overview
Exciting Teachers & Improving Student Achievement with Standards-Based Assessment Data
(All Content, Grade K-8)
Sandy Sanford
Course Description:
This session is conducted by a member of the Riverside County Achievement (R-CAT) Team, a group that represents a wealth of knowledge and experience in supporting the goals and vision of No Child Left Behind. R-CAT is a proven assistance model for schools aspiring to improve student achievement. In this model, county office personnel collaborate with schools to align data and school targets with professional training, resources, and accountability.
In this session, Sandy Sanford, an R-CAT team member, will explain how proven processes and forward thinking in Riverside County California have resulted in innovative and dynamic approaches to the use of standards-based data by teachers for improving student achievement. The presentation starts with a brief description of how Riverside County schools have evolved from simple data compilers to effective users of data for systematically driving instructional improvement. Sandy will interact with teachers to show them how to distinguish between data that Judges and data that Informs-and how best to use both. Various formats and types of assessment data will be explored in light of the effects of the standards-based movement. Techniques will be explained that give teachers ownership of assessment data and convert the data from abstract numbers to valuable, teacher-friendly information. The presentation concludes with a step-by-step simulation of the WHAT process (Why and How Analysis for Teaching)-a powerful teaching tool that not only identifies weak standards ("weak" with respect to student achievement) but also leads teachers to "Why" the students are not mastering the standards and "How" an intervention might be designed to fix the problem.
Sandy Sanford
Sandy Sanford has been teaching children and adults in California public schools since 1989. He served as an elementary school teacher, mentor teacher, assistant principal, principal, and district administrator of assessment, research, and evaluation. He taught college courses in data analysis, data literacy, database theory, software, and development of data support systems. In 2000 Sandy created a laboratory for the purpose of developing better methods for gathering, analyzing, reporting, and using assessment and demographic data to guide the instructional process in a standards-based educational environment. In 2001 Sandy committed his data laboratory in direct support of the Riverside County Achievement Teams, and he now functions as an R-CAT team member specializing in use of assessment data. Sandy's latest project involves designing a process that puts meaningful assessment data in the hands of teachers, excites teachers, and guides teachers in the use of that data to help improve student achievement.
