With teacher shortages, high staff turnover, and an influx of new and underprepared teachers, highly capable data-informed teaching teams are needed now more than ever. "Instructional Innovation+" provides educators with a systematic action research approach to achieve instructional innovation and guide teaching teams to success through…

This article outlines a three-phase, team-based approach used to analyze qualitative data from a nation-wide needs assessment of access to Veteran Health Administration services for rural-dwelling veterans. The method described here was used to develop the trustworthiness of findings from analysis of a large qualitative data set, without the use…

In 2018, the United States Congress passed the "Strengthening of Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act." This legislation included the requirement to conduct a comprehensive local needs assessment, which must include input from community stakeholders. This project designed and evaluated a three-step process that…

CCNetwork, in many cases, begins their work by assessing client needs--speaking with clients, examining current evidence and data, reviewing documents, and identifying patterns across those. Needs-sensing methods are important inputs to helping shape and prioritize what CCNetwork does. Landscape scans take these efforts a bit further by helping to…

Emmet County faces a dearth of affordable, quality child care options, with available child care having steadily declined over the past five years. In Michigan, there are about four children under age 12 for every available child care spot. The areas with the least child care availability are often rural and concentrated in northern Michigan, like…

The "Forum Guide to Metadata" presents and examines the ways in which metadata can be used by education agencies to improve data quality and promote a better understanding of education data. Supported by metadata-related case studies from state and local education agencies, the guide highlights the uses of metadata from a technical point…

The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI) periodically assesses the needs of early childhood and K-12 students and educators regarding literacy instruction. These periodic assessments assist NDDPI with meeting the needs of educators and the students they serve through grants and other programs and opportunities. This report reviews…

The aim of this study is to analyze research methods, data collection tools, and data analysis methods of the needs assessment studies conducted in the language education and teaching process. In this study, the general screening model, which is based on an examination of research on needs analysis, was used. The data collected in accordance with…

In the New England area, schools and districts face challenges in recruiting teachers for remote rural schools, offering competitive pay with other industries, particularly for CTE teachers, and declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs. Region 1 Comprehensive Center (R1CC) and Region 2 Comprehensive Center facilitated three virtual…

The link between health and learning is clear: healthy, active and well-nourished children are more likely to attend school, arrive ready to learn and stay engaged in class. Yet far too many students spend their days in schools that do not offer them adequate clean air and water, nutritious food, physical activity and the support of a school…

This chapter identifies some of the challenges surrounding data collection and analysis regarding development students, including testing and identifying academic needs, placement determination, and measuring student outcomes.

Evaluation capacity building (ECB) is an essential element for generating credible and actionable evidence on Extension programs. This paper offers a discussion of ECB efforts in Cooperative Extension and how such efforts enable Extension professionals to collect and use credible and actionable evidence on the quality and impacts of programs.…

More data are collected, analyzed, and stored now than at any other time in history. Data processes play a foundational role in just about every professional discipline, and data stakeholders all over the world are grappling with modernizing and optimizing data governance policies and practices. In this rapidly evolving landscape, what challenges…

The use of blockchain in education has become one of the trending topics in education technology research. However, only a handful of education blockchain solutions have provided a measure of the impact on students' learning outcomes, teaching, or administrative processes. This work reviews how academic data stored on the blockchain is being…

Since at least the 1930s, school counselors have used data to inform school counseling programming. However, the evolving complexity of school counselors' identity calls for an updated understanding of the use of data. We offer an expanded definition of data-based decision making that reflects the purpose of using data in educational settings and…