Objective:
To facilitate the development of competencies related to understanding and using data on a daily basis to improve student learning/continuous school improvement/data driven decision making/classroom assessment practices.
Rationale:
- NCLB
- Data driven decision making
- Evidence-based teaching practices
- Need to understand and use data for both continuous school improvement and to improve student learning.
Focus:
- Teachers will be oriented to national initiatives that will provide a framework for the coursework in this program.
- Teachers will discuss the influences of NCLB, continuous school improvement, data driven decision making, using data to improve student learning, and classroom assessment practices of teachers.
- In each course, teachers will apply the concepts learned to their own classroom student, school, and or district data.
- In each course teachers will be shown how content is related to these current national initiatives.
Format:
- A hybrid program that will use both face-to-face and on-line courses.
- In each course teachers will be asked to use their content areas as a frame of reference and apply concepts each week.
Key Elements:
- Program covers one calendar year (Fall-Fall)
- Meets credit expectations (32 credit hours with 4 or less workshop hours)
- No more than 1 face-to-face course per semester (exception is first semester)
- Intense in that students will be active in both winter and summer intersessions
- Group progresses as a cohort (much research on this as a faculty development tool or model)
- All courses will be heavily application based and will favor the seminar approach over the lecture approach. Focus on products rather than testing.
