Measurement & Metrics
Unit 1 DB
Which leadership characteristics and traits would you highlight as being most important in each of the four major domains in the Cynefin Framework? In which prevailing domain is your current organization? What makes you think it is in that domain? What leadership characteristics do you possess that are important for your current context?
Everybody makes decisions every day about many things. However, leaders decisions impact many lives and even nations. Zimmerman and Kanter (2012) said, “If decision-making is a science, judgment is an art.” (P.8) A leader must consider many elements before making any decision. Zimmerman and Kanter (2012) said, “Advanced Leaders about difficult social problems calls for significant awareness of one’s the situation, of others, and of one’s self.” (P.15) Snowden and Boone (2007, P.8) used Cyneframwork and summarized the leadership qualities. By looking at the leadership qualities shown by Snowden and Boone (2007), I think in the Simple and the Complicated domains; the essential trait and characteristic are sense and respond. Without these two main traits, not a single problem could be solved, and not an organization can achieve the highest goals. In the Complicated domain, I also would like to highlight ‘listen to conflicting advice.’ it is crucial because it gives leaders to think about what might work in the given sets of rules and regulations. In a Complex domain, I would like to highlight the characteristic of open up discussions (as through large group methods). It is the way to get more ideas to consider and act upon. (Snowden and Boone, 2007, Page 8) In a chaotic domain, I like ‘what works instead of the right answers. However, this skill requires a bold and brave leadership because many times, the administration focuses on the set rules and laws and hesitate to act upon the new solutions. I think my organization (school) does not lie just in one domain because various situations bring it in more than one or maybe in all four domains. Initially, it is in the Simple domain because there are several situations, the administration/leadership knows known. It means there are several protocols, procedures, rules, and regulations available to handle the situation. Like sense, categorize, and respond. I want to give an example of fire. We do fire drill many times in a year. We all know the procedure of what to do in a situation. I remember that one time there was a real situation of fire, someone saw the smoke and informed the administration, which sense the situation, categorize it as a real danger to the people inside the building then responded to the case as we were told to evacuate the building and go to the church close to the school building. The church collaborates with the school in emergencies. There are several other situations when some students are not ready to do any work or sleepy or hungry. Not only the administration but the entire staff know how to handle the situation. With a little communication with the student, we do know why the student is behaving in a certain way. I have no idea if any situation arises related to the staff/teachers, how the leaders/administration figures out the solutions? Our organization also lies in a complicated domain. Because there are several occasions when a situation arises and experts are there like social worker, psychologist, Special education teacher, security to handle it. I will again give an example of students’ behavior. Sometimes we see a student is tardy or absent frequently. Then leadership/administration examines, analyzes the situation (household situation i-e if single parent, or parents job problems or student is going to bed late) then experts come into the scene, give their expert opinion and leaders respond to the situation and try to solve the problems and many times they are successful in their efforts. I also think that our organization (school) is complex too because it comes under Hartford Public Schools, which evolve and has come to the current situation. I am saying it based on the one characteristic of complex domain explained as Dettmer (2011) explains, “All complex system have a history; they evolve, and their past is co-responsible for their present behavior.” Sometimes our school lies in the Chaotic domain. I remember an incident that happened in our school, which resembles the chaotic domain where the leadership lied in the ‘unknown unknown’ situation. The situation was that one parent was mad at the teacher for the reasons I am not aware of. The parent entered the school building, found the teacher, and tried to hit the teacher. Luckily, the teacher was able to lock herself in the copy machine room and called the administration in the main office. The main office called the police. I do not know what happened next. It was a chaotic situation, and the other teachers closed their classroom doors to ensure the safety of the students and themselves, I think the leadership did not know that they did not know what to do except calling the police. As for my role, I would say that I do not know if I have any leadership qualities. I am a paraprofessional, and I help two kindergarten autistic students. Paraprofessionals do not have so much freedom to exercise their knowledge, information, or leadership qualities. They usually follow the classroom teachers’ directions. So, in my limited capacity, I would say that my situation falls in the Simple domain. My two students are severely autistic. Loud voices, transitions, and strangers (new people to my students) are disturbing situations for them. Situations like a noisy classroom, fire drill, going or lunch or specials (music, art, technology) or any new face enter in the room, or they see during transitions, both of them start crying or screaming, These situations are ‘known known’ to all the staff in the school and me. So I sense the situation and respond to it. For going to specials or lunch or fire drill, I start talking to them beforehand that where we are going, and it will be fun, so they do not panic very much. I use the same strategy when any new face comes to our classroom, so I keep talking to them that the new face is not for them.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Assessment is the tool to know the strength and areas of need for an educational system. When we talk about the assessment, only the picture of students comes into one’s mind. However, assessment in the educational setting is the tool to know the strength and areas of need of a student, but also the resilience of educators and education as a whole social institution. Assessment in an education system is necessary because the education system is responsible for providing better citizens and workforce to society. Assessment should not be used as a routine in the education system. It should be used for the betterment of the students, educators, and the policymakers.
For
this reason, “assessments must meet three standards of quality. Each
assessment must be designed to serve a specific predetermined purpose,
arise from a specific predetermined definition of achievement success,
and be built of high-quality ingredients to yield dependable
results(Stiggins, 2006).”
I am not the teacher yet and working as a paraprofessional in a
community school, but I have observed that teachers use informal
assessment all year long. Through the assessment, they find the strength
and areas of need of each student. Then they address the needs of every
student.
I also observed that formal assessment also take places such as ‘DIBELS’ and ‘MAP.’
Based on Stiggins’ model, the decision in our system are made at three levels:
At the classroom level, decisions are made by the teachers at some
point. So the information teacher gathers, what each student’s current
state towards the meeting of the standards? What should be done if
students need help to meet the standards? Additionally, decisions also
include parents and students when parent-teacher conferences are held in
our school. All the stakeholder (teachers, students, and parents) come
up to the conclusion that what will work towards student’s academic
success?
The second level of decision making is when the Principle,
Curriculum coaches, and teachers team come together and analyze the data
and see what standards our student should master? The information they
need to know that if enough of our students meeting the standards?
The third level of decision making is, when Superintendent,
Legislators, and policymakers come into the picture and decide what
standards are to be made? The information they need to make decisions
is, to collect the data to see what the achievement level of our
students across the grades and schools is? The decision they make is,
what standards are students expected to master in our schools?
- In which quadrant of DDDM (from Ikemoto and Marsh ) would you place your organization? Why?
By reading Ikemto and Marsh (2007), I think (as I have mentioned that I am just a paraprofessional) our organization lies in the third quadrant. Because I see teachers have to attend data meetings. Their professional development meetings discuss the data (one time I attended teachers’ PD by accident. LOL). I also have noticed that the principal and vice-principal also observe teachers (annual evaluation). I am not sure if I can call a yearly evaluation, an assessment?
Central Tendencies and Variability of Data
By Tracy Collamore
If you wouldn’t mind indulging my humorous side, take a look at this video that explains what a Normal/Bell Curve is: Watch Video
StatQuest: The Normal Distribution, Clearly Explained!!!
Duration: 5:13
User: n/a –
Added: 10/9/17
Yes, I had to Google many terms from this Unit’s content because I had no idea what they were. I scoured the text from Roth’s (2015) textbook, but with my inept mathematical experience, I felt that it was written for students who already knew a decent amount of statistical math. That is not me. I did take a Psychology Stats and Methods class, but that was in the 90s. It was the only Math class I have ever taken outside of high school. So, yeah, I’m a little more than rusty.
I have had zero experience using any stats in my job, including using Normal/Bell curves. Heck, I didn’t even know they were the same thing! I thought there was a “normal” curve and a different “bell” curve. Yeah, this week has been fun for me! I did connect this dumbed-down video with histograms and frequency polygrams. According to Roth (2015), “the vertical axis always represents frequencies, and the horizontal axis always represents scores or class intervals (p. 54).” It also explains that both the vertical and horizontal axes start with the lowest values and ascend to the highest. This explains the bell curve shape of the graphed data since most variables will fall into the average category. In the “Stats for Dummies” video I’m sharing here, it compares average heights of infants and adults. The bell curve for infants is high and narrow, while the adult curve is shorter and wider. This led to realize that the measures of central tendency have key variances that illustrate collected data very differently. Mode, median, and mean are all methods of measuring the variances of collected data, and bell curves illustrate how each measurement can vary (yes, it took me a while to make that connection).
After going through all the materials on mode, median, and mean, I vaguely remembered having encountered these terms before, and how I used to remember what each one meant by pairing them with recognizable words (you know, like, English). Mode=most, median=middle, and mean=average. According to Roth (2015), the mode is the score that occurs most frequently. Median is the middle point of distribution, and mean is the arithmetic process of getting the average score. The fact that they can vary wildly depending on the data indicates that they each serve a different purpose when analyzing data. I can only surmise that it would be important to know all three levels of measurement when analyzing data on student performance, but, once again, I have no experience actually doing it.
I have to say, even though my statistical experience is rather inept, I am fascinated by it and am learning a lot. When I took that Stats class way back when, many people warned me that it was a really hard class. I was an art major at a liberal arts college, and, much to my parents’ chagrin, I reveled in taking classes across all subjects out of sheer fascination, with no concern for future employability. And although the Stats class was hard, I liked it. A lot. I’m having the same experience in this class, although, connecting the math-dense content with practical uses of it feels like I’m wrestling an alligator. I also don’t immediately see the connections between all of the concepts, which is really slowing me down.
Oh, Math. You evil temptress.
braintouse 