Data-Driven Learning--What's Needed Most

Because it will lead to a strong motivation to succeed, student ownership of their education is what is needed most in education today. All over the district where I'm employed, I see teachers meet. They pour over the test results, they look at the questions, they talk about why so many kids missed a particular item--Did they guess? Did they get tricked? Were they tired? Did they not know what the word ___ meant? Though this is certainly a productive way for teachers to be spending their time together, I'd also like to see them doing more of the same practice with their students. With enough information and practice, the students will tell you, and each other, their own thinking processes.

It's absolutely amazing what students can learn from one another. It's also amazing what educators can learn from students. After all, who can tell you what an individual was thinking better than the person who was doing the thinking? By teaching students to reflect on how they learn and by developing their skills to pursue their learning goals, students will be given the power to change from passive recipients of information to active controllers of their learning.

With the implementation formative and summative assessments, there's no shortage of performance data. I wonder how many teachers share the data with the kids and solicit ideas from them. Why not make the most of those assessments? Knowledge is power for everyone, adults and kids. There should be not only data-driven instruction, but data-driven learning.

Promoting data-driven learning in the classroom will result in an evolution of the teacher’s role-from teachers-as-experts to teachers-as-facilitators. Learners will be empowered by the promotion of student involvement in learning. Students will have the opportunity to develop skills that support learning throughout life, and learners will assume personal responsibility for learning. That’s what’s needed most!