Discussions

Hello everyone,

We are planning to use Power BI to build dashboards for tracking students' performance.

I'm interested in learning about the key performance metrics that other schools and educational institutions are tracking. We're exploring ways to improve our own tracking and assessment methods, and it would be great to understand what's working well for other institutions. Specifically, I'm curious about metrics related to:

1. Academic Performance – What indicators are used beyond grades and test scores?
2. Student Engagement and Wellbeing – How do you measure students' engagement, mental health, and overall satisfaction?
3. Teacher Effectiveness – Do you use specific benchmarks to gauge teaching effectiveness and professional development?
4. Operational Efficiency – What metrics help you assess the efficiency of school operations or administrative processes?

Additionally, any insights on tools or platforms that help with tracking and analyzing these metrics would be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing your insights and experiences. Thanks!

#General
#SustainingInnovationandLookingAhead
#TeachingandLearning
#ITSystemsandSupport
#Leadership
#CybersafetyandDataSecurity

------------------------------
Ben Gu
Ridley College
St. Catharines ON
------------------------------

Hi Ben

I can't speak for my current school (K3-G9) because we haven't really started this process beyond some work we are currently engaged with regarding tracking standardized assessment scores over time. We want the longitudinal data to track graduating classes through school so we can understand the profiles of our student body and use the data to review programs and collective instruction. So what I'm about to share is less concrete than you might want :)

First of all I'd be very wary of tracking grades unless you have a process in place to regulate the validity and reliability of grades. Grading is notoriously subjective and so there is a lot of noise in the data. I used, as head of school, to try to track grades and look at the distribution across subjects for the same students and it was fascinating to see how different departments generated different grading profiles. For example, I had to do a lot of work with the History team because their grading profile was so depressed relative to other subjects - and we saw the outcome of that in the data that kids chose not to take the course when it became optional. I'd always look at standardized assessments first - they are not foolproof but at least your comparison is more objective. Of course, if you do AP or IB or another externally moderated exam that can be valuable. If you have nothing else grades give you something better than nothing, but that's not a high bar.

One thing I never got to do but always thought would be a valuable measure is qualitative data five years after graduation. What are your graduates doing now? How do they feel the school prepared them? In the end that type of data is powerful and builds a compelling narrative that speaks to all community sections. I have no idea how to do it, but I bet it would be powerful. Because it the end, that's the measure of a school. The closest I got was when we hired an anthropologist to do some work ahead of our 40th year celebrations. We interviewed about 100 graduates and then 100 current students. The data, qualitative though it was, was immensely powerful in showing how the school had performed against it's mission over those 40 years.

More practically ... one place you might want to look is CIRIS out of Maret School (https://ciris.maret.org/). They do a lot of work similar to what you are suggesting. Wellington School has a long standing project on collecting student perceptions about academics, teaching and engagement that is interesting. We have used it in our upper school for about 3 years.

Regarding PD I would recommend looking to the UK. The Teachers Development Trust (https://tdtrust.org/) has an amazing tool for tracking the quality of PD and its effectiveness. It is an annual audit model, with faculty and staff surveys, that tells you where you are and then gives you suggestions for improving PD effectiveness. Their work is all based on high quality research about adult learning, school development and focused on increasing student outcomes. I used this system in my last school and found had a profound impact on how we ensured every moment of PD was valuable. The extra bonus is that you get a rating which I have found is very useful in recruitment and retention. 

If any of this helps I'm happy. I'm not an expert and so if nothing helps I'm sorry :)

Tom

------------------------------
Tom Gething
Summit School NC

Original Message:
Sent: 11-13-2024 01:10 PM
From: Ben Gu
Subject: What Metrics Do Your Schools Use to Track Student Success and Institutional Performance

Hello everyone,

We are planning to use Power BI to build dashboards for tracking students' performance.

I'm interested in learning about the key performance metrics that other schools and educational institutions are tracking. We're exploring ways to improve our own tracking and assessment methods, and it would be great to understand what's working well for other institutions. Specifically, I'm curious about metrics related to:

1. Academic Performance – What indicators are used beyond grades and test scores?
2. Student Engagement and Wellbeing – How do you measure students' engagement, mental health, and overall satisfaction?
3. Teacher Effectiveness – Do you use specific benchmarks to gauge teaching effectiveness and professional development?
4. Operational Efficiency – What metrics help you assess the efficiency of school operations or administrative processes?

Additionally, any insights on tools or platforms that help with tracking and analyzing these metrics would be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing your insights and experiences. Thanks!

#General
#SustainingInnovationandLookingAhead
#TeachingandLearning
#ITSystemsandSupport
#Leadership
#CybersafetyandDataSecurity

------------------------------
Ben Gu
Ridley College
St. Catharines ON
------------------------------

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful response to my post. Your insights were incredibly valuable, and I especially appreciated your suggestion to conduct a survey for collecting qualitative data five years after graduation. This idea has opened up new perspectives on how to assess long-term outcomes and has sparked some exciting discussions with our teams. We might start to design a questionnaire and deliver it to graduates in the next few weeks.

One thing you mentioned "We have used it in our upper school for about 3 years.". Would you mind briefly explaining how you implement it for your school?

I also shared the Teachers Development Trust with our faculty team. No doubt I believe they will gain insights from it.

Tom, thank you once again for your generosity and support. If there's ever an opportunity to collaborate or if I can assist you in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Hi Ben

I can't speak for my current school (K3-G9) because we haven't really started this process beyond some work we are currently engaged with regarding tracking standardized assessment scores over time. We want the longitudinal data to track graduating classes through school so we can understand the profiles of our student body and use the data to review programs and collective instruction. So what I'm about to share is less concrete than you might want :)

First of all I'd be very wary of tracking grades unless you have a process in place to regulate the validity and reliability of grades. Grading is notoriously subjective and so there is a lot of noise in the data. I used, as head of school, to try to track grades and look at the distribution across subjects for the same students and it was fascinating to see how different departments generated different grading profiles. For example, I had to do a lot of work with the History team because their grading profile was so depressed relative to other subjects - and we saw the outcome of that in the data that kids chose not to take the course when it became optional. I'd always look at standardized assessments first - they are not foolproof but at least your comparison is more objective. Of course, if you do AP or IB or another externally moderated exam that can be valuable. If you have nothing else grades give you something better than nothing, but that's not a high bar.

One thing I never got to do but always thought would be a valuable measure is qualitative data five years after graduation. What are your graduates doing now? How do they feel the school prepared them? In the end that type of data is powerful and builds a compelling narrative that speaks to all community sections. I have no idea how to do it, but I bet it would be powerful. Because it the end, that's the measure of a school. The closest I got was when we hired an anthropologist to do some work ahead of our 40th year celebrations. We interviewed about 100 graduates and then 100 current students. The data, qualitative though it was, was immensely powerful in showing how the school had performed against it's mission over those 40 years.

More practically ... one place you might want to look is CIRIS out of Maret School (https://ciris.maret.org/). They do a lot of work similar to what you are suggesting. Wellington School has a long standing project on collecting student perceptions about academics, teaching and engagement that is interesting. We have used it in our upper school for about 3 years.

Regarding PD I would recommend looking to the UK. The Teachers Development Trust (https://tdtrust.org/) has an amazing tool for tracking the quality of PD and its effectiveness. It is an annual audit model, with faculty and staff surveys, that tells you where you are and then gives you suggestions for improving PD effectiveness. Their work is all based on high quality research about adult learning, school development and focused on increasing student outcomes. I used this system in my last school and found had a profound impact on how we ensured every moment of PD was valuable. The extra bonus is that you get a rating which I have found is very useful in recruitment and retention. 

If any of this helps I'm happy. I'm not an expert and so if nothing helps I'm sorry :)

Tom

------------------------------
Tom Gething
Summit School NC

Original Message:
Sent: 11-13-2024 01:10 PM
From: Ben Gu
Subject: What Metrics Do Your Schools Use to Track Student Success and Institutional Performance

Hello everyone,

We are planning to use Power BI to build dashboards for tracking students' performance.

I'm interested in learning about the key performance metrics that other schools and educational institutions are tracking. We're exploring ways to improve our own tracking and assessment methods, and it would be great to understand what's working well for other institutions. Specifically, I'm curious about metrics related to:

1. Academic Performance – What indicators are used beyond grades and test scores?
2. Student Engagement and Wellbeing – How do you measure students' engagement, mental health, and overall satisfaction?
3. Teacher Effectiveness – Do you use specific benchmarks to gauge teaching effectiveness and professional development?
4. Operational Efficiency – What metrics help you assess the efficiency of school operations or administrative processes?

Additionally, any insights on tools or platforms that help with tracking and analyzing these metrics would be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing your insights and experiences. Thanks!

#General
#SustainingInnovationandLookingAhead
#TeachingandLearning
#ITSystemsandSupport
#Leadership
#CybersafetyandDataSecurity

------------------------------
Ben Gu
Ridley College
St. Catharines ON
------------------------------

Great topic!

I know it's still a while away, but I just booked Eric Heilman to present a webinar on this exact topic this spring! 

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful response to my post. Your insights were incredibly valuable, and I especially appreciated your suggestion to conduct a survey for collecting qualitative data five years after graduation. This idea has opened up new perspectives on how to assess long-term outcomes and has sparked some exciting discussions with our teams. We might start to design a questionnaire and deliver it to graduates in the next few weeks.

One thing you mentioned "We have used it in our upper school for about 3 years.". Would you mind briefly explaining how you implement it for your school?

I also shared the Teachers Development Trust with our faculty team. No doubt I believe they will gain insights from it.

Tom, thank you once again for your generosity and support. If there's ever an opportunity to collaborate or if I can assist you in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Hi Ben

I can't speak for my current school (K3-G9) because we haven't really started this process beyond some work we are currently engaged with regarding tracking standardized assessment scores over time. We want the longitudinal data to track graduating classes through school so we can understand the profiles of our student body and use the data to review programs and collective instruction. So what I'm about to share is less concrete than you might want :)

First of all I'd be very wary of tracking grades unless you have a process in place to regulate the validity and reliability of grades. Grading is notoriously subjective and so there is a lot of noise in the data. I used, as head of school, to try to track grades and look at the distribution across subjects for the same students and it was fascinating to see how different departments generated different grading profiles. For example, I had to do a lot of work with the History team because their grading profile was so depressed relative to other subjects - and we saw the outcome of that in the data that kids chose not to take the course when it became optional. I'd always look at standardized assessments first - they are not foolproof but at least your comparison is more objective. Of course, if you do AP or IB or another externally moderated exam that can be valuable. If you have nothing else grades give you something better than nothing, but that's not a high bar.

One thing I never got to do but always thought would be a valuable measure is qualitative data five years after graduation. What are your graduates doing now? How do they feel the school prepared them? In the end that type of data is powerful and builds a compelling narrative that speaks to all community sections. I have no idea how to do it, but I bet it would be powerful. Because it the end, that's the measure of a school. The closest I got was when we hired an anthropologist to do some work ahead of our 40th year celebrations. We interviewed about 100 graduates and then 100 current students. The data, qualitative though it was, was immensely powerful in showing how the school had performed against it's mission over those 40 years.

More practically ... one place you might want to look is CIRIS out of Maret School (https://ciris.maret.org/). They do a lot of work similar to what you are suggesting. Wellington School has a long standing project on collecting student perceptions about academics, teaching and engagement that is interesting. We have used it in our upper school for about 3 years.

Regarding PD I would recommend looking to the UK. The Teachers Development Trust (https://tdtrust.org/) has an amazing tool for tracking the quality of PD and its effectiveness. It is an annual audit model, with faculty and staff surveys, that tells you where you are and then gives you suggestions for improving PD effectiveness. Their work is all based on high quality research about adult learning, school development and focused on increasing student outcomes. I used this system in my last school and found had a profound impact on how we ensured every moment of PD was valuable. The extra bonus is that you get a rating which I have found is very useful in recruitment and retention. 

If any of this helps I'm happy. I'm not an expert and so if nothing helps I'm sorry :)

Tom

------------------------------
Tom Gething
Summit School NC

Original Message:
Sent: 11-13-2024 01:10 PM
From: Ben Gu
Subject: What Metrics Do Your Schools Use to Track Student Success and Institutional Performance

Hello everyone,

We are planning to use Power BI to build dashboards for tracking students' performance.

I'm interested in learning about the key performance metrics that other schools and educational institutions are tracking. We're exploring ways to improve our own tracking and assessment methods, and it would be great to understand what's working well for other institutions. Specifically, I'm curious about metrics related to:

1. Academic Performance – What indicators are used beyond grades and test scores?
2. Student Engagement and Wellbeing – How do you measure students' engagement, mental health, and overall satisfaction?
3. Teacher Effectiveness – Do you use specific benchmarks to gauge teaching effectiveness and professional development?
4. Operational Efficiency – What metrics help you assess the efficiency of school operations or administrative processes?

Additionally, any insights on tools or platforms that help with tracking and analyzing these metrics would be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing your insights and experiences. Thanks!

#General
#SustainingInnovationandLookingAhead
#TeachingandLearning
#ITSystemsandSupport
#Leadership
#CybersafetyandDataSecurity

------------------------------
Ben Gu
Ridley College
St. Catharines ON
------------------------------