{"id":148559,"date":"2023-06-08T14:12:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/districtadministration.com\/?p=148559"},"modified":"2023-06-08T14:12:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:12:57","slug":"florence-1-schools-cognitive-data-unlocks-true-data-literacy","status":"publish","type":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/districtadministration.com\/opinion\/florence-1-schools-cognitive-data-unlocks-true-data-literacy\/","title":{"rendered":"How one district uses cognitive data to to unlock true data literacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
Florence 1 Schools is a mixed suburban and rural district. We have a 70% poverty rate, and all of our schools receive Title I funding. We face many of the challenges that high-poverty districts around the country face, and some of those challenges are compounded by the fact that schools in South Carolina are poorly funded and supported, with language in our state constitution affording students a \u201cminimally adequate\u201d education.<\/p>\n
Like many schools, we believe in using data to inform instruction. Recently, we began using a new kind of data\u2014cognitive data\u2014that has helped change our approach to data-informed instruction more generally. Here\u2019s how it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n
Like many school districts across the country, even when our district was data-rich, we did not feel we were using a synthesis of all data sources to make the best decisions about instruction, curriculum and professional development. We also recognized that there were additional sources of data about the learner that were not traditionally considered in the decision-making process.<\/p>\n
In the past, most of our professional development had focused on student achievement data, in large part because there is so much pressure on educators to raise student achievement. We would use benchmarks, unit assessments or any other formative assessment tools we had, along with analyses of state assessments. We would look at trends by grade, class, teacher or a variety of other demographics. We would try to individualize training for specific curricular needs or instructional strategies if it was warranted by the trends we saw, but it was generally driven by achievement data and little else.<\/p>\n