It is taking action on what you find, what you suspect, what you think will make a difference. The last step is confirming. In this stage, you are evaluating your efforts, learning from feedback, and starting the cycle again. 6. Define "data-driven" decision making.

Data driven decision making uses student assessment data and relevant background information, to inform decisions related to planning and implementing instructional strategies at the district, school, classroom, and individual student levels. Data literacy consists of a person possessing a basic understanding of how data can be used to inform instruction. Studies have often shown that if instructional plans at the state, county, district, school, classroom, and individual student levels are based on assessment information relevant to the desired learning outcomes for students, the probability is increased that they will attain these desired learning outcomes.

Data from a variety of sources can also serve a number of important staff development purposes. Data on student knowledge gathered from standardized tests, district-made tests, student work samples, portfolios, and other sources provide important input to the selection of school or district improvement goals and provide focus for staff development efforts. This procedure of data analysis and goal development typically determines the content of teachers' professional learning in the areas of instruction, curriculum, and assessment.

Supportive data is typically drawn from other sources, including norm-referenced and criterion referenced tests, grade retention, and high school completion, reports of disciplinary actions, school vandalism costs, and enrollment in advanced courses, performance tasks, and participation in post-secondary education. Data that surrounds individual tests can be analyzed to learn how much students advanced in one year as well as particular strengths and weaknesses associated with the focus of the test. This data is characteristically disaggregated to reveal differences in learning among subgroups of students. The most ordinary forms of disaggregation include gender, socioeconomic status, native language, and race.

7. Describe the ways that student achievement data can be used.

One way in which data can be used is in the design and evaluation of staff development efforts, both for formative and summative purposes. Early in a staff improvement effort, educational leaders must decide what adults will learn and be able to do and which types of evidence will be accepted as indicators of success. They also establish ways to gather that evidence throughout the change process to help make midcourse corrections to strengthen the work of leaders and providers. Data can also point out to policy makers and funders the impact of staff development on teacher practice and student learning.

Another use of data occurs at the classroom level as teachers gather evidence of improvements in student learning to determine the effects of their professional learning on their own students. Teacher developed tests along with assignments, portfolios, and other evidence of student learning are used by teachers to assess whether staff development is having desired effects in their classrooms. Since improvements in student learning are a powerful motivator for teachers, evidence of such improvements as a result of staff development experiences helps sustain teacher momentum during the inevitable frustrations and setbacks that accompany complex change efforts. An additional benefit of data analysis, particularly the examination of student work, is that the study of such evidence is itself a potent means of staff development. Teachers who use one of numerous group processes available for the study of student work report that the ensuing discussions of the assignment, the link between the work and content standards, their expectations for student learning, and the use of scoring rubrics improve their teaching and student learning so that everyone is successful.

8. Explain how the social forces should be considered in planning for teaching. Use examples to augment your explanation.

All students come from different backgrounds and there is an increasing number of student's that are from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Our multicultural society is a key factor that should be taken into consideration for curriculum design. Some issues of diversity include religion, race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, and also children with different kinds of disabilities. Curricular planners should work to build an education that suits our multicultural society and that will help every child from every different background live, work, and go on to lead successful lives in our melting pot of a society. The role of schools in society and the reason for the curriculum have been major, closely related, issues since schools were first established. Society's outlook for its schools and schools' response to society are both reflected in the school...

Curriculum mirrors a complex society, a society in which there is never perfect agreement on the characteristics of that society. Some see the main purpose of the curriculum is the attainment of cognitive knowledge. Some others would consider it as a program for helping pupils develop humane and rational qualities. Curriculum is organized according to grade and age levels.
As diversity in the world increases, it becomes more and more important for students in the United States to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values essential for functioning in cross-racial, cross-ethnic, and cross-cultural situations. In order for democracy to work in a pluralistic nation-state, its citizens must be able to transcend their ethnic and cultural boundaries in order to participate in public discussion and action. A significant goal of multicultural education is to help students from diverse cultures learn how to transcend their cultural borders and engage in dialogue and action essential for the survival of our democratic political system and way of life. 9. How can groups effectively make decisions, including data-based decisions, in schools?

Data-based decision making has been defined as the "process of collecting, analyzing, reporting, and using data for school improvement. Standards-based educational reform seeks to improve education through the clear specification of desired student outcomes, the measurement of student performance, and the evaluation of the impact of educational practices on actual student performance. Many schools, school districts, state governments, along with the federal government all use these three principles, albeit in different ways, to improve education. The rationale is the fundamental reasons used as the basis for a decision or action is that "using information to help clarify issues, identify alternative solutions to problems, and target resources more effectively will lead to better decisions.

The use of data by school counselors is critical in order to engage in effective school counseling practice. Usually speaking, data can be used in two ways; school counselors can use data to guide program development, and data can be used to evaluate program effectiveness. Basically speaking, using data to guide decision making and using data to provide accountability information go hand in hand, as the process for using data is similar for both. The circumstance of education today promotes the use of data for accountability purposes and, therefore, has received the most attention in the literature. School counselors, have in the past have resisted efforts to systematically plan, implement, and evaluate their guidance programs are today in a position to participate in school reform efforts and demonstrate accountability for their part in student achievement. Once the data is collected it can be used by many groups within a school system in order to improve the system as a whole.

10. Identify the aspects of human development that guide curriculum and describe how each aspect guides curriculum.

Curriculums along with instruction are two aspects of schooling that must be regarded together at all times. A curriculum plan which identifies the scope and sequence of content facts, concepts, skills, attitudes must also address the pedagogy that is appropriate for inculcating or developing learning in students. However, the nature of the content in terms of its complexity and degrees of abstraction and the teaching approaches teacher-directed or student-centered must not be planned in a vacuum. The character of the learner will inevitably have a profound influence on learning, by way of facilitating or by way of impeding learning. Therefore, when designing a curriculum, one must carefully consider the nature of the learner in order to plan appropriate instructional approaches to be used.

Human progress is a vast and rather complex terrain to traverse. It entails physical, intellectual, social, and psychological dimensions. A great deal of information has been provided through the years by researchers, yet so much more needs to be learned. Curriculum scheduling must not ignore what is known about human development. Our success with children will certainly be intertwined with the degree to which we are able to use what we know about them as we attempt to prepare learning programs and environments that are suitable for students. Some implications that relate to human development include: selection of teaching strategies, development of a classroom environment that will be conducive to learning, using means of communication that are appropriate to the learners, providing the emotional and psychological supports that students need, selection of learning materials that account for learning modalities, reading levels, levels of understanding, and prior knowledge and assessing student learning.