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Explore the crucial leverage points in High School Certificate data analysis to drive success and educational improvement. Discover how to utilize various factors to enhance learning outcomes and strengthen the performance of both students and teachers. Uncover the significance of participation, trend analysis, peer-to-peer referrals, and subject selection to achieve desired educational objectives. Develop a strategic approach to data interpretation for informed decision-making and effective leadership in the education sector.
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Leverage Points Points of influence in HSC data for Principals
“Give me a lever long enough, and a point to rest it, and I can move the world.” - Archimedes
Definitions of Success • Marketing? • Or – knowing how you are really going? • The Flight Centre mistake: believing your own marketing, without checking – “Lowest Air Fares every time, GUARANTEED” • The idea of Comparative Learning Gain
What makes a difference in HSC results? Firstly, overall “TES”
What makes a difference… • Varies from subject to subject, as does the total variance accounted. • “school” is less visibly a difference the more teachers contribute to it; in a “large” measure like TES or SOR, the effect of the good teacher cancels out the poor; in more typically one-teacher subjects like Drama, it can be large. • You can tell which teacher is making a difference in “large” subjects: factor analysis (Leverage Pt# 11, later)
Confidentiality • Fragility of the data: handle with care • What to use for marketing, what not to use • How to “rig” a learning-gain system
Leverage Point #1: the Overall School Report • Graph #3 is the money graph: if you know nothing else in the analysis package, know what it’s doing • How to read The Overall School Report
Leverage Point #2: Participation • There’s a good deal of evidence to say that you get good results at the high end of subjects by promoting participation. • Creating a culture of challenge • Report 6 as the basis of investigating Participation • Compare yours to the whole-state Catholic participation
LP #3: The school pecking order • Numeric Report #4 • Be careful of making too much of the order • Why we don’t do league tables (of subjects or schools)
LP #4: Graph #4 on the Subject Trends… • If you find a subject that needs following up, check their Trend Graph #4: learning gain • A one-off, or a pattern • The “Columbo” question… “Can you just explain to me again why this graph looks like it does?” (… and for this one you can’t blame the students)
LP#9: Enter the names and engage the teachers • Most teachers aren’t engaged by stats • Frequent response to stats is defensive, dismissive, or false credit • Put in names, and get the anecdotes • Accentuate the positive, and work with what works. • Bulk entry of names: see the Manual
LP#5: A “Subject Report” Asking coordinators and teachers to report each year, using the “Coordinator’s Roadmap” against 4 questions: • What have you been doing, and why? • How is it going? • How do you know? • What are you going to do about it?
LP #6: Using the secondary analysis with sceptics • Is scepticism driven by data, or by a reluctance to change? • Looking at the Secondary Analysis, which doesn’t involve School Cert • Understanding the “Extension” effect in the secondary analysis
LP #7: Peer-to-Peer referrals • If any subject is consistently “below expectation” in learning gain, there is someone in another school getting an “above expectation”. • Setting the framework for the peer • Request: jsdec@zeta.org.au • Confidentiality; they phone you
LP#8: Subject selection • How does the process of subject selection and advice work in your school? • What’s the balance between student interest, estimated capability and challenge? • Do we need to challenge more? • Using the data: Numeric Report 1 • Do a scatterplot? – if you do, note the major factors in the subject
LP #10: The Second-order effects • First-order effects: “whole-of-group” – above expectation, in the range, or below expectation • Second-order effects: are you comparatively better with the higher or lower ability students? • No value judgments • The “see-saw” principle • Go back and look at Trend lines, and Numeric Report 4 • The idea is to look for patterns
LP #11: “Factor” analysis • Pulling apart a subject to see if an explanation holds water. • E.g., separating to different teachers; the claim that the smaller class the better the results; the need to do the subject in Year 10 in order to continue in Year 11. • See the Manual • Using the “Factor” button on the database • If you’re keen, re-plot the Achieved vs Expected
LP #12: Work the self-concepts • The strongest change-tool teachers have is student academic self-concept… • The strongest change-tool principals have is teacher professional self-concept • Creating a culture of challenge • Research of Marsh, Kugel, Rowe, Aronson – and DeCourcy • Coupling properly analyzed data with targetted professional development • The BFLPE • Data blindness or Data engagement
LP #13: Particular subject effects • History Extension: a 7% positive relationship for those who did take Modern History over those who didn’t • English Standard or Advanced: challenge to do Advanced • SOR and General Mathematics