Trailblazer of the Year 2022
Ms. Amy Ard
Instructional Technology Facilitator, Tangipahoa Parish Schools
Software: OnCourse Multiple Measures
Amy Ard had a vision for meeting district-wide goals around student data; teachers making progress monitoring data accessible, eliminating spreadsheets, increasing teacher use of data during collaboration, and achieving transparency of different data points across the district. She used Multiple Measures reports to bridge the gap often seen in education between technology departments and teachers.
“I understood the power of Multiple Measures and I started building reports with the data I thought would benefit my teachers,” said Ard.
Over a one year period, she created and distributed teacher-friendly dashboards that consolidated data from several sources, like scores from summative tests, benchmarks, grades, etc. This raised the usage of data across the entire district.
“It wasn’t until I pushed the reports out to teachers that I began to envision how we could use this tool to not only view data but also collect it. To provide in-class checkpoint data to Curriculum coaches, I added “Teacher Input Columns.”
Teacher Input Columns are an OnCourse feature that allows for a single column of data to be editable by teachers, leaving the rest of the scores for viewing only.
“As teachers input data, performance bands auto-populate, our data warehouse is updated, and they are progress monitoring as the data is entered.
Because we can deliver data district-wide via Multiple Measures, our teachers come to Collaboration with a full understanding of their data, and they now use that time to discuss data-driven actions to lead their students, and our district, in a more positive direction.
With this practice in place, progress monitoring data can now follow the student through grade levels or school transfers. We are building a full narrative of data for each student. District-level support is able to view district, school, and teacher data to identify strengths and weaknesses as we work to provide an equitable education for all.”
Why this Project was Selected
Amy’s work qualified her as an OnCourse Trailblazer due to several factors, such as:
- Innovation in data curation
- Supporting growth by providing on-demand data views for teachers
- Sharing practices with nearby districts
|