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The Data We Should Be Collecting...

Modified from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/
At the start of the school year, Burnsville Tech Director, Doug Johnson had a great post, titled, "Getting To Know You As More Than A Number." In it, he shared the work of Mark Barnes and Jennifer Gonzalez in Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes For Every School 

The post resonated with me, because for a long time, I feel like the focus on data in education has been about knowing the standardized test results, instead of REALLY getting to know the student, their likes, dislikes, passions, values and dreams.

It was just after our district kick-off workshops, where I heard about trying to be respectful of students who are either trans-gender or are questioning, and starting the year by asking the students what they would like to be called as they're first name. In addition, Sharocky Hollie had opened our district-wide staff development on Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Instruction. He spoke to the need to provide opportunities for learning in all three of the following domains:

After Dr. Hollie's sessions, I happened into Edina High School Social Studies teacher, Brad Dahlman's classroom. Taking what he learned about Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Instruction, he asked students to share their favorite song on a form, and then he found each song on YouTube. Each day, the students come into class and Brad plays the next song in the list. This provides a culturally responsive intro to each class, which is pretty cool! 

I decided to take the information from Doug's post, and what I learned during our workshops, and Brad's idea and put together a form that teachers could use to gather data to really get to know their students. 



Here is the link to the response form if you'd like to make a copy and/or modify the form.

My hope is that this can be a tool we can use to better know our students, be culturally & linguistically responsive , make connections with them, and assist them to personalize their learning experience and connect their passions with our curricular area. 

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