Principal Leadership for Effective Use of

Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (PGES) Data

December 9, 2014Louisville, Kentucky

Welcome and Introduction

Dr. Patricia KannapelCoordinator, Kentucky College and Career Readiness Alliance

REL Appalachia

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Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Program

• U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

• RELs provide regional support for:– Applied research and evaluation.

– Technical support and information sharing to build capacity to use data for improved education outcomes.

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REL Appalachia’s Mission

• Meet the applied research and technical support needs of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

• Bring evidence-based information to policymakers and practitioners:– Provide support for a more evidence-reliant education system.– Inform policy and practice for states, divisions, schools, and other

stakeholders.– Focus on high-priority, discrete issues and build a body of knowledge

over time.

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What Does REL Appalachia Do?• Assess regional research needs by monitoring emerging education issues

and challenges.

• Maintain and refine research alliances through ongoing dialogue between educators in each region and researchers.

• Provide analytic technical support to increase use of data and analysis to understand policies and programs, make decisions, and support effective practice.

• Conduct research and evaluation studies of rigor and method appropriate to the questions the studies attempt to answer.

• Distribute results of REL research across the region.

• Coordinate and partner with other RELs and federal, state, and local education research and technical assistance organizations.

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Research Alliances

• What is a research alliance?– A partnership between education stakeholders and REL Appalachia.

• What is the purpose of a research alliance?– As partners, REL Appalachia and alliance members develop and carry

out a research and analytic technical assistance agenda on priority topics.

• Who are the education stakeholders in an alliance?– May include representatives from one or more schools, divisions, state

education agencies, and other organizations (e.g., colleges and universities).

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Please Tweet!

• To Tweet during this event:– @REL_Appalachia– @waymandatause

• Use hashtag: – #PGES

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Principal Leadership forEffective Use of PGES Data

Dr. Jeffrey C. WaymanWayman Services, LLC

Overview of Workshop

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Why Are We Here?

• PGES has placed extra data demands on principals.• We can do this in compliance mode:– Check the boxes.– Get back to what we were doing.

• We can do this to effect improvement.– But that’s hard.– That’s why we’re here.

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Your Reality

• It’s 2014. Everybody’s got education data.• You can use PGES data or it can use you.– More specifically, if you don’t have a plan to use PGES

data, it will use you.• The state gave you a gift (I know, I know…).– Embrace it.

– Grow it school wide.

– Add your own data, methods, approaches.

– Put your fingerprint on it – make it yours.

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Goals of Today’s Meeting

• Learn about specific leadership strategies principals can use to lead staff in using PGES data for instructional improvement.

• Help you with the foundation of your 2015/16 PGES plans.

• Help you with your immediate PGES leadership needs.

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Structure of Today’s Meeting

• Here’s what we’ll do today:– Set the stage.– Learn about 12 leadership strategies for helping

faculty use data.– Participate in three activities to put these

strategies into practice.– Pull it all together.

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Setting the Stage

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What Is Data?

• State assessments.• Formative assessments.• Local assessments.• Grades, quizzes.• Student histories.• Free lunch.• Observation.• Student voice data.

• Ethnicity.• Attendance.• Parental info.• Disciplinary info.• Work samples.• Growth data.• Reflection data.• AND MORE!

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My Lens

• Focus on instructional improvement.• Data are used in the course of everyday work, not

in addition to everyday work.• Data use is not an event. • Structures and practices develop culture.• Data don’t “drive” anything – professional

judgment does.

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The Principal and Data Use

• Data use lives and dies in the principal’s office.• But it’s hard:– Levers come from above and below.– University prep programs are insufficient.– Building the plane as we fly it.

• This can be workable – even enjoyable.• Learn and employ concrete leadership strategies

specific to data use.

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Research behind Today’s Event

• Research paper: Using Data to Inform Practice: Effective Principal Leadership Strategies.– Reviewed research to identify 12 leadership

strategies to support faculty data use.– Examined which strategies principals used.

• It’s on my website: www.waymandatause.com.– Click on the PUBLICATIONS tab.

J. C. Wayman et al. (2012). Using data to inform practice: effective principal leadership strategies. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada.

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The 12 Strategies• Asking the right

questions.• Communicating with

data.• Data system support.• Distributing leadership.• Engaging in personal

learning opportunities.• Ensuring adequate

professional learning.

• Facilitating collaboration around data.

• Focusing data use on a broad context.

• Fostering common understandings.

• Goal setting.• Modeling data use.• Structuring time to use

data.

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Describing the 12 Leadership Strategies

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Grouping the 12 Strategies

• The strategies fall naturally in groups.• Grouping! Not ordering. Not importance.• 4 groups:– Base-setting strategies.– Functional strategies.– Embedded strategies.– Principal-specific strategies.

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Base-Setting Strategies

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Base-Setting Strategies

• These strategies are ones to use in setting the core culture of data use.

• It’s pretty hard without these.• Base-setting strategies are:– Data system support.– Facilitating collaboration around data.– Focusing data use on a broad context.– Fostering common understandings.

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Data System Support

Supporting staff to use data systems to get information from data and improve practice.• Focus on the data, not the system.• Show value of system by focusing on

immediately relevant problems.• Embed system use in everyday work.• Create feedback loops that help you understand

how staff understand the system.

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Facilitating Collaboration around Data

Structuring ways for staff to work together with data on issues specific to their practice.• Collaboration is the lifeblood of data use.• Creating time to collaborate is important, but

structuring what happens during that time is really important.

• Be there. Participate in collaborative meetings with faculty and staff.

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Focusing Data Use on a Broad Context

Ensuring that data use goes beyond high-stakes tests to examine the broad spectrum of student learning.• This is natural to teachers – they always think of

the “whole student.”• Multiple data points are key.• State tests are but one piece to the puzzle.

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Fostering Common Understandings

Creating opportunities to build shared ideas regarding teaching, learning, and how data serve.• Think of it as “shared mental models” (Senge).• All activities are created with this in mind.• It’s the process that’s important• Teachers like this. It respects them, involves them,

gives them a voice. P. M. Senge. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization, NY: Doubleday.

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Functional Strategies

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Functional Strategies

• These strategies work with particular activities around using data.

• Functional strategies are:– Asking the right questions.– Communicating with data.– Goal setting.

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Asking the Right Questions

Providing support for staff to identify relevant problems and choose appropriate approaches.• Helps staff focus data use and avoid being

overwhelmed by data.• Don’t let it slide – principals must hold staff

accountable for good questioning.• Simple, explicit professional development on

questioning will help.

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Communicating with Data

Using a variety of strategies that clarify for staff and parents how data are used and what they mean.• Clarity about why data are used helps data use

become non-threatening.• Tell your story, or someone else will.• Strategies might include informal discussion,

memos, newsletters, websites, etc.

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Goal Setting

Setting benchmarks, and tailoring data use to support attainment of those benchmarks.• Lay out a clear path and destination.• Goals should communicate what we’re about.• Set goals collaboratively.• Support the work of reaching the destination.• People don’t naturally set hard-to-reach goals.

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BREAK

Embedded Strategies

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Embedded Strategies

• These strategies are threaded throughout all strategies.

• It’s hard to imagine employing any strategy without at least a piece of these.

• Embedded strategies are:– Distributing leadership.– Ensuring adequate professional learning.– Structuring time to use data.

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Distributing Leadership

Creating opportunities for staff to perform, create, and own data-related activities.• Creates investment and ownership.• Lean heavily on collaboration and support staff.• Be careful, though:– Dose out slowly – this is hard to do up front.– Are you really creating “distributed power”?

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Ensuring Adequate Professional Learning

Ensuring that staff consistently engage in immediately relevant professional learning opportunities.• Don’t get caught up in traditional formats.• Embed it in everyday work. • Think expertise, not experts.• Everything is a professional learning opportunity.

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Structuring Time to Use Data

Scheduling dedicated time for teachers to examine and reflect upon data.• Structures abound: planning time, team

meetings, etc.• Structure and support what goes on in that time. • Time to process and reflect is critical.• Particularly related to collaboration.

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Principal-Specific Strategies

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Principal-Specific Strategies

• These strategies are ones that are centered on the principal’s own practice.

• Principal-specific strategies are:– Engaging in personal learning opportunities.– Modeling data use.

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Engaging in Personal Learning Opportunities

Improving personal skills through workshops, classes, reading, or collaboration.• Gandhi: “There go my people. I must catch them,

for I am their leader.”• Includes both data skills and leadership skills.• Enables good modeling.

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Modeling Data Use

Ensuring that staff see the principal using data in effective ways.• Collaboration and meetings are a good forum for

modeling.• Provides staff an exemplar and sets a direction.• But … the principal doesn’t have to be perfect.

Just good.

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Research on Use of the 12 Strategies

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Principals’ Use of the Strategies

• Studied principals in three districts diverse in size, achievement, SES, ethnic makeup.

• Principals employed only three strategies with any frequency:– Focusing data use on broad context.– Facilitating collaboration around data.– Distributing leadership.

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More on Principals’ Use of Strategies

• Focused data use on broad context, but kept it shallow:– Missed opportunities to mix with traditional

information use.• Facilitated collaboration, but didn’t structure it:– “Here’s your time … now go collaborate.”

• Distributed work, not leadership:– Kept ownership very close to themselves.

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Two Big Takeaways

• Two interpretations of this research are particularly important for our PGES work:1. Principals did employ these 3 strategies, but

weren’t intentional about it.2. The strategies they employed fitted well with

familiar, existing structures.

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Let’s Wrap This Up

• Be intentional!• Be subtle – most of these will go unnoticed.• Don’t do these strategies all at once.• Focus on capacity building. Let them lead. • Cut yourself some slack – nobody prepared you

to do this. But your teachers will love you if you do.

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PGES Leadership Activities

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Putting It into Practice

• Three activities around PGES data:1. Communicating with PGES data.2. Teacher conferences with PGES data.3. Distributed leadership in PGES.

• Discussion groups – aim is to get you talking and connecting around this work.

• Widen your learning group.• Shareback and whole-group discussion.

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Activity One:Communicating with PGES Data

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Communicating with PGES Data

• Lots of groups have education data.– Tell your story, or someone else will.

• This strategy gets you in front of PGES data. – Control the narrative.

• Communicate about both data and process.– How we do teaching and learning – and how data

serve these.• Communicate both externally and internally.– Parents, teachers, public, students.

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Activity – PGES Communication

• Step 1: Discuss in your group the various forms of communication listed.– What are you doing? How are you doing it? What

are you not doing? What’s easy? What’s hard?• Step 2: Discuss in your group other forms of

communication that were not listed. • Appoint someone to record answers. • We’ll share back in whole-group discussion.

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Shareback – PGES Communication

• What were you doing and how?• What were you not doing? • What was easy? What was hard?• What did you add to the list? • If you’re willing, hand in your sheet – I can use

these to inform my next events for you.• After lunch, we’ll mix up the groups for the next

activity.

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LUNCH

Activity Two:Teacher Conferences with

PGES Data

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Teacher Conferences with PGES Data

• You know how to do teacher conferences.• I want to disrupt that a bit.– Comfort the afflicted … afflict the comfortable.

• PGES is ambitious about conferences.– In other words – there’s not enough time, right?!

• Still, those conferences can be the hub of your improvement efforts.

• I can’t give you a list – they’re too contextual.– But I can give you ideas and get you talking.

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Activity – PGES Conferences

• Three topics to discuss (did you mix your groups?):– Connecting conferences throughout the year.– Connecting conferences to Personal Growth Plans.– Supporting teachers’ practice between conferences.

• For each: Is there a plan to do this? If so, how? ... Barriers? ... Facilitators?

• Appoint someone to record answers. • We’ll share back in whole-group discussion.

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Shareback – PGES Conferences

• Was there a plan to do this? If so, how? • What would help these happen?• What’s keeping these from happening?• Did anyone discuss different topics?• If you’re willing, hand in your sheet – I can use

these to inform my next events for you. • After the break, we’ll mix up the groups for the

last activity.

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BREAK

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Activity Three:Distributed Leadership in PGES

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Distributed Leadership in PGES

• You have a time problem. You can’t do PGES all on your own.

• Sure, you can get people to do tasks for you.• But to make this a capacity-building initiative, you

need to develop leaders.• Not all at once – look to build tiny chunks of

leadership.• Think more about expertise than roles.

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Activity – Distributed Leadership

• Who helps you with PGES data?– Role, not name.

– What they do.• What one area takes a lot of your time? Why?• As a group, compile a list. • Brainstorm ideas for distributing leadership into this

area.– What expertise do you have at your disposal?

– What might they do?

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Shareback – Distributed Leadership

• What were the various roles that help you with PGES data, and what do they do?

• What areas were taking a lot of time – and why?• What ideas did you have for distributing

leadership into the one area?– What various forms of expertise were there?

Roles? What might they do? • If you’re willing, hand in your sheet – I can use

these to inform my next events for you.

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BREAK

Pulling It All Together

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Debrief

• Elephant in the room: CIITS.• What are you going to do now?• What is going to be hard to do?• What do you want to do, but don’t think you can?• What did you learn today that really helped you?• What do you need to learn in the coming weeks,

month, and year?

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What We’ve Done

• To use data effectively, you have to have a frame.– Might as well be PGES.

• We created a base from which to build an ongoing PGES plan.

• No order to the strategies. Pick and choose.– Employ multiple strategies in small ways.

• It’s all about context.– What fits your school? What fits you?

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Where We Go from Here

• Two more events – one in spring, one in summer.*

• Targeted toward more specific areas of PGES.– You have the base, now we can build on it.

• Designed to help you implement a functional PGES initiative in 2015/16.

*Pending project approval by IES.

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What You Need to Do

• Work with your core team to plan your PGES initiative for 2015/16.

• Try some things out so you know what works.

• Connect soon and often with your learning group.

• Communicate with me. Help me make the best events for you.

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Final Thoughts

• It’s 2014. Everybody’s got education data.• You can use PGES data or it can use you.– Will you have a plan?

• Use PGES to your benefit.– Embrace it.– Grow it school wide.– Add your own data, methods, approaches.– Put your fingerprint on it – make it yours.

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Connect with Us!

www.relappalachia.org

@REL_Appalachia

www.waymandatause.com www.facebook.com/datause

jeff@waymandatause.com @waymandatause

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