Category Archives: Data Wise Program

Why Why is the question we all need to answer!

In my work with school educators this is the question I ask them to resolve for themselves. What drives you to lead / teach young people and why? What happened to you and why is that important. I was reminded … Continue reading

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Harvard Data Wise Institute in Melbourne

Last week 19 school teams came to Melbourne during the last week of school holidays to attend a 5 day Harvard Data Wise Institute. There were long 8 hours days of intensive learning where participants shared their ‘why’ stories with … Continue reading

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Jez – the old chestnut – ability grouping or streaming – is still being touted as a solution to falling standards!

Sorry Natasha, education editor for the Australian Newspaper, wrote a recent article on the state of education in Australia using the results of the recent PISA tests to say that our students are bored out of their brains at school, … Continue reading

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Another article tells the same story – postcodes predict education performance.

Reading an article in the Australian newspaper this morning (School system fails ‘fairness’ test, as PISA results show learning gap) which show lower academic performance in areas of socio economic disadvantage, rurality and indigenous communities. Here are some quotes: It … Continue reading

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Lilydale High School

During November I worked with the leadership team at Lilydale High School on collaboration. Some of the resources we used: https://hbr.org/2002/06/a-survival-guide-for-leaders Lilydale HS Meeting Rolling Agenda.docx http://mwalker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Inventory-of-Instructional-Initiatives.xlsx

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Yarra – Darebin Network of Schools

Hi everyone, This post has the requested resources from our day together and some snapshots to remember the highlights: De-identified Primary School Data Inventory 2016 – 2018 DW Minutes sample The Five WHY’s protocol. Compass Points (survey monkey) Leadership-compass-self-assessment   … Continue reading

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Is Dante’s Hell a view of adaptive challenges? If so, hold onto that moral compass.

I recently watched a TED talk by Dan Leahy – The Dance of Learning Meets the Adaptive Challenge. In the talk Dan uses Heifetz, Glashow and Linsky’s need for adaptive change which is about facing the unknown and having to learn new skills to … Continue reading

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Revolution School, a must watch documentary on ABC television

There is a new 4 part documentary on our ABC channel called “Revolution School” with the first episode screened last week. I think this is a must watch show for anyone interested in schooling. The ABC took cameras into a normal secondary … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Data Wise Program, Harvard, Leadership, professional learning, school, teacher efficacy, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

DataWise – the community grows at the 2015 on-campus Institute.

The final challenge from the first day of the Data Wise Summer Institute (DWSI) here at Harvard was to encapsulate my learning experiences thus far, in only five words. Mine was; Similar challenges towards systemic improvement. I wanted to share … Continue reading

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Diving Deep to Build Assessment Literacy – Step 2 of the Data Wise Improvement Process – Day 2

The focus of Day 2 of the Summer Institute is the work around both Organising for Collaborative Work and Building Assessment Literacy, (which comprise the Prepare Phase). At Elsternwick PS with new teachers joining the team and the existing staff … Continue reading

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identifying teacher itches to scratch

Schools in Victoria have many standardised data sets about student learning, student attitudes to school, parent opinion surveys and finally staff opinion surveys. This post focuses on this last data set, staff opinion. There was industrial action for the 3 … Continue reading

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EPS data wise team reflections

This is the last post in the series by the 4 teachers overseas inquiring into the data wise process. As our trip draws to a close, we spent time reflecting upon and synthesising our learning both from the Data Wise … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Data Wise Program, Harvard, Instruction, Observation, reflections, school | 2 Comments

EPS visits Jefferson Elementary School in New York

This blog entry is the eighth in a series from the team visiting schools in the States and comes to you from the ‘Big Apple.’ Today we visited Jefferson Elementary School (K-5), located in upstate New York in a town called … Continue reading

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EPS visit Joseph Lee and Harvard-Kent schools in Boston

Here is our new post, sent from South Station, Boston. This is the seventh post in the series from the team participating in the Data Wise Institute at Harvard. (Penny, Jess, Erin and Sarah) Today we visited two schools within … Continue reading

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Elsternwick PS meets Tobin Montessori in Boston

Continuing the series of posts written by Jess, Erin and Sarah 3 teachers attending the Harvard Institute and now visiting schools. Today we visited The Tobin School in Cambridge. This school was familiar to us, as we had read about … Continue reading

Posted in Assessment, Data Wise Program, Harvard, Instruction, Networks of Schools, school, Teaching | 2 Comments