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Welcome to the "Life of a Data Fellow" Optional Asynchronous Module.
You will work through this module by scrolling through this learning space. To expand documents and slide decks that are included, you can click on the gray arrow at the top right corner of each item.
Feel free to focus on the pieces of this module that are most relevant to your topics of interest.
Please complete the Exit Ticket at the end of the module. We will use your submission to track completion.
Please contact datafellows@eddirection.org if help is needed.
Click on the button to the left to open the note-catcher, which is mirrored to follow the content as it is presented on the Learning Space. As you navigate through this module, you are welcome to use this optional tool to capture your notes.
Refer to your note-catcher each time you see this icon.
Session Outcome: This optional asynchronous module will focus on helping new Data Fellows understand the typical arch of the work and serve as a refresher of key resources and development to date.
Success Criteria: More specifically, Data Fellows will be able to:
Determine the typical arch of learning of a Data Fellow
Access key resources that will help build, modify, and enhance your data dashboard
Learn key soft skills that will help drive a culture of continuous improvement and data-driven instruction at your district
Anticipated time to complete this module: 60-90 minutes.
Note: there are several embedded modules in this module, so take this at your own pace and do those modules as needed for you and your development.
Introduction
Introduction
Congratulations on your role as a Data Fellow! We could not be more excited that you have taken on the important work of leading and fostering a love of data in your district. We truly believe that strong data analysis is the biggest lever in school and district change management and continuous improvement.
First, we want to recognize that, depending on your district’s size and context, your work may look different than that of a “typical” Data Fellow – meaning, you may be wearing different hats in addition to RSSP work.
This module is intended to help you dive more deeply into the RSSP work, prioritize which modules to catch up on, and learn from other Data Fellows who have been in the seat.
To help us through this module, we will be leaning on three Data Fellows who have been in the seat since the beginning: Angela, Kevin, and Paul.
Angela Young
Corpus Christi ISD
Corpus Christi, TX
Angela Young is the Data Fellow for Corpus Christi ISD. Corpus Christi ISD serves more than 33,400 students at 56 campuses. The district's focus on improving student achievement in Math and ELAR led them to adopt Eureka Math, Amplify, Odell, and Carnegie for HQIM. Angela has been in education for 17 years and previously taught middle and high school math and Special Education and served as the Math Department Head. As an educator, Angela has always believed in life-long learning and appreciates the opportunities to learn new thing in this position. She is a mathematical person, so the transition into the world of data analytics was a natural transition. She is always willing to help others and appreciates the comradery and collaborative nature of this cohort.
Kevin Gallagher
The Goodwill Excel Center
Austin, TX
Kevin Gallagher is the Data Fellow for The Goodwill Excel Center in Austin, Texas. The Excel Center is a public charter school serving adults, aged 18-50, at two Austin campuses and three correctional facilities in Diboll, Lockhart, and Overton. His work as a fellow is helping to shrink the achievement gap and evaluate the effectiveness of academic programming to improve student outcomes. Prior to becoming a fellow, Kevin worked as the Director of STEM & Technology Integration at The International School of Texas, and as a Middle School Math & Science teacher at The School District of Philadelphia. He holds a Master’s in Education and recently completed a Post-Graduate Program in Data Science & Business Analytics from the University of Texas.
Paul Jomini
NYOS Charter School
Austin, TX
Paul Jomini has worked in education since 2008 starting as a High School Math Teacher. He served as both a department head and instructional coach before becoming the Data Fellow for NYOS Charter School. NYOS (Not Your Ordinary School) is located in Austin, Texas and serves 1,600 students in grades PK-12. The vision for strong academics while putting students at the heart of decisions makes NYOS an ideal fit for Paul, who strives to support the community with comprehensive data to drive continuous improvement.
Part I: Your Role in the RSSP Team
Part I: Your Role in the RSSP Team
The first step to set you up for success is to get very familiar with RSSP and the TCLAS decisions. Kevin put it best:
"I didn't really know what to expect at first on the data analytics side, but once I understood the RSSP initiative in general and the TCLAS decisions, I knew how the money was going to be spent and it helped me understand the big objectives of the project."
The Data Fellow is charged with driving the data collection and progress monitoring of their district's RSSP team and their COVID Recovery and Learning Acceleration Plan. The vision for the Data Fellow is to support performance management of the RSSP work, as well as continuously improve data collection, analysis, visualization, and storytelling at their district.
Data Fellows are responsible for attending LEA RSSP meetings, attending all DF cohort synchronous sessions (as well as completing optional asynchronous modules, office hours, and monthly communities of practice), creating data systems, and building a data dashboard to monitor the RSSP work. While Data Fellows may be given other responsibilities, the majority of their time should be spent on the RSSP initiative.
For more helpful information about your role, see the FAQ created by TEA to the right.
Data Fellow FAQ (6.3.22).pdfRSSP and Data Fellows - What to Expect This Fall_FINAL (1).pdfYou may also find it extremely helpful to look through the document to the left on what to expect as a Data Fellow as part of the RSSP initiative. While this document outlines information you'll need for the fall semester, if you are just starting out it should give you a good sense of what is expected of you as a Data Fellow on the RSSP Team.
You can also access all materials for a helpful session that goes more in depth with the information on the handout here.
Now, let's take a minute to talk about mindset. While we are sure you are excited to dig into the more technical aspects of your work, it's important to address the mindset of continuous improvement. No matter where you are on your journey as a Data Fellow and educator, we can always improve. Take feedback from any which way it comes and be willing to adapt. While you are responsible for the data dashboard creation and monitoring implementation at your district, you also play a huge role in building and growing your data culture. So, you may find that you're asking yourself: how comfortable is my district with data? Do we see data as a measuring stick or a flashlight?
The image below shows the general outline of your work as a Data Fellow and how it pertains to the big RSSP benchmarks. The main goal is to constantly iterate based on data coming in. As you go through the bigger meetings, you'll want to help push your team to make sound decisions based on the data that you've collected. For more information regarding the RSSP initiative, click here.
Once you have an understanding of the RSSP initiative and other TCLAS decisions that you district has opted in to, a good next step is to schedule some 1:1 time with your RSSP Technical Assistance Provider (TAP). You can do this by sending your point of contact an email and asking for an ad-hoc call to better understand RSSP work. Below are some questions you can use to get you started:
What has your work with our district looked like so far?
Do you have the slide deck for the stakeholder meeting so I can become more familiar with the data you and the team used to determine the RSSP priorities?
Can you share the district's Goals and Measurement Plan and Implementation Plan with me?
What has been the best thing about working with our district?
What has been challenging?
How can my work as a Data Fellow best support the work of the RSSP team?
Use your Note-Catcher to brainstorm other questions for your TAP.
Part II: Considering Your Own Development
Part II: Considering Your Own Development
As a leader in your district, there are various hard skills and soft skills that you need to master. While data analytics is obviously an important part of your role as a Data Fellow, you will also need to effectively communicate your dashboard to various stakeholders.
Hard Skills
Hard Skills
Quantifiable
Fluency in a language
Certifiable
Degree
Definable
Data platforms
Soft Skills
Soft Skills
Social Skills
Teamwork, negotiation
Attitude
Confidence, integrity
Management
Problem solving, planning
Take the High 5 Test to determine your top strengths in the work place. After you receive your results, determine if your top 1-2 strengths tend to be hard skills or soft skills. Record your reflections on your Note-Catcher.
Now that you know where your strengths lie, you can focus your development on your areas for growth. We have several modules to help you develop your hard skills and your soft skills, so use the chart below to decide where you want to begin.
Part III: Data Collection and Wireframing
Part III: Data Collection and Wireframing
Now, to move forward with getting your data dashboard up and running for your district is to gather the data that you are going to need. Consider all of the platforms for data collection that your district uses to measure your RSSP project's goals. For example, if you are utilizing walkthrough forms to record teacher observations, you'll want access to wherever that data is stored (Google, TeachBoost, Eduphoria, etc.).
Depending on your district's size, you may want to consider one master location for all of your data storage. Angela, who works for a large-size district, recommends keeping track of your data in an organized way. She says that every report she pulls, she saves in one location and turns it into a Google Sheet (her data dashboard is built on Google Data Studio). Then, she'll copy and paste it into her large data set and pull the data she needs for her visuals later.
The next step is to get in the field with your data collection forms. It won't be until you use them in the field that you will learn if they are user-friendly, if they capture the information you want them to capture, and if they need to be adjusted.
Now that you know the data you'll need to collect and the various platforms from which you'll collect them, it's time to wireframe your dashboard. The wireframe/back-end work of a data fellow may not be as glamorous as creating a beautiful dashboard, but if you aren't intentional at this step, your dashboard won't work.
What is a wireframe?
A wireframe is a sort of rough draft of your end product. It could be as simple as a sketch on a napkin, as long as it doesn’t take too much time for you to design and you have a process for collecting feedback from your team.
Why is a wireframe important?
Paul from NYOS says it best: Especially if this is your first time working on the platform you're using, you will save yourself a enormous amount of time by creating a wireframe. When I created my wireframe, I was able to take it back to the team and say, 'This is what I'm thinking -- does it work for you?' It would have been an exponentially longer process if I hadn't done that."
Part IV: Creating and Communicating Your Dashboard
Part IV: Creating and Communicating Your Dashboard
Once you are ready to create your visuals, we recommend taking about 90 minutes to fully internalize this asynchronous session: Structuring Data for Visualizations, where we go step-by-step through the process of creating the visuals for your dashboard.
While the principles in this asynchronous module apply across data platforms, you will want to dive more deeply into your platform-specific training modules. Below are links to platform-specific training so you can learn more about setting up your dashboard. The three most popular platforms are Tableau, Power BI, and Google Data Studio. If you are using a different platform, we recommend reaching out to that company's representative to learn more about training you can complete with them.
Tableau: Overview
Tableau: Row Level Security
Webinar 15.mp4
Power BI: Row Level Security
Google Data Studio: Overview
Google Data Studio ELO_Final.mp4GDS: Row Level Security
Session 16 Recording.mp4Finally, your data dashboard is ready to be shared with the world! As a Data Fellow, it is likely you will be asked to present your data dashboard and findings to various audiences: to teachers, to parents, to the School Board, to principals. For each one of these scenarios, you will want to tailor your visuals accordingly based on the audience. You will also want to consider presenting your data as a story instead of as a presentation filled with facts and figures. Watch the TEDx talk to the left to hear what Karen Eber says about data storytelling.
Part V: Advice from the Field
Part V: Advice from the Field
"Be open to ask for help if you need it - this group is very helpful. Don't be intimidated to ask, because when you have a question someone else might have the same one. Sometimes, we feel like the task is too big to handle, but when we start to take it step by step, it becomes easier. Attend all sessions you can - synchronous are not enough. Do them all."
-Angela Young
"Just keep swimming. Go through the modules, talk with teachers to get an idea of where they're at and where they're coming from, and schedule time to self learn. Set aside time for yourself where no one can bother you to self learn every single day. And really, just keep swimming."
-Kevin Gallagher
"Be involved in RSSP teams. Really be there and really participate and listen to what everyone is doing. Helping to craft what your team is after is the best thing you can do. Be involved."
-Paul Jomini
Module Complete!
Module Complete!
Congratulations on completing the module. Please complete the Exit Ticket form by clicking on the link above. We will use the information you submit to track your completion.
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