History shows that learning and collaborative inquiry are the path forward. Continuous improvement can produce great thinking and learning that enables the continuation to support the most vulnerable children. Civil rights organizers, such as Septima Clark, are viewed as model improvers. Regarded by many as the queen of the Civil Rights Movement,…

How can we prepare students for a world where data-driven decision-making shapes nearly every aspect of life? "Data Minds: How Today's Teachers Can Prepare Students for Tomorrow's World" helps K-8 educators infuse data literacy into everyday lessons across disciplines, without overwhelming existing curricula. Data literacy is an ability…

This interventional case study adopted a data-supported reflective assessment (DSRA) design to help pre-service teachers (PTs) engage in effective Knowledge Building (KB) and examined the mechanisms of this design to support PTs' productive KB discourse. The participants were 80 PTs from two classes taking the same course. Statistical analysis of…

This theoretical article proposes using statewide weather-observing networks (Mesonets) to support data-intensive, issue-based teaching of atmospheric topics in middle and high school science. It is argued that the incorporation of this new technology and its affordances into the school curriculum can drastically change the ways that atmospheric…

Continuous improvement methods, widely used in fields such as medicine, can help educators identify and try out adjustments in practice, known as "change ideas," which contribute to better outcomes and more equitable systems for students. Since 2018, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in 24 organizations across the…

Data-informed decision-making in teachers' practice, now recommended by different teacher inquiry models and policy documents, implies deep practice change for many teachers. However, not much is known about how teachers perceive the different steps that analytics-informed teacher inquiry entails. This paper presents the results of a study into…

Collaborative data inquiry can help schools serve their students better and improve student outcomes--but only if equity is prioritized. Researchers from Harvard's Data Wise Project discuss the importance of using an equity lens when engaging in collaborative data inquiry and what this can mean in terms of disrupting system inequities.

Open data has potential value as a material for use in learning activities. However, approaches to harnessing this are not well understood or in mainstream use in education. In this research, early adopters from a diverse range of educational projects and teaching settings were interviewed to explore their rationale for using open data in…

Technology-based, open-ended learning environments (OELEs) can capture detailed information of students' interactions as they work through a task or solve a problem embedded in the environment. This information, in the form of log data, has the potential to provide important insights about the practices adopted by students for scientific inquiry…

This article illustrates one of several learning sequences from the Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science (IMS) Learning project, connecting science and mathematics learning in the primary school. Investigating Body Height involved a series of investigations conducted in Years 5 and 6 across six classes in one school. The project teachers…

In the complex and dynamic environment of schools, the greatest asset is the collective wisdom of educators. The insights, experiences, and perspectives of teachers and staff are the most valuable data for driving meaningful improvement and fostering a positive environment where both students and adults can thrive. To lead effectively, one must…

The changing landscape of science and science education has provided an impetus to re-imagine how science can be taught in schools. The dawn of the Big Data era, especially in astronomy, and the notion of "Science as Practice" are some of the developments driving this need for a re-imagination of science education. This current work…

With the proliferation of information on how to use data to inform instruction for more than two decades, district leaders, principals, and other stakeholders assume teachers know how to use the cycle of inquiry process to improve student achievement. This case study is an examination of the practice of data use in seven schools in one urban…

This action research takes place at a small, New England public school system in Hopkinton, MA, and was designed to build the capacity of educators by utilizing a cycle of inquiry to improve Data-Driven Decision Making. The action steps of this study established a building-based Student Learning Team at Hopkinton Middle School which, in…

This study describes the experiences of teachers during a data-driven inquiry process to improve literacy-related practices. This action research was initiated at an international English immersion school for native Chinese speakers. Two 9th grade professional learning communities (PLC) from the English and Social Studies departments…