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What is it and and how can we benefit from it?

The academic information system is the use of technology to access student data to inform administrators, staff, counselors, and policy makers to make high-quaility decisions for their school to improve academic scores and the education for students. When an effective system is in place one can analyze student data on class performance and make adjustments to teaching strategies to ensure improvement on performance. The data is measured and all members involved have access at anytime to analyze student success, identify students at risk, identify gaps within the system, and target services where needed.  This will create an effective learning environment for the district.

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Guiding Principles for how to select, design, and use an academic information system  

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Guiding Principles for how to select, design, and use an academic information system  

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As a leader developing the academic information system there are key principles to follow to create an effective system. I believe the most important principal is the first one because staff members want a clear, precise, plan that is easy to follow and user friendly. The leader should be clear in their direction and give precise information on what data should be collected and how to analyze information to increase effective collaboration, curriculum adjustments, and goal setting pathways. apa described at least six stages to the adoption of a new academic information system.
1. identify stakeholders and their role process
2. determine district goals for the system
3. define criteria
4. establish timelines and selection processes
5. compare technology solutions
6. move from decision to planning for implementation.

Conducting research through the process increases effectiveness because one is researching other plans and shadow other districts who are using the same plan. Questions can be asked directly when interacting with other districts to eliminate confusion when following through to the implementation stage.

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Explain which principles from the textbook, if any, have been (or should have been) applied to design or use the academic information system

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Explain which principles from the textbook, if any, have been (or should have been) applied to design or use the academic information system

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I believe all six principals are when creating or using an academic information system. Educators need to know the important characteristics for effective learning to happen within the classroom and professionally. When an educator can identify those characteristics to measure the data will be more precise with accuracy to improve the analysis stage.
The characteristics are measured and curriculum can be reviewed to establish power benchmarks that supports the data. The last principles help the district to establish a solid curriculum because the district is constantly changing the curriculum to adjust to student needs and improving test scores by targeting the weak skills.

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Discuss what you will do to improve the experience with academic information system, for yourself AND for your colleagues.

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Discuss what you will do to improve the experience with academic information system, for yourself AND for your colleagues.

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I am already an active member for our PLC by participating in our Team Leader group and RTI group. I will work harder to communicate better through email, phone, and/or person-to-person conversation. I could have prompting questions ready whe  n asking about their concerns or input on a situation about the program.  I will make sure to keep a non-bias view and voice my colleagues concerns or ideas.

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Explain how your experience relates to the context, issues,challenges, or frameworks presented in the  Evaluating EducationInformation System article. (Do you see any connections or relationships?

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Explain how your experience relates to the context, issues,challenges, or frameworks presented in the  Evaluating EducationInformation System article. (Do you see any connections or relationships?

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The challenges one must face during the implementation of the program is the acceptance and support from members. Not all team members may be on board with all the data driven content. Some colleagues may have negative attitudes about the collection and use of data.  In education there are new theories developed all the time.  The team members may believe it is just another hoop to jump through to prove their ability in their trained skill.
Another challenge one might face is accessible data and time to collect, organize, and analyze the data. The educators at TCU can feel overwhelmed
with their work load and are afraid to add another thing on their plate. The PLC process is a lot to take process within one school year. Breaking it up into little chunks to focus on will help with the overwhelming feeling coming from the staff. Training on data use the relevance of data and modeling the use of data is also helpful when conducting staff development assemblies.  The staff need adequate time to process, explore, and implement the PLC process.
I feel Tri-City United has work diligently to make the transition for those who feel overwhelmed about the PLC process. Each year has been a different focus and strategically thought out to make a sequential transition to develop the program. We established our power benchmarks, developed our curriculum, aligned the standards, implemented the curriculum district wide. Now, we are establishing common assessments and analyzing data to improve student achievement.

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Describe a situation when you feel the academic information system is helpful.

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Describe a situation when you feel the academic information system is helpful.

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The Viewpoint program at Tri-City United has enhanced my data analysis and teaching strategies. I learned right away my data content did not always correlate with my power benchmarks. I used viewpoint to research students who are on the fence with their test scores. I wanted to make the intent to boost their confidence outside my class to help them be confident in their skills. As a music educator, I was able to research the data and group my students for an effective peer teaching activity.  The inference of students achieving higher scores naturally do better in my classroom. If I look at the MCA scores and compare the grade within my class there is a consistency of achievement for most kids. It is nice to see the comparison if they did not match.  This analysis would help me identify skill verses will for the particular student.  If their MCA score was low but they score high normally for me I infer they enjoy my class more than taking a test. This kind of data will enhance my learning on how the students learn. I would talk to the student and ask questions, get to know their situation, and try to be a support system so they could excel in my class as well as on the MCA test.
I feel my lessons have become more focused and I have improved my clarity for students by breaking down my lesson plan and focusing on the prior knowledge needed to proceed in order for the deepening, rigor learning to happen. The power benchmarks are used to explore the depth of knowledge instead of skimming over a unit to cover it.

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My experience with academic information system at Tri-City United

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My experience with academic information system at Tri-City United

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Tri-City United has a system in place called Veiwpoint. . The program allows administration and staff members to view student information regarding ethnicity, equity, gender, and MCA score to adapt to our curriculums based on student data and performance on the MCA's. Each year, we write site goals format and district goal which monitor improvement from the spring score to the following spring. Once the goals are established teachers are proactively monitored by colleagues and administration when writing an individual smart goal that correlates with our site and district goals. These documents are placed in a program called Teachpoint labeled the Independent Professional Development Plan(IPDP) and the administrator and Q-comp leader monitor each educator to ensure success within the classroom.  The composition of the teachers goal is based off the data taken from viewpoint. The students that are chosen for the targeted goal are students who are on the fence from being partially meet to proficient. We chose to target this group of students because we feel we as a staff we can make great gains if we boost their confidence and learning skills. We are still working with struggling group and analyzing the data to see if it may be a cultural, gender specific, or ethical issue that we can address to close the gap.

Viewpoint is used by core teachers to focus in on student skills and also to group the students at a level they will become successful. Some
students are targeted individually due to the scores, others are monitored and most are carefully watched when assessing their skills at grade level.  When analyzing data we can determine students who are on the fence and need that extra boost to become proficient in their work. We also can establish the reading skills that are weak from majority of the class. The students who are d
The educator collects data to demonstrate and document strategies that were designed, used, and adjusted to improve student success. Educators reflect on the IPDP and provide resources and plans to improve their student engagement and teaching strategies.  The PLC community developed two programs to improve student success (RTI) and student behaviors (Thumbs up). These programs are coordinated, documented, and accessible by the teaching staff, counselors, and administration for communication and effective learning.

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Papa, R. (Ed.). (2011). Technology leadership for school improvement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (ISBN-13: 978-1412972109)

Hinze-Pifer, R. & Ramsey, D.S. (Evaluating Education Information Systems: Implementation of Longitudinal Student Data Systems in Six School Districts:10.4079/pp.v18i0.9357

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Analyze your real-life experiences with an academic information system and use the principles and frameworks introduced in this module to explain why the experiences were positive or negative.

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Analyze your real-life experiences with an academic information system and use the principles and frameworks introduced in this module to explain why the experiences were positive or negative.

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Each year the district will give all staff group training to refresh or reteach the program. Each year I go to the training I do not hold a username and password because I am a specialist team member. The IT staff did not see the value of specialist looking at the data therefore did not create a login for us. During the training, due to curiosity, I chose to stick around and browse with another colleague who had access to all that information. I found it quite intriguing looking at all the data from the MCA's, gender, ethnicity, reduced lunch and academic success of all students. Some features I thought were neat was how you could filter the test scores to get a targeted group of kids. You could filter by gender, race, scores, and much, much more. The only issue I felt was frustrating is we were not given a sense of direction on where to go with this data. The district did not identify our roles as teachers which is crucial to the first stage the academic informational system according to Papa(2011). We were told to analyze it and use it within our classrooms but there was no direction on how to do it.  Staff development and proper training needed to be more organized and prepared for our specific questions.
Another issue brought to our attention was how old the data was. The information was not current and the students were not accessible to all staff members. I understand the confidentially but staff members wanted to also analyze the bigger picture. Classroom teachers had access to their children within the current year. So the MCA information did not match the teacher performance because it was from the previous year.
TCU has given me a clear focus on my duties for this year with the school workshop days and establishing our mission and goals for student achievement . The second stage identifies the importance of goals when using the academic informational system (Papa 2011). We have identified the gaps in reading and math by using the Viewpoint program. The SPED group was also a target this year to make sure we are creating lessons that are inclusive for all members of our school. Our school has shown growth in all areas. We did not meet our goal this year due to motivation to be successful but we have seen a lot of growth within our testing scores. I believe it does take time for our school to see results. The hard work we put in this year will definitely pay off the following years to come.  It was not a total loss.
The data that was collected from this year will be analyzed and refocused for the beginning of the 2017-2018 year. This focus is how our team continuously makes gains within the education program.