Navigating the Data Ecosystem: A Case Study of the Adoption of a School Data Management System in New York City
Item
Title
Navigating the Data Ecosystem: A Case Study of the Adoption of a School Data Management System in New York City
Abstract/Description
Schools and school systems have experienced an explosion in the availability of student data, particularly related to student performance. Along with this increased availability has been a growing push for teachers to use data to inform their classroom practices, under the belief that doing so will lead to improved student outcomes. Federal programs such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Race to the Top have established incentives to encourage schools to develop data-driven instructional practices, and a multitude of state and privately funded initiatives have further pushed schools in this direction. To support schools in this effort, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by public and private educational entities to help teachers and schools make sense of and use data through the development of school data management systems (SDMS) and teacher-facing dashboards. These investments have resulted in a proliferation of data systems promising to help teachers make use of data to drive their instructional practice. In fall 2010, New Visions introduced a commercial SDMS, DataCation, to its network of schools. DataCation comprises multiple portals for teachers, administrators, students and parents providing ready access to student, classroom and school-level data. The rollout of DataCation to our network of 75 schools represents what we have learned, often in hindsight, and presents a unique case study of how theory plays out when applied. These are the goals of this report: (1) Describe Rogers's theory of adoption and diffusion and Coburn's theory of sustainable reform as applied to the rollout of an SDMS; (2) Discuss how the ecosystem in which an initiative operates is the essential context for understanding and applying both theories; (3) Define reasonable expectations around educator use of an SDMS; and (4) Share lessons learned.
Author/creator
Date
Publisher
New Visions for Public Schools
Resource type
Research/Scholarly Media
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Other
Open access/full-text available
Yes
Peer reviewed
No
Citation
Fairchild, S., Scaramellino, D., Carrino, G. E., Carrano, J., Gunton, B., Donohue, B., Slobin, S., & Farrell, T. (2013). Navigating the Data Ecosystem: A Case Study of the Adoption of a School Data Management System in New York City. New Visions for Public Schools.
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