Summary: Data dashboards: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 17:34, 10 June 2016

Written by Mica Pollock and Jedd Cohen for the dashboard project, with initial dashboard development by Somerville technologist Seth Woodworth and next development for piloting by David Lord of San Diego

Click here for the Overview and key findings on this project; click here for the Expanded story on this project.

What communication challenges did this project address?

In diverse districts across the country, administrators, teachers, and approved service providers are often unable to quickly review patterns in basic data affecting students – like trends in their absences, test scores, grades, and credits. This is often due to the high cost of cutting-edge student data systems (or, the high cost of professional development showing educators how to use the systems they have). Families, for their part, are often unsure how to find all the relevant data on their children, how to read data once they are given it (e.g., a report card), and how to communicate with schools about it. (see http://nationalpirc.org/engagement_webinars/webinar-student-data.html). As both educators and parents know, gaps in available basic data also can create gaps in student service, because people in charge of supporting young people remain unaware about some key aspects of their situation. How are speakers of language X doing on standardized tests? Who is enrolled in which afterschool program? Was Jose's absence rate over the past semester unusual?

In Somerville in 2009, teachers and administrators said they couldn’t easily view or sort patterns in student data because that data was buried in different “fields” in the student information system (SIS), which Somerville couldn’t afford to replace or fundamentally upgrade. Over the past two years, several local technologists, a teacher, and several researchers have been working with the teachers' families, related afterschool providers, and two principals in the Somerville School District to help design and create "dashboard" tools using open source software (free software that any developer can adapt).

A "dashboard" is a quick, visually simple view of student data, all in one place. Our "dashboards" are designed to let (appropriate) viewers go to a single place – on the web – to find and sort comprehensive data on each student, class of students, and the entire school. Particularly in designing our "individual view" (which would display an individual student's data to student, parent, teacher, and approved service providers), we’ve been working to design a tool that not only displays basic data on students, but also launches a focused conversation among stakeholders about that data.

The first dashboard below (our "administrator" and "teacher" view) shows educators data on a school or classroom of students. The "individual view" dashboard beneath it shows data on an individual student to student, teachers, parents, and approved afterschool providers. This view also allows these people to communicate with each other through the “comment boxes.” (Names are fictional to preserve anonymity.)

On the OneVille Project, the dashboard was one of six subprojects and our first effort to create a tech tool totally from scratch with young local technologists. Development with our Somerville colleagues took more budgeted hours than any of us originally anticipated, and after some excellent pro bono work by David Lord of San Diego, by Spring 2012 we were about 60 development hours from pilot-readiness on the admin and teacher views (and roughly 300 hours from pilot-readiness on the individual view). Remaining work: to finish tweaking the final programming "tubes" linking the dashboard to Somerville's Student Information System so that data could be displayed 100% glitch-free. The "code" for all of the dashboard views is linked on the Overview and key findings page and to date is the core "product" of this pilot. Open source code also means that any developer anywhere can develop on the product we made. For example, community youth-serving and university outreach orgs needing to view and sort youth- and student-related data have expressed interest in a similar free product developed for their specific needs. See the Overview and key findings and Expanded story pages for the full story of developing this tool.

Why is it important to improve communications?

What we found:

¡Aha! A gap in student data equals a gap in service.

¡Aha! One-Stop Shopping: People say it's crucial to be able to see different kinds of student data at the same time, in a single display -- and, be able to sort that data to check for patterns.

¡Aha! Open source data tools could save schools across the country significant costs, IF design goes fast enough, IF community users are ready to use the tools, and IF tech support for open source tools remains available locally.

¡Aha! In addition to having the ability to quickly see and sort such basic data, diverse partners in young people’s lives need supports to communicate ABOUT basic data.

How do the dashboards work? How might they be designed?

You can see how we designed our dashboards in Overview and key findings and Expanded story.

How do you know if your school could improve communication?

Questions to ask about the current system in your school:

➢ To support young people, what “data” should show up on any data display, and why?

➢ How does your school make data on students visible to school administrators, classroom teachers, and afterschool providers? And how about parents? Which necessary data is readily available, and which isn't?

➢ What infrastructure would support actual conversations about "data," between the people who share young people's lives?

➢ Which conversations about data should happen in person and which could be supported online? Could you do an experiment to test which works for what?

➢ What data isn’t found in any “student information system” but should still be known? By whom?

➢ Is your district spending tons of money on data display tools to get basic data in front of people?

➢ If so, how might low cost tech development or professional development on the tools you already have support such information-sharing?

➢ ***How can you ensure resources for ongoing tech modifications and tech support after you have developed your initial tool?

The Next Layer: Connecting to Folks Doing Similar Work in Other Communities.

We'd love to spark a lively exchange between people working on similar things.

Want to talk further?

Are you working on improving communications in your own school or community?

Contact point people for the dashboard project directly at:

Jedd Cohen (jic378@mail.harvard.edu); Mica Pollock (mica.pollock@gmail.com)

Click here for the Overview and key findings on this project; click here for the Expanded story on this project.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-THIS IS JUST AN EARLY DUMP FOR IDEAS, TOTALLY UNEDITED. JUST GETTING STARTED
+''Written by Mica Pollock and Jedd Cohen for the dashboard project, with initial dashboard development by Somerville technologist Seth Woodworth and next development for piloting by David Lord of San Diego
+Click here for the '''[[Overview and key findings: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Overview and key findings</font>]] '''on this project; click here for the '''[[Expanded story: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Expanded story</font>]] '''on this project.
+===What communication challenges did this project address?===
-Documenters: please use these categories to organize your documentation. Please see the drafted [[Parent connector network]] page for explanation of each category. See [[Vision for OneVille documentation]] for more discussion of what we hope the final wiki will look like and accomplish!
+In diverse districts across the country, administrators, teachers, and approved service providers are often unable to quickly review patterns in basic data affecting students – like trends in their absences, test scores, grades, and credits. This is often due to the high cost of cutting-edge student data systems (or, the high cost of professional development showing educators how to use the systems they have). Families, for their part, are often unsure how to find all the relevant data on their children, how to read data once they are given it (e.g., a report card), and how to communicate with schools about it. (see http://nationalpirc.org/engagement_webinars/webinar-student-data.html). As both educators and parents know, gaps in available basic data also can create gaps in student service, because people in charge of supporting young people remain unaware about some key aspects of their situation. How are speakers of language X doing on standardized tests? Who is enrolled in which afterschool program? Was Jose's absence rate over the past semester unusual?
-==Summary==
+In Somerville in 2009, teachers and administrators said they couldn’t easily view or sort patterns in student data because that data was buried in different “fields” in the student information system (SIS), which Somerville couldn’t afford to replace or fundamentally upgrade. Over the past two years, several local technologists, a teacher, and several researchers have been working with the teachers' families, related afterschool providers, and two principals in the Somerville School District to help design and create "dashboard" tools using open source software (free software that any developer can adapt).
-(Note to documenters: In this summary, quickly tell the reader a, b, and c:
+A "dashboard" is a quick, visually simple view of student data, all in one place. Our "dashboards" are designed to let (appropriate) viewers go to a single place – on the web – to find and sort comprehensive data on each student, class of students, and the entire school. Particularly in designing our "individual view" (which would display an individual student's data to student, parent, teacher, and approved service providers), we’ve been working to design a tool that not only displays basic data on students, but also launches a focused conversation among stakeholders about that data.
-a. Communication we hoped to improve. (What aspect of communication did we hope to improve, so that more people in Somerville could collaborate in young people's success?)
+The first dashboard below (our "administrator" and "teacher" view) shows educators data on a school or classroom of students. The "individual view" dashboard beneath it shows data on an individual student to student, teachers, parents, and approved afterschool providers. This view also allows these people to communicate with each other through the “comment boxes.” (Names are fictional to preserve anonymity.)
-b. Main communication improvement(s). (What is the main communication improvement we made? What new support for young people may have resulted?)
+[[Image:Admin Dash 2012-01-25.jpg|Admin Dash 2012-01-25.jpg]]
-c.  Main communication realization. (What's your main realization about needed improvements to the communication infrastructure of public education? Who needs to communicate what information to whom, through which media, in order to support youth in a diverse community? Which barriers are in the way of such communication, and how might these barriers be overcome?)
+[[Image:IndivDashSummary.jpg|IndivDashSummary.jpg]]
----------
-Teacher, parents, principal, and afterschool staff at the Healey School (K-8) have been working together to create a multilingual online dashboard for quick check-ins on student progress toward standard benchmarks. By "dashboard," we just mean a single place to go to get a quick view. (as one teacher put it, to "put us all on the same page.") We've made two tool with different uses: an online family report card for teacher, family, supporting teachers, and tutors to see, and an administrator/teacher data view allowing admins to view/sort the whole school and teachers to view/sort their class.
+On the OneVille Project, the dashboard was one of six subprojects and our first effort to create a tech tool totally from scratch with young local technologists. Development with our Somerville colleagues took more budgeted hours than any of us originally anticipated, and after some excellent pro bono work by David Lord of San Diego, by Spring 2012 we were about 60 development hours from pilot-readiness on the admin and teacher views (and roughly 300 hours from pilot-readiness on the individual view). Remaining work: to finish tweaking the final programming "tubes" linking the dashboard to Somerville's Student Information System so that data could be displayed 100% glitch-free. The "code" for all of the dashboard views is linked on the '''[[Overview and key findings: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Overview and key findings</font>]] ''' page and to date is the core "product" of this pilot. Open source code also means that any developer anywhere can develop on the product we made. For example, community youth-serving and university outreach orgs needing to view and sort youth- and student-related data have expressed interest in a similar free product developed for their specific needs.  See the '''[[Overview and key findings: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Overview and key findings</font>]] ''' and '''[[Expanded story: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Expanded story</font>]] ''' pages for the full story of developing this tool.
-Both dashboard views are free tools and present data such as attendance, grades, MCAS and MAP test scores and growth, and teacher comments.
+===Why is it important to improve communications?===
+What we found:
-Unlike other one-way data displays that got us thinking [[New Visions tool]] here?, the family report card tool provides a space for family, teacher, and providers to communicate and ask questions about students' basic progress. Google Translate assists with translation.
+:*'''<font color=red>¡Aha!</font> A gap in student data equals a gap in service.
-In the report card view, parents are encouraged to shape their conversation around Somerville's existing rubrics for student achievement, also making them more attuned to those rubrics. Viewers can message the teacher through the dashboard's comment/question boxes. In our final development, we are supporting an email interface where parents, teachers, and afterschool staff can all talk about goals for/progress on student achievement.
+:*'''<font color=red>¡Aha!</font> One-Stop Shopping: People say it's crucial to be able to see different kinds of student data at the same time, in a single display -- and, be able to sort that data to check for patterns.
+:*'''<font color=red>¡Aha!</font> Open source data tools could save schools across the country significant costs, IF design goes fast enough, IF community users are ready to use the tools, and IF tech support for open source tools remains available locally.
-[TBD: SCREEN SHOTS HERE OR LATER?]
+:*'''<font color=red>¡Aha!</font> In addition to having the ability to quickly see and sort such basic data, diverse partners in young people’s lives need supports to communicate ABOUT basic data.
-We wanted to make some tools that were free, so that people could share basic "data" on young people's progress. So did Somerville.
+===How do the dashboards work? How might they be designed?===
-We designed a administrator's data view with administrators, teachers, and service providers and a family report card with teachers, families, and students.
+:*You can see how we designed our dashboards in '''[[Overview and key findings: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Overview and key findings</font>]] '''and '''[[Expanded story: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Expanded story</font>]]'''.
-The software can already be adapted for anywhere in the country, but we built the tools to connect to Somerville's student information system and report card. Our next task would be to make these adaptable anywhere in the country.
+===How do you know if your school could improve communication?===
+'''Questions to ask about the current system in your school:
-(COLORED TEXT BOX: Here's ONE MAIN COMMUNICATION REALIZATION: improving data sharing in education is in part about ensuring that all necessary stakeholders are aware of students' most basic situation. holes in data = holes in student service. So, standardized benchmarks and key indicators are crucial, but they never show "the whole child": it's just one form of data needed to support young people. And, just "getting data" on a student is never enough: people need to then converse about how the yong person is doing and how they might be assisted.
+:➢	To support young people, what “data” should show up on any data display, and why?
+:➢	How does your school make data on students visible to school administrators, classroom teachers, and afterschool providers? And how about parents? Which necessary data is readily available, and which isn't?
+:➢	What infrastructure would support actual conversations ''about'' "data," between the people who share young people's lives?
+:➢	Which conversations about data should happen in person and which could be supported online? Could you do an experiment to test which works for what?
+:➢	What data isn’t found in any “student information system” but should still be known? By whom?
+:➢      Is your district spending tons of money on data display tools to get basic data in front of people?
+:➢      If so, how might low cost tech development or professional development on the tools you already have support such information-sharing?
+:➢      ***How can you ensure resources for ongoing tech modifications and tech support after you have developed your initial tool?
-==Communication we hoped to improve==
+=== The Next Layer: Connecting to Folks Doing Similar Work in Other Communities.===
-Say more. What aspect of communication did we want to improve, so that more people in Somerville could collaborate in young people's success?
+We'd love to spark a lively exchange between people working on similar things.
-------------------------
-Oneville's goal is to enable diverse supporters to collaborate in student success using commonplace, low cost, and open source tech.  In two years of groundwork supported by the Ford Foundation, we’ve started to develop a full toolkit of free, open source, transferable communication tools and strategies linking diverse partners in public education.
+'''Want to talk further?
-We know from research that to support young people’s success, key supporters in young people’s lives need to share and access necessary information about young people’s progress and experience, and about available resources and opportunities. But the communication infrastructure of public education is shockingly antiquated. Across the country, for example, principals serving low-income children remain unable to quickly view and sort basic information on the children they serve; data is often kept in paper folders. Immigrant parents remain totally unaware of basic information about their children’s progress. Tutors and teachers serving high-need students rarely communicate about what students need to work on. Parents, teachers, and students only sporadically exchange information on young people's basic progress – even while youth use technologies to communicate constantly with one another.
+Are you working on improving communications in your own school or community?
-All this, in an era when technology should make basic information-sharing in education easier than ever.
-Oddly, we offer the least communication infrastructure to communities with the highest communication needs. Communities able to invest in high-end communication infrastructure just buy expensive tools to help them view and sort their data. What about districts that can't afford this? They keep basic data in drawers; they send requests for data sorting to central administrators, and wait. Or, young people just fall "through the cracks" -- a gap in basic information and response.
+Contact point people for the dashboard project directly at:
-In Somerville, parents can log into X2, the student information system, but many don't have passwords or don't know they have them, or forget them. Once they get to X2, it isn't translated for non-English speakers. And, it can be hard for people to quickly digest. It also doesn't show trends over time: for example, X2 doesn't show test score growth. Test scores are kept in chronological order and since students take many tests, it is hard for teachers to see growth on a single test from year to year.
+Jedd Cohen (jic378@mail.harvard.edu); Mica Pollock (mica.pollock@gmail.com)
-The principal was never able to easily sort any of his data; it required sending queries to a central office and waiting to get charts returned.
+Click here for the '''[[Overview and key findings: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Overview and key findings</font>]] '''on this project; click here for the '''[[Expanded story: Data dashboards|<font color=#0000FF>Expanded story</font>]] '''on this project.
-Most tools for data display in schools cost districts a lot of money, and they aren't designed by educators or parents. Our open source dashboard is designed to help teachers, administrators, parents, and tutors communicate about students' progress toward standard benchmarks. The goal was to create a translated display easily understandable by an immigrant parent.  We also wanted to make sure that parents could communicate back about data, to teachers -- and that tutors, teachers, and parents could over time communicate with one another. Most displays of data in schools are one way only, from teacher to parent.
-==Process==
-How we realized and redirected things, over time.
-===Basic History===
-The groundwork needed to support the current work.
---------
-eg Nadeau, Somerville resident, had already made an Excel spreadsheet the year before we began work on the dashboard. We did some handywork (participant observation in data drudgery!) to get new data like afterschool enrollment onto his spreadsheet and to consider the new "fields" for data that needed to be created permanently in the district student information system (e.g., enrollment and attendance in afterschool programs, which such programs weren't keeping in Somerville's core data system, X2.) SomerPromise, the Mayor's new Children's Zone-like initiative, was also interested in standard data display, particularly the administrative view and the ability to show data on afterschool programs.
-We built on tools already under construction in the District. We made Somerville's K-6 report card (typically handed out on paper) online and color-coded, and added the ability for parents to write back to teachers, in their language, about their reactions (we encouraged use of Google Translate to translate basic material in order to prompt further communications).
-Josh Wairi, a 5th grade teacher at the Healey, got interested in the dashboard design when we stopped by his classroom in xxxx. Looking together at his computer and printouts, we realized he was already creating spreadsheets of student data from X2. He was interested in quickly displaying and sorting basic data, to supplement his face to face and phone conversations with students and parents.
-===Communication ahas, implementation ahas, and turning points!===
-Over the course of the project, we had the following communication and implementation ahas, and project turning points. To read the full accounting, see main article: [[Dashboard/ahas]]
-==Findings/Endpoints==
-Please describe final outcomes and share examples of final products, with discussion!
-===Concrete communication improvements===
-What is the main communication improvement we made? What new support for young people may have resulted?
-----------------------
-The admin dashboard and family report card views are now complete. In the fall, we plan to test the report card with our teacher Josh and to shape an email-based communication among the "team" around each student in his class. We plan to support administrators to use the admin view and we'll tweak its sorting and graphing capabilities as needed.
-===Main communication realizations and implementation realizations===
-What is your main realization about needed improvements to the communication infrastructure of public education? (Who needs to communicate what information to whom, through which media, in order to support youth in a diverse community? Which barriers are in the way of such communication, and how might these barriers be overcome?)
-What is your main realization about implementing these innovations in education?
------------------------------
-MAIN COMMUNICATION REALIZATION: Getting "basic data" in key people's hands is often not done - and it's crucial. Of course, this basic data is never the whole child and we should always treat such data as "shallow" versions of who students actually are. See [[eportfolio]] for other crucial forms of info about youth! But nobody in this day and age should be kept in the dark about basic progress info on young people in their lives!
-And districts shouldn't pay big money for seeing and sorting this data, either. Basic, free tools can help.
-RELATED COMMUNICATION REALIZATION: the goal is not just to "share data" ias if a tube is dumping data on recipients. The point is that people who share young people have to communicate about data -- to ask questions of each other, share the backstory behind the numbers, and generally keep each other "aware." So, we can't just share numbers through one-time data displays -- we have to enable running communication between people.
-MAIN IMPLEMENTATION REALIZATION: Overall, we’ve learned that parents, students, and administrators can fundamentally help design tools for sharing and communicating about basic data in schools. Why do we include them so rarely in design?
-===Technological how-tos===
-Describe "how to" use every tool you used, so that others could do the same. Describe "how to" make every tool you made!
-------------------
-===Things we’d expand/do differently===
-If you wanted to replicate any of this, what would you need to think about? Contact us to learn/talk more!
-----------------------------
--Consider how and whether people can see basic "data" on young people's progress when they need to. Can everyone who needs to get and share that important progress information, get and share it? If not, what barriers are in the way and how can those be overcome?
--How could low cost tech support such information-sharing, so that districts don't spend huge money on getting basic data in front of people?
--What infrastructure would support actual conversations about "data," between the people who share young people?

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