Key Elements of Instructional Excellence for Multi-Classroom Leaders:

Monitor Learning
Assess students’ learning achievement and growth with data—daily and
weekly—from the start and continuing through the year.
“Data is everything. If you don’t look at your data, then you don’t know your students at all.”—Multi-Classroom Leader
Stephanie Roper

“We’ve gone from thinking about a six-week cycle to thinking…‘the exit ticket is too late.’ We need to adjust instruction
during the class.”—Multi-Classroom Leader Ellen Rayburn

When teachers use student learning data to adjust instruction, students see that teachers know where they stand every
day, care about their progress, and are changing their instruction to fit each student’s needs.

Monitoring learning to assess achievement and growth Teachers whose students make high growth collect data
with data before and throughout the year includes the for analysis during class, between classes, and weekly
following: for a more in-depth look, alone and with their teaching
∗ Use aligned assessments team. They collect data through, among other things:
o Align with lesson, unit, and annual goals online learning systems; aggressive monitoring; “do
o Incorporate standards-based grading now” activities; exit tickets; multiple interim
o Capture data on both mastery and growth assessments plus summative assessments (all carefully
∗ Track with an effective and efficient system aligned to the state standards for that subject); and
o Follow assessment calendar; adjust if needed other measures such as attendance and student
o Standardize and automate some components feedback.
∗ Collect and compare multiple data points Using an online platform that grades assessments and
o Conduct pre-tests for baseline data matches them to mastery levels, teachers are able to
o Assess student grasp daily know immediately where students stand, says Multi-
o Use interim assessments (unit, quarter) Classroom Leader (MCL) Erin Burns, who leads a biology
o Observe student activity teaching team. Being able to make quick adjustments
o Confer with students and families informally for the whole class or one student helps ensure that
o Use surveys for formal student feedback student misunderstandings or knowledge gaps do not
∗ Generate reports to summarize mastery and growth persist.
and to guide instructional change That quick response is key, great teachers emphasize.
∗ Analyze data for individuals’ needs, trends, and MCLs Ellen Rayburn and Bobby Miles say the move at
outliers in each class and across school their school to “aggressive monitoring” enables a much
faster response to student learning issues.

Great teachers look to multiple sources to assess, as In each class period, students start by completing a “do
frequently and constantly as possible, how each student now” exercise (a brief activity posted on the board for
is progressing so they can quickly adjust their students to do as soon as they arrive), which the
instructional content and methods. They take the time teacher quickly reviews and uses to adjust that day’s
to create assessments that they find rigorous and planned instruction accordingly. As students work
adequately aligned with their goals and the standards. independently, teachers using aggressive monitoring
They may not always have options in what tracking are walking around checking each student’s work,
systems to use, but they find and tweak systems that watching for predicted areas of specific concern or new
work for them and the teams they lead to lighten the issues, and making quick adjustments, such as pulling
load of gathering and analyzing so much data on their students into a small group for immediate help or re-
students’ progress. teaching an element to the whole class.

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“A lot of teachers do monitor—they walk around just to forgotten because again, that is very valuable
make sure that kids are on task—but now they’re information that’s taking the temperature of the class
walking around with a purpose, so now they know and seeing how things are going,” Moore said. “I also
exactly what it is they’re looking for so they can address ensure that when I write the unit plans, I leave Fridays
that misconception in the moment,” Miles said. pretty flexible. Fridays are our day for
assessments…but that also leaves a significant amount
Then, exit tickets (a question or fill-in-the-blank that
of time to review and to reteach if necessary, and so by
students complete just before leaving) confirm that
building that time in, it allows teachers to really focus
students understood the instruction by the end of class,
what they need to do and to differentiate for their
or show teachers any remaining issues to clear up in the
particular classes.”
next class.
A less-used but powerful data source can be student
Such monitoring also enables more personalization for
surveys. Short surveys can help teachers understand
students. For example, the “do now” may be a
what types of instruction and activities during a lesson
diagnostic exercise to tell teachers how much students
or unit their students responded to best, and
already know, and if some students have already
understand how students interpret what’s happening
mastered a concept, they can receive advanced
the classroom. For example, one principal noted times
assignments for the day while their classmates work
when a teacher may have thought she provided a
toward mastery.
simple redirection for a student, only to learn through a
Other teachers also cite the use of data to enable survey how hard the student took it emotionally,
personalization through rapid changes in small-group affecting her class performance.
instruction, creating very flexible groups to respond to
Using data in all these ways can improve any teacher’s
student needs. “The data is what drives our flex groups,
instruction, but great teachers see the power of data
and then within there, [drives] our instruction because
especially when used with a teaching team. Frequent
even though our kids are flexibly grouped, you still have
meetings to analyze data together allow teachers to
a range within that group of students.”—MCL Frank
catch any issues they might overlook on their own.
Zaremba
Teaching team leaders often spearhead this, generating
Schools that incorporate online learning systems may reports that their teams can review together, and
find it easier to personalize instruction, because the guiding new teachers to handle and synthesize a wealth
systems provide a wealth of data daily, showing student of data sources.
speed, mastery, and stumbling blocks. These systems
In data meetings, “we get down to the granular level of
may be fairly simple—a way to create online
looking at exactly what the students wrote and exactly
assessments and receive a computer-generated report
what misconceptions that reveals in their thinking. And
on each student’s responses—or more elaborate,
so, at that point, we take the lessons that we have
providing students with individualized “playlists” to
already practiced and we modify them again for what
follow through a class period, moving at their own pace
the students are showing us on their assessment or on
while the system generates a steady stream of data on
their exit ticket data or whatever the assessment that
how each student responded to each piece of each
we’re looking at that week is, and we make further
assignment, which teachers can monitor in real time.
adjustments based on what the students need. A lot of
But schools don’t need high-tech systems to use data times that includes breaking the students into groups
well. Those daily exit tickets, for example, can be a based on their misconception. … We also sometimes
powerful tool to give teachers daily feedback. will do a full-class review just depending on what the
MCL Hadley Moore sees exit tickets as a key means for trends look like in the data—if it’s a few or if it’s a lot of
her teaching team to track student progress and students.”—MCL Ellen Rayburn
mastery, so teachers can identify what they need to “We use our data meetings to analyze data that
review, re-teach, or repackage and reintroduce. pertains to attendance, that pertains to behavior, and
“As a result [of using exit slips], we always, always have that pertains to academic achievement. So during a
something to talk about in terms of data, and by data meeting [on] instructional practice, we will look at
prioritizing it at the beginning of the meeting it ensures student scores on whatever we chose to use for the
that it doesn’t get pushed to the end, that it doesn’t get baseline assessment, and from there we fill out what’s

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called a note catcher [with] observations and different For more elements of instructional leadership and excellence,
trends and patterns that we might have noticed in the visit the Instructional Leadership and Excellence webpages,
data. And then, based on that, we create a formal which each have video clips of teacher-leaders who have
action plan and reteaching plan for what our next steps achieved high-growth student learning; discussion questions
for developing your team and yourself; training links for
are.“—MCL Kathryn Smith
ongoing professional development; and other developmental
“There’s a lot of people working together, so if we see resources including books, videos, articles, and tools
something that’s not working for kids, we need to have For more on an Opportunity Culture, visit
that discussion together—because a special education OpportunityCulture.org.
teacher might see, ‘Hey, my kids are really struggling We’re happy to hear your feedback on this element; contact
with this part of the curriculum,’ and we need to have a us!
conversation together to say, ‘OK, what supports can
we put into place?’ So that’s why meeting daily is
crucial, because those things might come up today and Acknowledgements
we’re moving on to a new topic in two days, so kids will This vignette was written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett of
start to fall behind if we don’t address that.”—MCL Russ Public Impact. Thank you to Emily Ayscue Hassel for editing,
Stanton and Beverley Tyndall for producing the Instructional
Note: Some quotes have been edited for clarity and length. Quotes
Leadership and Excellence video clips that accompany this
come from interviews conducted with Opportunity Culture educators series.
over several years; titles for each educator here reflect the role the ©2017 Public Impact, Chapel Hill, NC.
educator was in at the time of the interview.
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Discussion Questions distributed for compensation. See our Terms of Use page or
contact us for more information.
1. Which actions in this element of instructional excellence
are strengths for you or your team? Please cite this publication as: Public Impact: Barrett, S.K.
(2017). Key elements of instructional excellence for multi-
2. Which actions in this element of instructional excellence classroom leaders: Monitor learning. Chapel Hill, NC: Public
are weaknesses for you or your team? Think about actions Impact. Retrieved from https://opportunityculture.org/wp-
you never take, fail to take as often as needed, or do not content/uploads/2017/09/Monitor_Learning-
take as well as needed to achieve strong learning growth Public_Impact.pdf
consistently.
3. What one to three specific changes will you or your team
make to use your strengths more often or more
consistently and improve weaknesses in the coming
months?
4. Make a brief action plan with specific goals, roles, and
time by which you will make specific changes!
5. Did your changes produce better learning results? If so,
keep them. If not, think again about what other changes
to make!

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