“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. ”
– Albert Einstein
On September 3, 2014, in this blog, I shared a post about measuring success. In our District, we are “living” becoming and being a data-informed and data-driven learning environment. One of the major initiatives in which we are involved is the 1:1 Transformative “roll out” in all classrooms with all students in the District. Started over a decade ago, the District has looked to technology accelerators to engage students and teachers with respect to innovative growth and change. Last year we engaged in an Innovative Grant (Innovation Grant Program) which yielded 40 1:1 classrooms for half of the year. Through those experiences the District authorized a full 1:1 roll out for this school year!
From the September 3 blog post:
“…In addition, we are getting ready to measure the impact(s) of the 1:1 Roll Out. On September 15, 2014, and again on March 15, 2015, we are going to send out links to online survey instruments to all students, staff, and parents regarding the 1:1 roll out. With our research partner Bright Bytes, using an algorithm from MIT and Stanford researchers, we will measure and learn about impacts on learning, classroom, access, schools, and environment. Please know, we are listening and we truly care about what you have to say! Please reach out, please share your thoughts about what we are doing well, in what areas we can improve, and if we ask you to complete a survey or two or three, please take the time to do so – we truly appreciate your input!!”
Today, March 15, 2015 – we sent survey links to all parents, all faculty, staff, administrators, and all students in grades 4-8 throughout the school district. We are measuring impacts, growth, success, areas in need of improvement and attention and overall data gathering to see how we are engaging all students and how we need to address enhanced engagement of all students in the context of pedagogy (instruction/teaching), skill development, personalizing learning for children as well as meeting the needs of all learners. The initial benchmark data can be found by clicking HERE.
Our data collection is part of overall “ROI” “return on investment”. Our overall aims to engage, inspire, empower all students and staff and community permeate all aspects and elements of the District leadership and planning. The 1:1 roll out is just beginning – it’s here to stay – and we leaders are 
working to refine areas in need of improvement and enhance areas of success and increase staff learning and growth and mindset change/shifts on behalf of student needs and student growth and learning!
This year we enhanced the curricular resources with multiple digital subscriptions, core resources, supplements, teaching and learning aids, assessment tools, and of course devices and professional learning. Our aim is to “rock the boat” a bit by implementing a bit of “chaos” and “dissonance” into the system so that growth and change may take place. During a change process there are some discomfort situations and some periods of confusion. It is our aim through professional learning and development that we can bring forth greater comfort and clarity.
It’s no accident that the BrightBytes research partner calls it’s data portal “Clarity”. The overall purpose of our data collection is to gain greater clarity so that we may support leadership, change, education and growth. An example of a data point from the vast analysis is shown below:
This is but one of MANY data points, comparisons, insights, and analytics we can learn from via the survey data. This survey administration will give us comparables to the September benchmark or baseline data and we will continue to have the opportunity to compare our own stakeholder input with that of the entire Bright Bytes population (tens of thousands of schools across the USA and Canada). Suffice it to say that we are listening, we are learning and through informed guidance and analytics we are leading!
