Simulation games can play a critical role in enabling students to navigate the problem spaces of the past while simultaneously critiquing the models designers offer to represent those problem spaces. There is much to be gained through their use. This includes rich opportunities for students to engage the past as independent historians; to consider…

Data-driven decision making has become increasingly important in education. Policymakers require educators to use data to inform practice. Although the policy emphasis is growing, what has not increased is attention to building human capacity around data use. Educators need to gain data literacy skills to inform practice. Although some…

Predicting the future is now in the hands of K12 administrators. While for years districts have collected thousands of pieces of student data, educators have been using them only for data-driven decision-making or formative assessments, which give a "rear-view" perspective only. Now, using predictive analysis--the pulling together of data over…

Academic standards and performance outcomes are a major focus of the current Cycle 2 Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) audits. AUQA has clearly stated that universities will need to provide "evidence of setting, maintaining, and reviewing institutional academic standards and outcomes" (2010, p. 27). To do this, universities…

As assistive technology applications are increasingly implemented in early childhood settings for children who are at risk or who have disabilities, it is critical that teachers utilize observational approaches to determine whether targeted assistive technology-supported interventions make a difference in children's learning. One structured…

This article is the third in a series describing the steps in using data-based decision making to inform intervention and, ultimately, improve outcomes for children. Whereas the first two articles describe identifying and measuring important behaviors to target for intervention, the purpose of this article is to describe basic considerations in…

As a research and technical assistance organization, CNA Education would be the last to deny the importance of good data and the first to applaud efforts to improve the quality and scope of the data available. Solid data are critical to CNA's mission to further general understanding of the efficacy of specific education reform initiatives and to…

Although the term data-driven decision making (DDDM) is relatively new (Moss, 2007), the underlying concept of DDDM is not. For example, the practices of formative assessment and computer-managed instruction have historically involved the use of student performance data to guide what happens next in the instructional sequence (Morrison, Kemp, &…

Efforts have been devoted to introduce in science curricula direct instruction for evaluating scientific reports on socioscientific issues. In this study, students' opinions on the SSI of mobile telephones effects have been investigated before and after a classroom activity designed to enable students to assess scientific data. Aspects of the…

America brims with education data and these days it seems everyone in education claims to be guided by data. In this book, leaders and scholars map the landscape of data providers and users and explores why what is supplied by the former but frequently fails to meet the needs of the latter. It documents the barriers to collecting good information,…

Every day physicians make judgments about patient management and diagnosis based on less than perfect information from many different sources. Judgment and decision-making research has taught us a great deal about such decisions, but these insights rarely find their way into the medical curriculum. One productive line of investigation in the study…

Federal education policy in recent years has encouraged state and local education agencies to embrace data use and analysis in decision-making, ranging from policy development and implementation to performance evaluation. The capacity of these agencies to make effective and methodologically sound use of collected data for these purposes remains an…

Discusses the importance of the process of making decisions based on data referred to as data-driven decision making, or D3M. Presents guidelines for teachers to consider when implementing a data-driven decision making process. (ASK)

Presents an interview with Mary McKnabb, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) Senior Program Associate, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum on the data-driven decision making process, measuring student success within this process, and the critical role of continuous feedback in assessing student performance. (ASK)

In these times of high-stakes accountability, all professional educators must learn how to gather, analyze, and use data to improve teaching and learning, becoming efficient generators and consumers of data. The intended audiences for this book are school and district administrators and teacher leaders who recognize the need to use data to…