Using Data to Improve Teacher Education: Moving Evidence Into Action

This book offers concrete examples of how data can be used by faculty, staff, and program leaders to improve their collective work as teacher educators. Strong external accountability mandates often lead to tensions that undermine local morale and motivation. This volume focuses on the practical work of navigating these tensions so that valuable programmatic change can happen. It describes policies and practices drawn from a study of “high data use” teacher education programs from around the country that have strategically engaged the challenges of learning to use data for program improvement. Readers will see how the data-use work carried out in these programs strengthened local program identity and coherence. Representing a collaborative effort between researchers and practitioners, this volume presents lessons learned to assist teacher educators who are engaged daily with the challenges of making data useful and used in their programs. Book Features: Examples of how tensions between external mandates for accountability and program improvement can be navigated in ways that are grounded in local program values. Detailed case study portraits of individual programs that offer a full and action-oriented sense of data use work. Strategies for ensuring that data systems are responsive to multiple stakeholders, such as faculty, administrators, students, and policymakers. A diversity of perspectives and experiences from small liberal arts colleges, large teacher preparation institutions, and research-intensive universities.

Table of Contents:
Contents (Tentative) Foreword G. Williamson McDiarmid Acknowledgments part I: Conceptual and Empirical Foundations 1. Introduction and Overview of the Book Charles A. Peck 2. Building Organizational Capacity and Commitment to Data Use in Teacher Education Susannah C. Davis and Charles A. Peck Part II: Case Studies of High Data Use Programs 3. Reconceptualizing Teacher Education and Reculturing Schools of Education: Changing Teaching Institutions Into Learning Organizations Linda A. Patriarca, Kristen Cuthrell, and Diana Lys 4. Living in a Culture of Evidence and Outcomes: Engaging with Data at Alverno College Désirée H. Pointer Mace and Patricia Luebke 5. Program Portrait: University of California, Santa Barbara Tine Sloan and Jennifer Scalzo Part III: Promising Practices 6. Motivating Faculty Engagement With Data Susannah C. Davis and Kristen Cuthrell 7. Building (Useful) Data Systems Diana Lys and Désirée H. Pointer Mace 8. Making Time and Space for Data Use Tine Sloan, Kristen Cuthrell, and Désirée H. Pointer Mace 9. Leadership Strategy and Practice Tine Sloan, Diana Lys, and Ann Bullock 10. What We Learned About Getting Started With Data Use Through Self-Study Aaron Zimmerman, Tabitha Otieno, Jahnette Wilson, Chase Young, Jessica Gottlieb, Benjamin Ngwudike, and Marcelo Schmidt Part IV: New Directions 11. Improving Programs Through Collaborative Research and Writing Joy Stapleton, Diana Lys, Christina Tschida, Elizabeth Fogarty, Ann Bullock, and Kristen Cuthrell 12. Building Capacity and Commitment of Future Faculty to Program Improvement Research Jenny Gawronski and Starlie Chinen 13. Looking Back, Leaning Forward: A Conversation About Current and Future Challenges for Making Data a More Useful Tool for the Improvement of Teacher Preparation Programs Kristen Cuthrell, Diana Lys, Charles A. Peck, Désirée H. Pointer Mace, Tine Sloan, with G. Williamson McDiarmid About the Contributors Index