Actionable data: How to clarify, consolidate, and centralize collection systems

The secret to maintaining any routine is making it easy for yourself. Want to squeeze in more early-morning workouts? Pack your gym clothes the night before. Trying to keep the mail from piling up? Keep a wastebin next to the mail table. And if you're trying to build a habit among a group of people — like consistently and thoroughly responding to feedback surveys, for example — the trick is to simplify and streamline wherever possible, for both the audience and yourself. Today in our Actionable Data series: running large-scale data projects while respecting your teachers' time — and your own.

Actionable data: Plotting robust but realistic timeframes for PD data collection

Short, intermediate and long-term change can look very different in both pace and types of indicator — not to mention the the complex task of balancing the existing demands of the school year with your program's data needs. Let’s explore how to build robust yet flexible calendars for data accountability:

Data Rich, Insight Rich with Maury County Public Schools and Windsor Public Schools

Two district leaders discuss the six common problems that show up in their work, and specific strategies they've used to solve them.

Will we meet you in St. Louis? Ways to connect with KickUp at Learning Forward 2019

2019's Learning Forward Annual Conference is almost here! KickUp is thrilled to once again power the conference evaluation and present sessions with our innovative K-12 PD partners from across the country. Check out all the ways to connect with us over four days of building capacity and changing practice.

Putting PD Feedback Data to Work: Takeaways from Texas

Professional development feedback gets a bad rap. District leaders and PD directors often consider it subjective and shallow, focusing on verifiable metrics instead: hours clocked, attendances logged and sessions completed. But participant feedback can be an untapped treasure trove of actionable data, and innovative PD leaders are using it to formatively evaluate programs for in-the-moment success. We recently talked to the directors of two Texas districts about the ways they’re listening to — and using — post-PD feedback.

Actionable data: Turning subjective goals to concrete outcomes

How do you balance maintaining compliance, hitting district goals, and doing the real work of inspiring your teacher-leaders to achieve? It’s not by defaulting to the safety of easily-measurable but shallow metrics — it’s by sharpening the focus of the qualitative changes.

PD Feedback Data for Continuous Improvement

A conversation between two busy, high-volume Texas districts on gathering and effectively using PD feedback for continuous improvement and impact assessment.

Actionable data: Teacher PD, logic models, and connecting activities to outcomes

When we talk about impact in K-12 education, the conversation inevitably turns to outcome data (like student test scores). And it's true that the ultimate accountability is to our students. But what about the work that comes between? What if there were a hundred tiny invisible factors feeding into those outcomes? What if there were a way to identify, measure, and align them from the start?

Actionable data: Evaluating professional learning ROI

Join KickUp as we examine six of the most common roadblocks to thriving data cultures. With practical tips, guiding questions, and real-life examples of districts excelling through data, you can push your professional learning program to new levels of effectiveness.

Case Study

Comal Independent School District

Hanna Schramm

Director of Professional Learning

In 2015, San Antonio-area Comal Independent School District launched Comal U, a new multi-day PD institute providing summer learning hours for each of the district's 1,300 teachers. KickUp worked with Comal to build out a custom event management and credit tracking system aligning with both state policy requirements and Comal’s own curriculum. With the time saved seamlessly managing, tracking and coordinating a high-volume event series, Comal U added 15 more sessions the very first year — and counting.