Each year, the National Center for Education Statistics hosts the STATS DC Data Conference.  This year's conference was held in Washington D.C. on August 1-3.  Two MNPS employees presented at this conference.

Laura Hansen, MNPS Director of Information Management and Decision Support, was part of a expert panel on Wednesday, August 2nd entitled, A Tense Marriage: Governing the Relationships Among Data Interoperability, Security, and Privacy.  This session discussed the tension between balancing the needs to support students and teacher in experiencing high quality learning experiences while maintaining appropriate barriers and privacy protections for students.

Dr. Margie Johnson, MNPS Collaborative Inquiry Coordinator, co-presented with Dr. Stephanie Wilkerson, president of Magnolia Consulting, on Wednesday, August 2nd about MNPS' journey to implementing collaborative inquiry data use practices throughout the district.  The session entitled, A District's Journey of Implementing Effective Data Use Practices, shared MNPS's data journey toward developing and implementing the Data-Informed Decision-making Ecosystem, of which collaborative inquiry is the heart of the ecosystem and serves as a guide for empowering educators to use data, no matter the source, for making informed decisions.  Tools developed to support the implementation of the ecosystem, including the Teacher Data Use Survey and MNPS IC Map for Collaborative Inquiry were shared with participants.  The PowerPoint for this session is available HERE.

(Stephanie and I also have a published article mentioned in the PowerPoint.  If you would like a copy of it, please email me requesting a copy.)

The presentations from the conference should be available online soon.  If you want to check out their website, you can access it at http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/collaboration-corner-blog/ci-update-do-you-understand-the-words-coming-out-of-my-mouth.

If you need any support with collaborative inquiry and/or have a story to tell, please contact Margie Johnson at [email protected].

This publication was not done alone.  I want to thank the following middle schools for their contribution in getting the survey developed and published: Haynes, JFK, Margaret Allen, Two Rivers, West End, and Wright.  I also want to thank Mary Laurens Seely and the district data coaches who helped.

Along with the survey, REL Appalachia evaluators created us some other tools that have made the data analysis of the survey easier.  They have a page with additional resources, which you can access here: http://relappalachia.org/products/rel-appalachia-reports/teacher-data-use-survey-tools-and-administration-guide/.

The TDUS will be administered in the Community of Practice schools from October 17-31.  Links will be sent to CoP school administrators and site leads to disseminate to appropriate stakeholders.  Please remember that the survey takes approximately 20 minutes or less.  It is voluntary and completely anonymous.  The data will be used to facilitate another collaborative inquiry working group meeting to discuss further support from central office for implementing collaborative inquiry.

If you have any questions or want to learn more, please feel free to reach out to Margie Johnson at [email protected].

If you have been part of this journey since Summer 2014, one of the barriers identified for implementing collaborative inquiry was the lack of leadership modeling.  I refer to this barrier as “walking the walk.”  People raised concerned about leadership, particularly from central office supporting the implementation of collaborative inquiry practices.
 
Since we have the collaborative inquiry community of practice among 5 middle schools and asked them to develop an implementation plan for implementing collaborative inquiry, the need to have this discuss at central office arose.  The meeting to discuss central office’s role in supporting collaborative inquiry was held on Thursday, May 19th from 11 AM to 2 PM. 
 
Overall, it was a very productive meeting where we used collaborative inquiry practices by using the Teacher Data Use Survey data from the community of practice schools as a springboard for how to best support schools.  We had a lively conversation and some great ideas were generated. 

To learn more about the meeting, including the agenda, PowerPoint, minutes, and pictures of charts, please go to http://www.mnpscollaboration.org/collaborative-inquiry-working-group.html.

I also videotaped the session because several schools requested to see videos with collaborative inquiry  being modeled.  Once I have the videos ready, I will post them to our toolkit and notify you via a blog post.

Please note that I am always here as a support for this work and several central office staff have received training as well.  I’m happy to meet with you and your team to discuss the best way your school and/or department can foster a culture of collaborative inquiry.  Ultimately, my vision is for the expertise throughout MNPS and school community be leveraged for supporting student success.
 
Contact me, Margie Johnson, at [email protected].
 
Hope you all have a wonderful summer.