This document discusses different tools that administrators can use to access student data: Data Mentor, NySTART, and Cognos. It provides information on the type of data each tool contains, who has access, and how to access each tool. It then gives examples of using each tool to analyze student performance data and identify gaps or trends. The document aims to help administrators explore how these tools can support efforts to improve student achievement.

1. Data Tools for Administrators August 3, 2009 Kim Fontana

2. How can tools for online data access support my efforts for all students and especially those not yet achieving success? Today’s Essential Question

3. This introductory workshop will help you explore the following additional questions: Which tool is best for my purpose (Data Mentor, Cognos, Nystart)? How do I access and use each tool?

4. What we will not be able to do today (although we could at another time if you like) Explore the full range of qualitative and quantitative data (given things) administrators use to support student achievement Learn how to display data effectively

5. Formative assessment I have emailed you the form above Please complete the first three questions Let’s view the results

6. Data Mentor Accounts Data available in ICSD Uses Audience Resources URL Browser issues Created by individuals NYS assessments 3-8, aggregated Compare item performance school to district and district to BOCES and view test maps over several years for performance trends. There is also some ability to compare to state benchmarking data for level 3. Public, teachers, administrators Test items, test texts, related items, standard and performance indicators www.datamentor.org Works well with all standard browsers, includes effective pdf reports, but no downloads

7. Example of Data Mentor work View a comparison chart for Boynton ELA 8 for 2009 comparing Boynton to the district Identify performance indicators for further investigation and review questions Use the trend chart to determine which of these is consistently present on the test What do you want to do next? (I’m curious what answer the students chose and I’m interested to see some disaggregated information) There is no confidential information in datamentor.

8. NySTART Accounts Data available in ICSD Uses Audience Resources URL Browser issues Elena provides administrators with accounts. Principals provide teachers with accounts. All nys assessment data, including scores and demographics for individual students (not items) Reports for public distribution, helps track individual student performance within subgroups, easy to see gaps in performance among groups, enables both aggregate and disaggregated analysis Administrators, teachers, parents New York State Report Cards, Accountability and Verification Reports, Individual Student Reports and VITAL resources for teachers https://www.nystart.gov Firefox works best on pcs, but NySTART is SLOW and excel downloads are not terribly functional, pdfs reports are attractive

9. Example of NYSTART work Review school summary charts for gaps. Let’s look at Ithaca High School . Let’s also look at some individual student reports (for parents), school summary reports (for principals and teachers) Be aware that some material in NYSTART is suitable for the public and much is not

10. Cognos Accounts Data available in ICSD Uses Audience Resources URL Browser issues Account request form available on cynric’s website. (From the CNYRIC website, select, data warehouse and testing and then documents and resources. On that page there is a link to the COGNOS application.) Kim’s signature is required. She will send your account request to CNYRIC and you will receive your account via email. All nys assessment data, including scores and demographics for individual students, item analysis, including distractor analysis. Many uses-Cognos is a rich source of data Administrators Test maps and verification reports https://www.cnyric.org Firefox works best on pcs. Most data can be easily downloaded to excel for further analysis.

11. Example of Cognos work Let’s look at a distracter report for that question on context clues (Boynton ELA 8) What core reading strategy and instructional focus would have changed the outcome for the students? Let’s go to a new question. Let’s see what we can discern programmatically about our special education students in two schools who did not achieve standards in the grade 3 ELA. Be aware that some information in Cognos is suitable for the public (though it requires formatting by you, typically in Excel), but much is NOT suitable for the public.

12. Plan your own route through the data Please discuss your data interests with your neighbor and return to the google doc to make a plan for data you are going to collect and analyze this afternoon