School Data Rooms – Should Your School Use One?

School data rooms have a long history of http://www.dataroomdata.com/store-legal-documents-securely-with-a-virtual-data-room/ displaying student assessment results on a chart within an area that is only accessible to staff. Typically, they display levels of proficiency (below basic advanced, basic, proficient or advanced) in a domain like math or reading. The aim is to direct teachers’ attention on those who are the most behind grade-level and need intensive intervention.

However, with all the talk about student privacy these days, an open display of student information can do more harm than good. If the display has students’ names, this could cause embarrassment or shame among students who struggle. It is crucial to think about how your school will use the displays and to think about more secure alternatives.

One of the best alternatives to the traditional school data wall is an online platform that stores information about learning safely. These platforms can pull data from LMS assignments formsative and summative tests, demographic data, and even integrate with your SIS to provide reports. Teachers can access these data sets anytime via a secure dashboard. Teachers can target certain student groups or cohorts with a variety filters. They can also track real-time progress towards goals and drill down to individual students and individual learning trends.

In order to make a school’s data room useful it’s vital to have regular meetings to discuss the data. This allows teachers to focus their attention and leave with concrete steps to move students forward. If a team observes for instance that a lot of students struggle with math, they could decide to design a specific intervention and monitor the progress of students until they reach proficiency.