A very thoughtful week - discussing and digesting the nature and purposes of data in a school environment. A number of interruptions - from weeks past going on PD and a study tour to Bendigo, to various meetings with a variety of people (Monash Security, a Swiss International School, Samsung, Monash eSolutions strategic consultant, Cisco wireless engineers, and then some).
Any scheduled meeting inherently affects what I do on that day. I won't get started on something I know could take hours if a meeting is coming up, even though I'd likely get interrupted and not spend hours on it anyway. A little mental barrier to overcome, or work with.
Anyway, on to the thoughtful stuff: system control vs individual control. I've been looking at this through the lens of data collection, and more specifically, assessment. The more control put into the system, the more useful data becomes at a systematic level. Certain individual tasks can be automated and removed from the individual. Decisions can be removed from the individual (this can be a good thing as well as bad). Things can get consistent - from a student's (and administrator's) point of view this can be a great thing. The flip side is that systems bring momentum, and become hard to change. Individuals can experiment, try new things when there are fewer system constraints. Our school has long been down the individual (or small group) end of the scale. Teachers and subject groups can use what they want, adapt how they see fit. Play around with stuff, and keep what works. The drawback is in sharing what works, and building a useful body of student data - with no consistent performance measures, this is difficult to achieve. The next question is to ask to what end this data is being collected and used - I can see in a typical school why this is done, but JMSS ain't no typical school. Also, I need think about how badges can fit into this equation.
No comments:
Post a Comment