and how others view them. Both are valid in their own ways. My supervisor writes about the job I do, but in my own mind, I am always thinking about the work.

I had a new support staff person this year. It is my job to supervise her. But my work has been to ensure that she develops enough skills that she never has to worry about depending on anyone again...that if she were ever again faced with having to walk out of her home with nothing but the clothes on her back, that she could have a marketable resume and secure income. It's true that she is the one who has made all the effort to learn a very broad range of new skills. My role has been to try and be a good role model and cheerleader...to provide all the opportunities for her that I can.

There were a couple of people who told me this year how much my Twitter presence has meant to them. An odd thing, in a way...and certainly not in my job description. I see it as my work, however, to connect and communicate, as well as to create and lift others. To be sure, there is nothing special about the account---it's just me: an odd mix of data viz, old movies, and personal observations. Somehow, it helps others figure out how to move into their online presence and that pleases me.

My work this year has been to change conversations about data. And yes, my job is to support district data efforts. But there is nothing in the description about helping schools create narratives. While I might be terribly behind in my data stories project, my tiny Grinch heart grows three sizes every time I hear a school board member state their preference for a data story vs. raw numbers or have a principal who mentions that they are starting with inquiry (vs. data) to develop next steps for their building. I am starting to be recognized "someone who can synthesize a story," and I find this exciting.

https://twitter.com/NoraGSlater/status/865214363938029569

It is in my job description that I should collaborate with others. It is my work to help my colleagues craft their vision, encourage them to stretch their expectations for themselves, and reflect on what it is they really want to accomplish. My ever open door brings in people who need advice or encouragement or another opinion. I do my best to be both honest and encouraging. I like seeing others succeed.

The 2017 school year will finish in three weeks. I am planning the things I need to complete over the summer, as well as setting goals and projects for next year. I keep thinking about this tension between the job and the work...two things which should be the same, but aren't. As long as I fulfill the requirements of the job, I will continue to meet some of what others believe I should be. When I do the work, I have the chance to be the sort of educator I believe I should be. I worry what might be lost during these unspoken negotiations between how my employer describes what I do and how things look from my end, but I am hopeful that I can bring them closer together.

Magic in the Middle

Long ago and far away, when I was doing some work about science notebooks in elementary classrooms, there was always a reminder that the prompts used in primary grades (especially kindergarten and first) had to be very targeted and high quality. Yes, this should be true for all grades, but for little ones, there is only so much attention they have for completing a writing task. You have to be extra intentional about making the most of those opportunities.

I've been reminded of this recently while reading through some research and other resources on student-involved data use (SIDU). "SIDU is a process in which teachers facilitate student use of their own data to set goals, monitor progress toward those goals and engage in reflection to inform learning" (Jimerson, 2016). It typically includes data binders for students, data walls, data chats, or some other quasi-public display of data.

The concept of having students track their own data isn't new---and it isn't a bad idea. Transforming the raw numbers of grades into something more visual supports the creation of meaning. But my big question goes back to the idea at the beginning of this post: With limited resources in time and attention (for any grade level), is having students draw their own charts the best place to spend those?

Let's say I have 15 minutes a week to devote to SIDU in my classroom. Unless my goal is to teach students how to communicate effectively using charts and work on their data viz techniques, I don't think having kids make charts is going to make much of a difference in their learning. I do think that providing the charts with a couple of targeted questions and asking students to reflect on those could be where the magic happens. I also think that teacher time is valuable. Just like figuring out the focus area for a young writer, determining which pieces of data are most powerful to share is a critical step.

As I learn more about SIDU, I wonder if the definitions I see throughout the research are too rigid. How do readers workshop or writers workshop connect? What about social-emotional learning, "soft" skills, or other non-academic goals? Is there a place for those as SIDU? Qualitative data, too? If so, what does this look like?

Or, even more importantly, how do we help students identify their own problems of practice, then plan and monitor changes?

I'd like to support some action research around this in my district next year. I'm not sure what it would look like just yet, especially since nearly all of the examples I'm reading about involve kids making their own charts. I'm not opposed to a project with that, but I'd like to find the sweet spot in all of this...the "high-leverage" place where the magic happens for students creating their own meaning out of the information we have about them.

Have you tried this in your own classroom or school? What did you learn?

Keeping It Together

I have had a stationery fetish my entire life. Pens, pencils, paper, and their kin are always among my favourite things to collect and use. When I was a classroom teacher, I always kept a paper gradebook and planner, even as more and more capabilities became available in the digital space.

Since moving into other roles in education, and the advent of tablets and smartphones, I've tried lots of combinations of tools to manage my calendar, tasks, and projects. It is perhaps no surprise that I've finally settled into a paper-based routine that I love. Out in the world, when people see me use it, they ask me about it. I thought I'd share it here.

Calendar
Make no mistake, an Outlook calendar is used to organize most of my time. This is because so many meetings are scheduled through that tool. I don't sync it directly to my phone, however, to avoid public disclosure issues. (I don't ever sync work email to my personal phone, either.) But, I do import it into Google and then connect to a personal account. Yes, this is some extra work (about two minutes a week) and what I can see on my phone isn't always current. I sleep better, though.

On my desk, I keep a life planner from Erin Condren. I love being able to see a whole year at once, even though I wish it was a school year as opposed to a calendar year. (They do make lesson plan books for teachers that are organized by school year.) I have a color coded system I use to put dots on days of the monthly layouts to help me easily scan for the regular meetings and events. I am also not averse to using stickers, even at my advanced age. I add them for birthdays I need to remember or appointments or other unusual events. I like that all of this gives me something that is both functional and pretty to look at. Maybe the pretty part shouldn't matter, but it does.

Each week, I use the layouts to track appointments and tasks for each day. I put the meetings in the box on the right of each day, including the topic and begin/end times. In the lined area, I write my tasks. This becomes an invaluable place to jot reminders when someone asks for something over the phone or has just stopped by the office. I check things off as they're completed. Anything left at the end of the week gets copied over to the next week. Sometimes, there are tasks that get ported over for awhile. But usually, it feels darned good to see all those little boxes checked at the end of the week.

Journal
I have long admired the bullet journals that so many people use. I do apply some elements of the system to my paper calendar. I love my calendar, but there is so much more about work (and life) that I can't capture there. So, I started using a bound notebook (Leuchtturm 1917 dotted) to capture everything else: meeting notes, projects for work, information about data to remember for next year, movies I've watched, poems, or anything else that interests me. For example, here are some notes from the recent ASCD conference.

And here is what my data notes look like. You might recognize the more polished product in a recent post, but it all starts here. I try to capture as much as I can about how I construct things in Excel: where the data came from, how I cleaned it, the formulas used to transform it, and how the charts were built. This always comes in handy later, when I'm asked to do something similar.

A couple of other things to note about this page, both having to do with how I overcame my inertia in starting this type of journal. I had long thought---incorrectly---that when starting the journal I would need to have the whole thing mapped out. And this overwhelmed me. I just couldn't figure out how many pages I would need to devote to each topic. Finally, I realized that I didn't have to. First of all, I can "thread" pages. They don't have to be right next to each other. I just need to know how to find them. So, in the lower leftthand corner, you'll notice a note to myself about the previous pages in the book that I used to work on this same project. If I need to, I can look back at them very quickly to see all of my notes and the evolution of the project. The second thing I do is that I use a piece of coloured Washi tape at the edge of the page to signal when I'm changing topics in the journal. I might have meetings for 8 pages...and then it changes to a data project. Over time, this becomes a visual of how I have spent my time over several months. The edges of the pages become a sort of bar chart.

I love that this little journal fits in just about any purse that I have. I can have it with me all the time to record ideas. I like being able to write, draw, or tape in whatever I like. Most importantly, I appreciate that it really captures how I spend my time. So much of my work is intangible---sitting in meetings or trying to figure out how to complete certain projects. This little book makes me feel like time didn't just disappear.

One journal lasts me about six months.

Tools
My go to, all time, super duper, favourite tool for writing is a Palomino Blackwing pencil, with a nicely sharpened long point. If you haven't tried one of these pencils, the kind used by John Steinbeck, Chuck Jones, Stephen Sondheim, and others...do yourself a solid and get some. I have gotten several people addicted to them over the years. They were all skeptical, but in the end, a pencil is not a pencil is not a pencil.

Beyond that, I carry about 20 Staedtler Fineliners with me at any given time. I love the colour selection, the way they move on the paper, and again...even though it shouldn't matter...they make things pretty. Considering that most of what gets contained in my calendar and journal is work-related, having something pleasing to look at is far more motivating.

The little tool bag in my purse also carries a small ruler, some 2x2" sticky notes, a pack of Zebra Mildliners, and a pencil sharpener. At home, I have been collecting a wide variety of Washi tape, which I also use to dress up my notes. I may need a 12-step program to manage this habit in the future.

In the end, how we manage our time and information is always personal. I love looking through the following hashtags on Twitter for ideas: #bujo, #bujoinspire, #studyblr, #studygram. What works for you?

Designing for Truth

For the past couple of years, a colleague (and friend) of mine and I have been sharing some ideas around human-centered design at conferences. We've presented to early childhood educators, principals, assessment coordinators, and others. The presentation is not so much a "how to" guide, but rather an attempt to shift the narratives around how we make plans for improvement. So much of the time, we start with data and just roll on from there.

We are conditioned to be data-driven, not data-informed. I always advocate for questions to drive the processes we use, not the data. A human-centered approach starts with questions and concerns and builds from there. As educators, we know---or, at least we think we know---the issues within our schools. Data may show us that not all students are reading on grade level, but the issues may not be exclusively around teaching. Perhaps we need more resources in the library to develop a love for reading. Maybe we think a reading buddy would help kids build social-emotional skills as a way to gain purpose for reading. Lots of possibilities that go beyond "Teach harder." At Tapestry last month, Neil Halloran gave a talk on Emotional Statistics. While the content wasn't specific to human-centered design, it spoke to the practicality of building empathy into the data stories we tell.

What's on Your Radar
In our sessions, we use a bulls-eye diagram cut into six slices. The slices are labeled with whatever topics we think the audience would like to talk about. (If you have enough time, let the audience generate the categories...we usually only have an hour or so and take some shortcuts.) For early childhood, that might be related to kindergarten readiness. For administrators, it's a framework for high school completion. Each person gets some sticky notes and some private reasoning time to generate as many concerns or questions they have about each area. Then, small groups come together to share these while placing them on the radar chart...gradually coming to consensus about the 2 - 3 most critical issues. The example above comes from a session with principals:

Sometimes, we leave a wild card slice so that people can have some space to raise issues that might not fit elsewhere. All of this leads to some great discussion and some thoughts then about how to build action plans around what ends up in the center. If you'd like to try this for yourself, you can download the instructions and radar template.

Design Thinking Comes to ASCD 2017
At this year's ASCD annual conference, Empower 17, there were two sessions incorporating design thinking. The first, Design-inspired leadership, by Alyssa Gallagher and Kami Thordarson,was focused on re-envisioning the role of the principal. Based loosely on the Stanford Design School Model, the presenters defined design as the creation of artifacts that work.

Learn more about the model

They suggested that we have the power to change the rules around how we use our roles as leaders. The design-inspired roles included the Opportunity Seeker, Experience Architect, Rule Breaker, Producer, and Storyteller. Of these, the Storyteller role is the most powerful, as it captures minds and hearts. As someone who reminds people to use data to tell your story as the tagline on her other blog, this last piece spoke to me. I think just as Halloran reminds us that the numbers---the truth---are all well and good, we need to be intentional about making these human connections.

Patrice Dawkins-Jackson and Wendy Kelly led an extended session on Design inspired and habits of mind: Influencing instruction and beyond that combined the Stanford model with Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind. They described design as a human-centered process using empathy to solve the real problem. Design is not about art (although it can be), but more about creative thinking. They led the group through a model of the process of keeping user needs at the center of the work.

What I appreciated about both of these sessions was that they speak to a shift in the way we think about how we identify our goals and work toward them. Schools, as a rule, are not early adopters of ideas, technology, or much else. As another presenter at the conference opined, schools embrace business ideas (deficit-based approach, data-driven decision making, factory models...) as they are fading. We run many years beyond current trends, but better late than never, right? And if these sessions at ASCD are any indication, conversations about taking a design-approach are much more wide-ranging than I would have guessed. We build humans in education---not widgets. I know that there are thousands of teachers, coaches, principals, and others who see this everyday, but as a system, we are not so good at remembering this outcome. You don't have to be an artist to engage in design---you just have to care about the people affected by your efforts. We can use processes that honor that, as well as the data that are generated.

If you're interested in learning more about design thinking, I highly recommend the resources provided by IDEO. You can even get a group together for a course to apply human-centered design principles to a problem at your school, district or community. Or, in the spirit of the Internet, you might also enjoy Design Thinking Lessons from Our Cats. Giorgia Lupi recently presented on How we can find ourselves in the data, with examples from her own work:


There are additional posts about ASCD 2017 on my other blog. I shared what I learned on my annual roundup of data tools in the exhibit hall, as well as my own presentation on using qualitative data to put the humanity back into the truths we tell.

The Shape of Things

Part of my day job is devoted to helping people in my district use data effectively. That could mean supporting the superintendent, working with teachers, or building tools for principals to monitor school improvement goals. The job is wide-ranging and is never dull. The challenge is to not only get people to think critically about the questions they want to answer with data, but also to have them think beyond student achievement.

Recently, I built a tool to help a principal get a glance of his whole school at one time in terms of attendance and discipline. The classrooms are represented like this:

Discipline is on the left and attendance is on the right. The total number of referrals and absences is represented for a given month, with September at the top and June (eventually) at the bottom.

A grade level might look like this:

What do you notice? Do you wonder why Teacher 2 has so many more absences than Teacher 4? Or maybe why discipline referrals had such a jump for Teacher 4 in March?

And here's another grade level:

Something is going on with Teacher C. The number of student absences is way out of proportion for the rest of the grade level. What are Teachers B and D doing to (a) get their students to school on a regular basis and (b) avoid referrals to the office?

If you were a principal, where would you focus some resources? If you were a teacher, what would you think if you saw your classroom data represented this way?

This display is not an end point. There are no numbers...just shapes and patterns and questions. But I like to think that if we provide some different ways to represent what happens in our schools that we can get to the types of conversations we most want to have.

If you're interested in how to build these charts, the basics are posted on my Excel blog.

The Dirty Dozen

Today, this blog is 12 years old. We will now be entering those awkward teenage years, full of sturm and drang. Or perhaps that phrase is more reflective of our time together until now.

I won't take you down memory lane. I think we all know the web and social media have changed a lot over the last 12 years. I won't claim this space will be active for another twelve years, but I can say that I own the domain until this place is *gulp* 20 years old. And while some may have tried to shut me down in previous years, I am quite sure that I will only quiet my voice when I choose to do so.

We have a long four years ahead, educators. Blogs were a space for individualism and activism back when I started this space...and I suspect that blogs may become that refuge again as federal leadership puts public education under attack once again. Our ideas are too large to contain in 140 characters, a single image on Instagram, or in feeds of Facebook.

I believe that we all do what we can to take care of ourselves and one another. For some of you, that's giving money on DonorsChoose to your favourite classroom(s). Others participate in outward shows of ally-ship amongst different groups. There are volunteers of time, resources, or presence. Make the best choice you can within the space you have to live and work in. This blog will still be here to put forward some new ideas, revisit some old ones, and walk with you along the way.

Thanks for reading.

A Wall to Invite Others In

If you follow my other blog, then you know that I have set a challenge this year to tell 10 new data stories in 10 months. My goal is to only use data that we don't typically share. That doesn't mean that it's private, just overlooked. All the data I'm using would be considered public, but no one requests things like Outlook calendars for meeting spaces or the number of emails sent in a day.

I've seen a lot of data walls over the years. I've heard of the spaces they occupy referred to as "war rooms." These data are, without fail, just about assessment scores. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at student performance, but I often remind people in my district that children are more than the sum of their test scores.

What would happen if we built a (data) wall that invited conversation, rather than screamed at an audience?

One school in our district has decided to join me on my data story journey this year. They are sharing data about library book checkouts by grade for each with of the semester.

It's ginormous...maybe 4 x 8 feet. A lot of work has been put into getting everything labeled. The numbers at the top of each stacked bar are written on little books!

Every colour represents a grade level and every bar is a week. Fourth grade has been rockin' it this year, it appears.

There is a lot of joy this year at this school. They are so proud of their data wall (as they should be). I've heard about several teachers bringing their classes to look at it and all the good discussions that ensued. Parents are asking about and engaging with the data. These are data that generate conversation in a positive way.

Walls aren't always about who we want to keep out. Once in awhile, they're all about who we want to bring in.

Dance, Star, Dance

My maternal grandmother grew up in the Missouri Ozarks. She married at 15 and had four children by the time she was 20. Her husband shot small game (squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs...) for the family to eat. There was no indoor plumbing until my mother was a junior in high school. It was a hard way to live.

As an adult...and a parent...my mother asked my grandmother how they had managed it all. Her reply was simply, "We were angry a lot of the time." Perfectly understandable. She elaborated later that it also wasn't easy to have four children under the age of five. They would work on helping one child learn to walk and then remember they hadn't helped another to sit up yet. It was a juggling act in terms of traditional milestones.

I often think of this story as a metaphor for my life, both at home and at work. There are so many things I'm supposed to stay on top of...and just when I get one area all tidied up, I realize that some other area is precariously close to being out of control. No matter how well-organized I am, there is just more and more to take on. It can feel futile, but I've started keeping a sort of log book this year. I have a little journal that I carry with me at all times. I record all the meeting notes each day, capture the steps of projects I'm working on, or even ideas from articles I read. When I look back, it's still an overwhelming amount of information, but at least I can see that it is all leading to small changes.

If I play out the metaphor of my grandmother and her family, I realize that all of her children (including my mother) graduated from high school---something neither my grandmother or her husband achieved. Out of the five children, two served in the military and four attended college all the way through earning a Masters degree. They may have had less than optimal conditions going in, but something greater emerged later.

It's kind of a Nietzche'ian end to the story: Out of chaos, comes order. Or, more poetically, You must carry a chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star.

Just once I'd like to feel like everything is caught up and as it should be. That may never happen, but it doesn't mean I can't make something great in the process. Time to find the rhythm and dance.

What next?

Like many people I know, I have felt fucking terrified since the results of Tuesday's US presidential election were revealed. And that's the nicest way I can think of to say it. I also know that I'm not alone in that feeling. From my friend who had to explain to his son that nothing will happen to his family with two dads...while all the while knowing we have a VP who thinks we can electrocute people straight. To our district ELL coordinator who spent the day reassuring students. To my bff, who is black and has seen so many tenuous steps toward equity. To a teacher who told me today that her daughter doesn't know where it will be safe to go to college given the repudiation of women the vote represents.

Two of my favourite Jennifers (Borgioli Binis and Orr) have recently posted some reflections on the aftermath of the election and moving forward. Orr, as a classroom teacher, keeps her focus exactly where you would hope it would be: supporting students. Borgioli Binis sets the stage for peer-to-peer conversations.

And I am currently pondering the next level in the system: How do we as administrators or district leaders support discourse among staff? I do think it's good for kids to see that we can disagree on some things, but agree on others...that we can engage in healthy conversation. I also think that some of the differences in opinion in this case are so personal and fundamental, so strongly tied to one's own core values, that finding common ground might be impossible.

I had a teacher confide in me today that she felt like the election result was ripping apart her staff. She was horrified that her peers would be so open about anxious they were for the deporting to begin of immigrant families who send students to her school. The truth, of course, is that those opinions were always there working in the classroom next to hers, they just weren't openly expressed. And now she knows things about the adults in her building that she doesn't want to know...and can't set aside. She is too afraid to engage in conversation with them, even though she knows she needs to. She knows that white, protestant, women...like the ones who fill her school...didn't vote for Hillary. To make change in the future, she has to create change in thinking with them.

I wondered how many principals were seeing this in their schools...staffs divided by the results. And yes, I know that elections happen every four years and that there are always winners and losers. But something this time around feels very different. The campaigning was just so vile and ugly by the candidate who won. Were we, as leaders, prepared for the outcome (either way) and how this would affect relationships among our staff? What do we do next to ensure that friendships and collegial efforts stay strong and focused on what's best for kids? How do we help teachers who may have lost trust or respect for their peers (who may not know this) move forward with them?

This is what I'm pondering over the long weekend while I engage in some self-care and think about my own path forward. I am scared that there will not be a light to find in all of this dark.

Resources

• What to do if you see Islamophobia
• Speak up: Responding to everyday bigotry
• How to coexist with citizens whose views you despise
• Supporting students who are stressed

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Band-Aid

In Jaws, there comes a moment while hunting for the shark that Roy Scheider's character realizes that they're going to need a bigger boat. The problem---the great white shark---is far larger than they'd realized. In the movie, it the first time we glimpse the shark, too. The size of the (pseudo) animal makes the audience nervous, too. We realize that the captain's bravado isn't going to be enough to seal the deal...and we feel rather small in that boat on the big ocean.

The title of this post came from some words I found myself saying recently at a meeting. We have a lot of big changes ahead for our district. Plenty of construction is happening, thanks to a bond passed by the voters. Next year, sixth graders will begin attending our middle schools---meaning our elementary schools will be losing staff and reconfiguring schedules, and our middle schools will be gaining staff and have 2/3 of their student populations new to their buildings. The money from a recent technology levy has made for some wonderful additions for staff and stuff. We have new leadership, which brings its own new ideas to the mix.

All of these sea changes have been planned, of course. We've made choices---from the voters, to the school board, to the administrators, to parents. But as we steer this ship to our new beginnings, other temptations arise. As long as we're making these changes, why not make a few others we've been wanting to take on, but too afraid to initiate? Why not just "rip the band-aid off" on x while we're already doing something different with y? I realized after a bit that we are, indeed, going to need a bigger band-aid...or suffer a death by a thousand little cuts.

I've pondered change a lot over the years on Ye Olde Blog...enough posts that I even made a tag for it. I don't know that I'm any better now at understanding how to manage it vs when I started thinking about it. There have been a few points in my personal life where I discovered it was better to rip off a giant band-aid...to let everything fall apart and then pick up the pieces I wanted to keep and move on. That path was better than trying to duct tape things together and convince myself it was all right. Sometimes it isn't all right...and that's okay. But that's just me. What happens when we talk about a whole school? Is it all right to just throw in all of the changes at once and see what grows from the rubble? Do we take baby steps or do we jump in the deep end...and how do we know which of those to do in which situations?

The sea changes involving my own job are calming down, at long last. It's been a difficult few months and I've learned a lot about patience and letting go of some expectations in favour of others. I'm learning new things about resilience as it applies to my own role and how to develop it in the ones I work with. I'm hopeful that I can continue learn and advise others on finding the right-sized approach instead of always looking to the bigger one.

Many Facets to the Same Jewel

Over the last several months, I've been doing a lot of reading about additional perspectives on data visualization. We are all familiar with bar and line charts...and many other types, mostly developed and promoted by white males. On one hand, it would seem that the basic versions of charts we use would be somewhat agnostic; but then, nothing ever is.

As I was traveling down another rabbit hole, I ran across an article by Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert: Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete. It is not an article about data viz, but it does explore ideas related to "accepting the validity of multiple ways of knowing and thinking." The focus of the article is STEM, and in particular, the difficulty with recruiting and retaining women. They seek to "address sources of exclusion determined not by rules that keep women out, but by ways of thinking that make them reluctant to join in." The article was written in 1992, so some of the references feel dated, but the concept that there should be a variety of valid pathways to the same endpoint is timeless.

I couldn't help wondering about connections with education. We are primarily a profession of women (about 76%), and yet only about half of all principals and just 15% of superintendents are female. Turkle and Papert write that "Women are too often faced with the not necessarily conscious choice of putting themselves at odds either with the cultural meanings of being a scientist or with the cultural constructions of being a woman." I would guess that you could replace scientist in the previous sentence with principal, superintendent, or even leader and have a partial explanation about why there are so few of us at the organizational helm. Or perhaps administration lacks appeal because of how many women view the world as "a web of interconnections among people" vs. a "hierarchy of autonomous positions."

Further than that, I've been thinking about the implications for how we offer professional learning opportunities. I was talking with a male colleague recently about a project he's been working on to use video and remote coaching in the classroom. When he wound down, I asked him if he'd noticed that all of the names he'd mentioned...all of the teachers involved...were male. He had, but his reflection on that was focused on recruiting women. I suggested that maybe they wanted a different opportunity to engage. There's more than one way to engage in reflective practice, after all. In another conversation last week, I listened as a teacher passionately described several pieces of information from her various heroes of grading. All men. Don't know if she noticed that, but I sure did.

All this has started me wondering about PLCs, conferences, edcamps, instructional coaching, workshops, and other opportunities we provide for professional learning. Do we ever apply a lens which causes us to look at how practitioners view things---including societal messaging---vs. the goals we have in the name of "support"?

As I mentioned earlier, the article that prompted this thinking was written in 1992. It focuses on gender. There is no mention of the rich backgrounds and intersectionality that all teachers bring to the classroom...their ethnicity or race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and more. And that absence points to the lack of a full range of conversation about what our system of education looks like from something other than a white male message. We continue to make efforts around social justice conversations in our classrooms. How do we reframe the entire context of school to include the different viewpoints of those who work in it?

I'll continue to keep an eye out for that, as I read through various articles on Feminist Data Visualization, alternate histories of data viz, and other aspects of the digital humanities. What have you seen in your travels through the web?

Update
Interesting article in today's Guardian asks Why aren't we designing cities that work for women---not just men?

And, via Jennifer Borgioli Binis, here's a podcast (Episode #48) on the intersection of women, education, and leadership.