The problem is not that schools aren’t collecting enough information about student performance. It’s that teachers have too much data. It’s overwhelming for them. They don’t know what data points to focus on—and they don’t have time to be combing through massive amounts of data to figure out what students need.

As a result, the sophisticated data analysis and reporting tools that many school districts have invested in tend to be underutilized.

In our district, teachers use Illuminate Data and Assessment (DnA) to create assessments, and teachers at our middle school administer these tests through their online learning management system. Teachers also use DnA to analyze the results of these assessments. But an experience we had during a presentation at a staff meeting showed us that teachers were not using our tools very frequently, if at all.

We realized that if we wanted teachers to use data to inform their instruction, we had to simplify the number of reports for them to look at.

To make evaluating data as easy for teachers to use as we could, we customized the information available for each grade level, making sure reports and resources that will have the greatest impact on student success were accessible.

By streamlining the amount of data teachers have at their fingertips and simplifying how we present this information to them, we have made it easier for our teachers to use data to inform their practice.

Read the full article about increasing teachers' data use by Debbie Clark and Stephanie Williamson at Getting Smart.