Tag: innovation

EQRC Conference Presentation: MAJOR THEMES FOUND IN CALIFORNIA REGARDING HOW DATA PRACTICES AND CULTURES ARE UTILIZED AND ESTABLISHED IN K-12 SCHOOLS AND DISTRICTS

by Matthew Rhoads, Ed.D.

Tomorrow, I am speaking at the Ethnographic and Qualitative Research Conference in Las Vegas. I am excited about the opportunity as I get to share my research with peers in the field of education as well as researchers in other fields. The results of this research is intended to inform educational leaders and policymakers regarding what is needed to help educational leaders like principals, assistant principals, superintendents, district coordinator, teacher leaders, and teachers to provide insight to how they can become more data literate. Ultimately, data literacy is needed in order to utilize various data practices (i.e., collecting, compiling/cleaning, and transforming data using statistics) to make data-driven decisions for instructional improvement. I am excited to share a quick summary of the research as well as the slideshow I am presenting at the conference tomorrow morning. 

Being “Data-Driven” is More Than Just Quantitative Data

by Matthew Rhoads, Ed.D.

This past weekend I attended the Association of California School Administrations Region 17 Annual Conference at my alum mater Concordia University, Irvine. During the conference, I got to listen to George Couros, a well-known educational leader who has made large contributions to the field of education and education technology. I am in agreement with almost … Continue reading Being “Data-Driven” is More Than Just Quantitative Data

The Power of Analyzing Statewide Education Data: Self-Affirming Conclusions that Prompt Us to Dig Deeper Into the Data

by Matthew Rhoads, Ed.D.

Data is powerful, especially in the realm of education. At times, it may be self-affirming while on the other hand, it makes you question your current practices and policies because the data identifies further ramifications that make us have to dig deeper to determine what’s going on as well as devising solutions to the problems we face as educators. But, most importantly, it tells a story about the students we serve, which then we are called to do something about it as teachers and administrators. Over the last few days, I have been able to analyze several data sets that have been collected from the California Department of Education. The data sets I analyzed encompass all of the 2018 California K-12 School demographics, state testing scores, attendance rates, suspension rates, and funding mechanisms. My goal was to transform the data into several self-affirming stories of what the data is telling us as well as how we dig deeper into the stories the data is illustrating to determine new insights into we how to solve the problems we have identified.

New Book: Igniting Your Teaching with Educational Technology – A Resource for New Teachers

by Matthew Rhoads, Ed.D.

A New Book! I would like to announce the release of Igniting Your Teaching with Educational Technology: A Resource for New Teachers I helped write with my doctoral cohort. As a cohort, we worked extremely hard to complete this project over the course of the last quarter. I am proud of our accomplishment and I extremely … Continue reading New Book: Igniting Your Teaching with Educational Technology – A Resource for New Teachers