Giving Compass' Take:

• Anne Wicks and William McKenzie examine the Dallas Independent School District's ACE initiative's impact on two schools and their data driven learning.

• How do these schools keep data inspiring students instead of discouraging the slower learners? What could help with the broader implementation of data driven learning?

• Read about personalized learning becoming district-wide in Dallas.

The Dallas Independent School District strives toward having a strong majority of an Accelerating Campus Excellence (ACE) school’s faculty and leadership being rated “proficient.”

During a springtime visit to the MLK Learning Center, it was common to see teachers walking around their classrooms with clipboards in hand. They would circle desks, talk with students about the assignment they were working on, and jot down notes about the work of individual students.

Clipboard monitoring allows teachers to use real-time data to assess the progress of students as they work. They can then circle back to intervene with struggling students, sometimes in small groups. Jolee Healey, a former principal who oversees DISD’s ACE program, calls this “data in the moment.”

Another ACE technique is using clocks to pace instruction. If educators wander off their lesson plans, they are likely to fall behind where students are expected to be in learning a state’s standards.

Each classroom has a wall display showing how many students are on track in a particular subject. The categories include “masters,” “meets,” “approaches” and “growth.” Every student is represented by a number to protect their identity, but a visitor can quickly see where students are on their path to becoming proficient in subjects like reading, math, and English.

Data review meetings are a key part of the weekly routine on ACE campuses. The sessions challenge teachers to use data to design lessons that encourage learning.

Results at the school have been encouraging. An impressive 90.3 percent of MLK’s fifth-graders passed the state’s reading exam at the end of the 2018-19 school year. That represented a 20.7 percent increase from the scores of fifth graders on the 2017-18 reading exam. Similarly, 83.3 percent of fifth-graders passed the state’s math exam, which was up from 60 percent the year before.

Read the full article about ACE schools using data to promote individualized instruction by Anne Wicks and William McKenzie at The 74.