Better learning outcomes for our students are at the very core of what we do at GESS. By embracing a data-driven approach to better understand our students, shared insights will allow our experienced educators to truly know each student and personalise high quality teaching and support. We speak with Rebecca Scrivener on steering this important function, what her team does and her vision.
We have been hearing about GESS becoming a data-driven school, how data on students will help our educators better plan and personalise quality teaching and learning for our students. How would you explain this approach to a layman? And how will this transform the way we teach and what we teach?
We generate and use a vast range of data all the time. That data may look very different based on age-group and for each individual student. For example, data on our youngest students may include photographs of their participation in collaborative activities, or a video of the student talking about their learning. For our older students, it may look more like the typical spreadsheet of assessment grades. By developing how we collate and interpret this data in a timely and accessible way, we can better identify trends, shifts and connections. This is very important because it gives us greater insight into how our students are progressing, what is currently effective and the areas requiring development. This enables us to answer important educational questions and explore the stories our data presents for both individuals and community groups.
What are the benefits to our students?
Creating a holistic approach to our student data means we can have informed and meaningful discussions that are based on current and longitudinal understanding of our learners. For a student transitioning from one grade level to another, we can ensure a very clear and meaningful data set travels with them, adding to our overall understanding of them as a learner through their academic journey.
It is important that each student makes at least one year’s worth of progress for every year of learning. Having a consistent whole school approach towards data means we can be responsive to each individual student, proactively providing guidance, interventions, and challenges.
Having data presented in a way that’s easy to access, understand and interpret will also help our students become more self-aware of who they are as a learner, thereby engaging them in the process of self-reflection and enabling them to make better informed decisions for themselves.
How do we ensure GESS and our educators are well-equipped to implement this approach in the classroom?
Creating academic data dashboards for individual students and cohort groups is only part of this project. It is very important that the data project involves extensive collaboration and consultation with academic faculty from all departments, every stage of the way. Initially, we need to establish what data each department currently has, how this data is used and then to explore how data can be further optimised.
We have started implementing a range of professional development opportunities and formats, to enable our educators to engage with the data dashboard. More importantly, how to develop and use data questions as a strategy to interpret data in order to create a data story.
GESS is already actively engaged in the wider educational data community, gaining insights from industry experts, collaborations with other schools and educational research in this area. We are excited to host the Data in Schools Conference at GESS in October 2024 – another opportunity to collaborate and share with a variety of international schools from all around the world.
Tell us about your team driving this approach.
We are pleased to onboard our new Educational Data Technician, Iskandar Zulkarnain Bin Ibrahim in March 2024. He brings a wealth of knowledge and skills to the role. He is passionate about turning complex data into clear insights with Data Science and Engineering. When not delving into databases, he enjoys sports, Lego, stand-up comedy, and video games. We know he is excited to apply his data expertise to enhance our school’s data-driven decisions.
As the data project progresses, we will be working closely with the Academic Directors and their teams to ensure we can provide data visualizations and analysis that meet the needs of our faculty, to support High Quality Teaching and Learning (HQ T&L) at GESS. Another key person is Karsten Fink who handles Pedagogical Quality Management (PQM). Like myself, Karsten has a pivotal responsibility to drive the HQ T&L pillar of GESS’ five-year Limitless Learning Plan.
What are some immediate initiatives that are already in motion? Do we have a timeline or a phased approach, so we can witness the milestones and differences at GESS, now and in the foreseeable future?
We have some very clear objectives and key milestones over the next three academic years for our journey to becoming a data-driven school. We have commenced digesting what data we currently have, and how this data can be usefully analysed and visualised to support our educators to provide individualised monitoring, guidance and learning pathways for each of our students.
Our first main milestone will be the creation of a data dashboard, which our teachers can log into and find all of their students’ current and historical academic data presented in an accessible format. This allows our educators to quickly access, interpret and monitor their students’ academic progress. The next phase will be creating individualised goals and to better understand what is driving student success alongside areas where we can provide greater challenge and support, slated for development in the next academic year of 2024/2025.
From this, we will be exploring patterns and trends within cohort data, which again helps us explore what practices are most effective at driving student progress at GESS. All these build a collective understanding of effective teaching and learning strategies within GESS.
In your role spearheading this, what is it that excites you? What challenges do you foresee and what is your approach in tackling these anticipated challenges?
I am really excited about all the opportunities for collaboration this project promises, and the way we can use data to develop a culture of collective efficacy among both educators and learners. For me, collective efficacy is essential, to know what is working, what needs to change, exchanging ideas, and engaging with constructive feedback. Having been a GESS teacher for the past 17 years, I know how valuable it is to have access to the bigger picture of how my students are doing, so I can be responsive to their needs and craft the best possible learning experiences for each of them.
I think it is important that the GESS community continues to have productive and timely conversations around our data. Learning from and interacting with the data need to be a collaborative and authentic process. For the data to drive progress at GESS, we must be able to ask effective questions and be open to the “stories” evident in our data. GESS has a complex and varied range of existing data – for this project to be a success, it is vital that we not only consider what data we currently have, but also what data we would like to have. A key starting point is to look to our school’s values of respect, openness and diversity, and seek to bring these into the way we gather, consider and interpret educational data.
