Data for Instruction
Research and data analysis form the axis across which best practices emerge and guide instructional decision-making at Crownhill Elementary. Every instructional choice or modification teachers make individually or as a team at Crownhill Elementary is based not only on current and contextual data but on the proven practices that originate with educational research.
At Crownhill Elementary, school and student data drives more than instruction, data signals areas where teachers need to improve proficiencies, or deepen their expertise on the instructional and assessment side of their work.
Response to Intervention (RTI) Prevention System
Staff have been working with RTI for the past seven years. Each week an RTI team meets to review grade-level data in math and reading. These grade-level teams create aim lines (expected rate of student progress over time) and specific data displays. They monitor students closely to make sure everyone is moving up the aim line toward end-of-year performance goals.
If certain students are not moving forward, or bands of students are not moving in the right direction, the RTI team questions program dynamics — curriculum, time spent, group size and more — looking for ways to reverse the trend. They take a close look at struggling students and suggest program changes to meet individual need. Every six to eight weeks the team will review new data on specific students to make sure they are making positive gains.
The bottom line is that children have clear academic expectations and are able to progress through curriculum by building on what they know. Teachers create a stepped experience — based on how that child is doing — so that success builds on success. This detailed monitoring is made possible by rigorous data review.
We Can Make the Connection
Multiple and layered sources of assessment data and its careful analysis on a weekly basis, create a solidly structured center of gravity for teaching and learning. Every day, teachers at Evergreen Heights are able to add to what they know about how well their students are grasping and applying new concepts, which underscores and reinforces the commitment to each child’s academic achievement, irrespective of the challenges they face — one of the Nine Characteristics of High-Performing Schools.