The post Michigan District Unlocks Student Growth with Data-Driven Practices Using MAP Growth appeared first on NWEA.
]]>
About
Coopersville Public School District is a rural district located northwest of Grand Rapids, MI, just off the coast of Lake Michigan. With six schools and about 2,500 students, Coopersville faces challenges of both closing reading gaps with younger readers as well as identifying and growing high-performing students.
Challenge
For its first three years administering interim assessments, Coopersville gathered data to improve student outcomes, but results were sporadic at best. In post-pandemic academia, and amongst curriculum changes, intervention and extension programs, and the daily life of a rural district, Coopersville needed a streamlined, whole-district solution, distilled into actionable steps for how to put an existing tool to structured use.
Each of our collaborative team meetings is driven by four questions: What do we want students to learn? How will we know if they learned it? What will we do if they don’t learn it? What will we do if they have already learned it? Each question has the words ‘learn’ and ‘we.’ Using our assessment data more efficiently provides us clarity around our students’ learning needs and provides us focus for our collaborative work as educators.
MATT SPENCER, Superintendent, Coopersville Area Public Schools
Solution
With several important foundational pieces in place and initial NWEA MAP® Growth
evidence of strong growth and achievement at Coopersville’s South Elementary, the district was primed for the transformational work of Dr. Tennille Woodward, director of educational systems at Coopersville.
Dr. Woodward arrived with MAP Growth success stories from her time in Indiana and Florida and was excited about the opportunity at Coopersville. What first began as culture alignment with establishing shared values and a motto that “every student grows” led to a conversation about significantly improving and systematizing how Coopersville measured, tracked, and reported student progress through MAP Growth data.
Coopersville aligned its MAP testing windows, implementing an intervention system that allowed teachers transparency and ownership into the process of using data to drive instruction. The district—in collaboration with its teachers union—had previously aligned professional development and teacher collaboration around assessment windows and took advantage of this time to work collaboratively. Together, teachers created common formative assessments based around power standards that ensure students are being tested in a standardized manner no matter which class. Dr. Woodward’s expertise accelerated this work as teachers adjusted small groups, pairing groups of the greatest need with the highest skilled adults during focused “win time.”
Our belief is that every single student grows. If I have a student that’s below grade level, I expect them to grow. If I have a student that’s at or above, I still expect them to grow. And I believe once you intrinsically teach children and adults that, it’s really limitless on where we can go. They are going to be intrinsically pushed.
DR. TENNILLE WOODWARD, Director of Educational Systems, Coopersville Area Public Schools
Outcome
Working alongside school principals and building leaders to implement a system of targeted intervention, Dr. Woodward established scheduled time for students to be pulled for focused work while not interrupting whole-group instruction.
With Dr. Woodward’s guidance and a systematized model of implementing data to drive instruction, Coopersville saw enormous growth in their scores. As leadership focused on teacher data literacy, more educators understood the relationship between their assessment scores and classroom instructional practices. In collaborative team meetings, teachers shared “lightbulb” moments and grew their practice through transparent knowledge-sharing. Continued and enhanced collaboration led to improved power standards and common formative assessments, which yielded even greater growth scores.
Principal Tammi Jenkins and her school leadership team established an annual “growth assembly,” where instead of all A’s or 100% attendance, they celebrate growth goals. This was the “magic” needed to keep motivation high, as some of the recipients are students who have never received an award in their life—and are now consistently celebrated.
Leaders can’t walk in and make changes without getting to know people; they have to build the trust by giving them latitude to try the out-of-the-box ideas. But here’s the thing: don’t wait. A lot of places want to talk about it. In our case, we try it. And if it doesn’t work, we fix it. When you have that visibility to see the puzzle pieces, you have to start trying things.
DR. TENNILLE WOODWARD, Director of Educational Systems, Coopersville Area Public Schools
Future
This exceptional growth indicates that Coopersville’s next chapter will focus on ensuring that high achievers remain challenged, setting high goals for themselves and equipping students to own their learning journey. Using the ASG report within MAP Growth, teachers meet with students to develop a goal-setting mindset and procedure so that each student knows exactly what they’re aiming for next.
We really started using the Quadrant Analysis report in MAP Growth in order to see which of our higher-level students weren’t making as much growth as they should have. That moved the conversations to a vulnerable place. ‘How do we extend the learning for those students? Do certain classrooms need more resources? How do I not take that data personally, but lean on my colleagues?’ Because high achievers deserve to grow as well.
TAMMI JENKINS, South Elementary Principal, Coopersville Area Public Schools
The post Michigan District Unlocks Student Growth with Data-Driven Practices Using MAP Growth appeared first on NWEA.
]]>