Alice Huguet, Caitlin C. Farrell and Julie A. Marsh
The use of data for instructional improvement is prevalent in today’s educational landscape, yet policies calling for data use may result in significant variation at the school…
Abstract
Purpose
The use of data for instructional improvement is prevalent in today’s educational landscape, yet policies calling for data use may result in significant variation at the school level. The purpose of this paper is to focus on tools and routines as mechanisms of principal influence on data-use professional learning communities (PLCs).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through a comparative case study of two low-income, low-performing schools in one district. The data set included interview and focus group transcripts, observation field notes and documents, and was iteratively coded.
Findings
The two principals in the study employed tools and routines differently to influence ways that teachers interacted with data in their PLCs. Teachers who were given leeway to co-construct data-use tools found them to be more beneficial to their work. Findings also suggest that teachers’ data use may benefit from more flexibility in their day-to-day PLC routines.
Research limitations/implications
Closer examination of how tools are designed and time is spent in data-use PLCs may help the authors further understand the influence of the principal’s role.
Originality/value
Previous research has demonstrated that data use can improve teacher instruction, yet the varied implementation of data-use PLCs in this district illustrates that not all students have an equal opportunity to learn from teachers who meaningfully engage with data.
Details
Keywords
In 1899 the medical practitioners of Dublin were confronted with an outbreak of a peculiar and obscure illness, characterised by symptoms which were very unusual. For want of a…
Abstract
In 1899 the medical practitioners of Dublin were confronted with an outbreak of a peculiar and obscure illness, characterised by symptoms which were very unusual. For want of a better explanation, the disorder, which seemed to be epidemic, was explained by the simple expedient of finding a name for it. It was labelled as “beri‐beri,” a tropical disease with very much the same clinical and pathological features as those observed at Dublin. Papers were read before certain societies, and then as the cases gradually diminished in number, the subject lost interest and was dropped.