In today’s school learning environment, technology plays a crucial role in developing and enriching education across the board. In order to gain an understanding of how core data collection can benefit schools, we need to understand the different types of data available. There are there are three types of data that can be used.
- Personally Identifiable Information- Information that can be used to identify individual students
- De-Identiied Data- Information about individual students, but with identifying information removed
- Aggregate Data- Information about groups of students without any identifying information
Now that we have an understanding of the different types of data, we can see how these data sets are used to benefit learning overall.
The basic process is as follows…
1. Interventions, Course Grades, Observations, Tests, Demographics, Teacher Info, Programs, and attendance data, can be used to make changes in instruction and decide what students need to increase learning.
2. Districts can then use the data they collect from schools to make decisions about what resources each school needs to support it’s students and then send a small amount of the data to the state’s department of education.
3. After the data is submitted, States use the data to measure how districts are meeting goals for students, provide tools back to districts to inform instruction, assess how state funds are improving education, and provide aggregate information to the public.
4. The U.S Department of Education receives the least data out of everything. States will send it a small amount of aggregate data, and then use it to provide information to the public about how the districts are performing. Therein allowing them to measure how federal funds are helping to improve education.
How does eSchoolCore data collection help people in other ways?
Parents will have more access to information about their own children, and use that to facilitate learning outside of the classroom.
Teachers and Principals will have the information at had to help each individual student in the classroom. They can use it to understand how their students are learning and adjust things as needed to help them be successful.
School Districts rely on service providers to manage instructional tools and some critical functions such improving transportation. These services sometimes need personally identifiable data, but will only get access to the data needed that is relevant to their work.
Researchers can also get access to de-identified and aggregate data to conduct studies on what is beneficial to student progress in their specific state or district.
Finally the public only gets to view the aggregate reports, and they never have access to to information about individual students. Administrators and Professionals can the use this information to analyze district/school performance in their community to assess where attention is needed and given.
Overall, school core data collection and programs such as eSchoolCore can help all levels of education come together with the same goal of improving education for all. In short, data empowers everyone! Find out more what eSchoolCore’s school data collection service can do for you!