6a. Coaches model best practices for educators and leaders for securely collecting, protecting, and analyzing student data. 

6b. Coaches support educators to interpret qualitative and quantitative data to inform their decisions and support individual student learning. 

6c. Coaches partner with educators to empower students to use learning data to set their own goals and measure their progress. 

 Artifact One: California Assessment of Student Progress report for parents. 

 Description

This artifact displays a student’s results of the state assessment for Reading and Essay Writing. The first focus of the test was on the student’s organization skills. The student explained the topic in a sequential or theme-based manner. The second focus was on whether the student used evidence to support their claims. The third focus was on conventions such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The reading results are based on a Lexile system, which is explained through a website called Lexile.com. Parents are encouraged to go to the family section to help interpret the results.

Implementation

Many parents hire me because they are second language learners. Often they need coaching with interpreting the test results they receive from the school. Words such as quantile and Lexile can interfere with the usefulness of the report to parents.  Since I am not a public school teacher, I asked the parent if I could consult another educator about how to use the information. I assured her I would protect their identity, even though the parent did not think it necessary. I asked a mentor teacher how to use these results to coach the parent on what to focus on for the next assessment (6a). Using the advice of the other educator, I spent time coaching the parent on personalizing her next steps based on the writing portion of the results. Therefore, I practiced this indicator by protecting student data when I discussed her results with another educator.  

I am still working on my competency in this area. I also consulted my professor about using this artifact. She pointed out that I failed to find the student's name two more times on the screenshot above. I assumed the student’s name would only show up at the beginning of the first paragraph and did not thoroughly read the entire paragraph (6a). After this was brought to my attention, I blocked out her name two more times. Securing and protecting data is a time-consuming yet worthwhile investment (6a) 

Impact

Participating in a data collection, protection, and analysis process gave me one experience that I need to model how to protect a student’s identity. In the future, I will be more meticulous about reading the entire report to protect student data thoroughly, and more cognizant of other opportunities and situations where I must securely collect and protect student data. I am sure that this experience will add to my coaching ability for this indicator, but I plan to practice with real-world situations, as explained, to gain more experience (6a). 

Artifact Two : An authentic writing sample from a third-grade student. 

Description

This artifact is from an authentic third-grade writing process lesson about Riley’s Farms. Digital tools were used to identify and correct spelling and grammar errors during an online coaching session with a parent homeschool teacher. 

Implementation

I used artifact 2 to coach the parent, the child’s homeschool teacher, on using data to help the student plan goals. In this case, we added the misspelled words to the student’s next spelling test to measure progress. I learned from a Science of Reading Podcast that when a student makes errors, we can use them for data to learn from rather than something to feel ashamed of. The word data does not have to be complicated or involve charts.  I coached the parent to have their student keep an alphabetical list of words from the data to set their own spelling goals (6c). Even if they add one or two words from their data to a weekly spelling test, they can measure their progress and reduce the number of words to learn on their running list (6c).

Impact

The parent reported that her positive attitude about the students' errors was encouraging to the student. The student took the attitude of her teacher and stated: “I see more data!” They discussed how they can use this data to learn and improve future papers. I coached the parent not to point out this many errors regularly. This was a special project with enough data to coach using a model. The parent reported that the student was excited to rewrite the entire paper with the corrected information even though it was not required. The student set their own refinement and saw how much her writing improved after an editing session (6c). The student measured their own progress without an exam. 

Reflection

My first artifact for indicator 6a is a California Assessment of Student Progress Results for parents. After receiving some aid from another teacher, I coached a parent on how to analyze the data to plan for individualized education to accommodate learner needs. I learned that it takes scrutiny and tedious attention to ensure every reference to a student’s identity is blocked out. This experience has increased my experience with ISTE 6a, but my competency is in the development stage.  

My second artifact, an authentic assessment of a student's writing, is where I feel the most competent as a coach of the ISTE standards. I use this data every day to coach parents on planning their next lessons to target exactly what the student is struggling with. As displayed in red, the digital tools helped the student edit their work and add the misspelled words to their log. They can set their own spelling goals to make improvements (6c). 

The first step in interpreting data is to identify the purpose, key features, methodology, and the limitations of the research. Quantitative research interprets data using numbers that represent study results, hence the “quantity” aspect. Qualitative research can be conducted with surveys and interviews. I am in the development stage with indicator 6b. The artifact is a great reference when I need to read empirical research to gather evidence to support my planning decisions (6c). In the future, I will be sharing it when the need arises in my community of learners.