How Data and Technology Improve Schools

Pedro Noguera, a Professor of Teaching and Learning at New York University, talks about how data and technology can improve schools in the video below.  The main idea he expresses in the video is that,

• "Data relieves teachers of the burden of guesswork, while technology gives students more control over learning." Pedro Noguera

In the video below Mr. Noguera comments upon SmartBoard technology and the mathematics program EPGY.  EPGY is the Education Program for Gifted Youth project at Stanford University which provides multimedia computer learning courses using Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI).  More information about Pedro Noguera can be found online at bigthink.com



A case study of a public school district-wide implementation of computer aided instruction is analyzed by Thomas Trautman of the American Education Corporation.  His research describes the impact upon student achievement following the implementation of A+ny Where Learning Systems (A+ny).  This research study examined students achievement of Illinois Public School District number 159 and offered the below findings:

• "The study showed that schools where the use of the A+nyWhere Learning System was encouraged used the software more than the neighboring schools where the use of the A+nyWhere Learning System was only made available and permitted. More importantly, the schools where the use of the A+nyWhere Learning System was encouraged and used more had greater gains in both reading and mathematics as measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills." (Trautman, pg 22)

The entire study titled, "Computer Aided Instruction and Academic Achievement" can be found online here.  More examples of CAI implementation can be found here.

Getting Teacher Assessment Right

The National Education Policy Center, NEPC released a report titled, "Getting Teacher Assessment Right: What Policymakers can Learn from Research"  in December 2010.  This report was created by Patricia Hinchey from Penn State University.  This report seeks seeks to address three main questions concerning evaluating teacher performance:

What should teachers be assessed upon?
What is the purposes of assessing teachers?
How can you assess teachers?


What to assess teachers upon? The report is concerned about the lack of an agreed-upon definition of teacher quality but points to ongoing research in the areas of teacher quality, teacher performance and teacher effectiveness.  Some of the research the report cited includes the following:

• Darling-Hammond, L., & Prince, C.D. (2007) Strengthening teacher quality in high-need schools: Policy and practice

• Geo, L., Bell, C., & Little, O. (2008) Approaches to evaluating teacher effectiveness: A research synthesis

• Kennedy, M. M. (2008) Sorting our teacher quality Phi Delta Kappan, 90(1), 59-63.

The below chart from the report summarize each of the categories derived from this research.

What is the purpose of assessing teachers?
The report provides two very different reasons or function towards assessing teachers.  Summative assessment is used to make a judgement while a formative assessment is "used to gain information that can help teachers improve or expand their abilities." (Hinchey, pg. 8)  Using formative assessment of teachers to improve practice requires positive, open relationships between teachers and administrators operating in an existing non-threatening environment.

What tools are available to better assess teachers? The report offers a wide array of methods in educator performance appraisal such as traditional classroom observation, use of instructional artifacts, portfolios, teacher self-reports, student surveys, value-added assessment (VAA) and peer assistance and review (PAR).

The entire report is available in PDF online here.

Presenting Data and Information

Edward Tufte is a professor at Yale University who focuses upon data visualization, analytic design and statistical evidence.  I recently attended instructed a course titled, "Presenting Data and Information" in Boston which examined the following topics (as posted from his website):

• fundamental strategies of analytical design
• evaluating evidence used in presentations
• statistical data: tables, graphics, and semi-graphics
• business, scientific, research, and financial presentations
• complexity and clarity
• effective presentations: on paper and in person
• interface design
• use of PowerPoint, video, overheads, and handouts
• multi-media, internet, and websites
• credibility of presentations
• animation and scientific visualizations

Why is this important information for teachers and educational leaders?

Edward Tufte thinks that PowerPoint is often misused for presentations as the software tends to have the creator elevate format over content.  He expresses these views in an article published at Wired.com titled, "PowerPoint is Evil."  His main point is this ubiquitous slide-based presentation software helps the speaker more than communicate the content to the audience.


He is also concerned over the educational impact on using PowerPoint in the classroom, "Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something." (Tufte)  After listening to his presentation, I believe that Mr. Tufte's main concern is the lack of content able to be conveyed to an audience of learners using PowerPoint.


I stopped and thought about just how often PointPoint is used by teachers in a middle school classroom to enhance a lecture.  My rough estimate is 2-3 times a week per teacher.  That is approximately 8-12 classes of 25 students each.  Over the course of an 180+ day school year, this adds up.


The course addressed six fundamental principals of analytic design essential for content-rich presentations.  

1. Comparisons: this and that
2. Assessments of causality: cause and effect structure
3. Multivariate analysis: three or more
4. Integration of evidence, use of relevant data
5. Documentation to ensure creditability (meta data)
6. Content, reasoning

These principals are further described in his book, Beautiful Evidence.  NPR features a review of his book here.


Edward Tufte recommends using Sparklines embedded in documents to better convey visual data for an audience of learners.  Sparkline is an information graphic, usually small in size but dense with data.  Sparklines often display trends and changes over time associated with measurement.  

Edward Tufte describes the term sparkline as "small, high resolution graphics embedded in a context of words, numbers and images." (Tufte, Beautiful Evidence) 

The website jQuery Sparklines helps users create Sparklines.  This website enables users to create multiple types of Sparklines such as: Box Plots, Pie Charts, Bullet Graphs, Discrete, Tristate Charts, bar Charts and Line Charts.  See the examples of Sparklines below:

Throughout the course Edward Tufte offered specific advice to better present data and provided several memorable quotes:

• "All real data has wrinkles in it.  Otherwise it smells of data cherry picking."

• "Find good examples [of non-fiction quantitative data display] in the wild such as google news, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the journal of Nature."  

• "Look at the amount of data shown on the Sports page or in the weather section of major newspapers next time someone tells you that you have too much data in a presentation."

Another website tool which allows users to create sparklines is at http://www.style.org/chartapi/sparklines.  

This website allows users to access a google charting tool (google chart API) to generate charts and sparklines to embed in documents.  I find them simple and elegant such as:

Edward Tufte is the author of Beautiful Evidence, Visual Explanations, Envisioning Information, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and Data Analysis for Politics and Policy.  More information can be found online at: http://www.edwardtufte.com