During World War II, researchers at the Center for Naval Analysis faced a critical problem. Many bombers were getting shot down on runs over Germany. The naval researchers knew they needed hard data to solve this problem and went to work. After each mission, the bullet holes and damage from each bomber was painstakingly reviewed…
In the past, I’ve sat in on principal interviews. One of my favorite questions is, “Are you data driven or data informed?” Since this isn’t a common question, interviewees do not have a standard response and have to work through their thoughts. There are usually two routes that interviewees take on the answer. The first…
On a larger scale, this love affair with data—what Berkeley geography graduate students Camilla Hawthorne and Brittany Meché termed “fetishized numeration” in their Space & Society article—is visible in corporate, academic, and policy circles. At UC Berkeley, Chancellor Dirks wrote in March that “Across all of higher education, faculty and administrators are increasingly recognizing the…
Learn to access the right data: the why (why do your students not get it?) and the how (how can you reteach content to stick?). Source: 7 Steps to Becoming a Data-Driven School I prefer the term data informed. No matter what the data tells you, sometimes you have to go with your gut reaction. There…
Have you ever seen a school data wall? In a struggling Newark, N.J., public school, I’ve seen bulletin boards showing the test scores of each grade compared with state averages. And in one in affluent Silicon Valley, I’ve seen smartboards that track individual students’ math responses in real time. These kinds of public displays send…