Case Study 2 (University of California, Santa Barbara)

• In Event: 31.046 - Organizational Practices Supporting the Use of Data for Program Improvement in Teacher Education

Abstract

“The possibility … the flexibility of the purposes of these conversations means that they're alive. The end goal isn’t inert. ‘Animate’ may be the right term--so that it keeps it alive. In the process of trying to figure out whether or not this one student is minimally competent, we might wind up having to talk about what we think it means to be a teacher educator. That’s pretty cool. That keeps it alive. The purpose of data is not just to solve problems….on one hand you have people using data ... in any program, our program included ... they use data to solve problems. To measure your progress in solving the problem. But that same data might get used to reformulate the original problem so you might say, ‘wait a second…whether or not we’re solving the problem, is that the right problem?’ That’s exciting… in a word, animating. That makes it come alive. I think I would frame it as genuine inquiry. It has the feeling of genuine inquiry.” (faculty member)

This program, situated in a mid-sized research-intensive university, has developed organizational practices for using performance assessment data as the focus of collaborative problem solving and program improvement efforts for over a decade. The program thus represents an important case, not only with respect to the innovative quality of the practices themselves, but also with respect to the many challenges they have overcome around sustaining these innovations over time. Organizational practices related to supporting data-use in this case included these:
• Development of a strong “culture of inquiry”, in which data were used as often to open conversations and stimulate new ideas and insights as they were used to resolve questions of policy and practice
• Strategic planning of program meetings to support broad faculty and staff participation in deliberations about data and decision making
• Adjustment of personnel policies and practices to support re-allocation of faculty and staff time to participate in data use activities.

Author

• Tine F. Sloan, University of California