Instructional Design: Data-Based Decision Making: Resources for Educators
Purpose: This web-based tool is designed to help school improvement teams better understand and implement the school improvement planning process.
Audience: School improvement planning teams
My role: I was asked to serve as a design consultant for this joint project between AEL (now Edvantia) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) that serves most of the state departments of education across the country. CCSSO had previously published print and CD-based products to help educators. However, the policies and practices that impact school improvement planning change over time and across states. My solution was a dynamic web site with content that could easily be populated and revised through a database. I created the database and all graphics and Cold Fusion web templates.
Challenges: The product design for this project was fairly straightforward. The greatest challenge was developing a single product that met the demands of personnel from many different departments of education that followed different planning sequences and procedures. The resulting tool provides answers to common questions faced during the school improvement planning process but allows for customization of examples, resources, and stories by state.
Instructional Design Strategies: While most school improvement teams follow similar steps in the school improvement planning process, the exact procedures and forms vary across states. I used several strategies to provide flexibility to the users while making the content management reasonable.
Instead of a prescribed sequence, the interactive, circular graphic presents general categories of school improvement with points of entry at any point. The circle also supports the cyclical nature of the school improvement process.
The use of questions as an organizational factor was selected in order to allow school improvement teams to quickly find the information they needed without the need for understanding complex terminology. Novice planning teams can also pinpoint helpful information while building an understanding of the planning process. The language for the questions and their answers is also informal and conversational in nature to allow for use by users with a wide range of expertise.
The content of the site can be customized by state, and has been customized for schools in Arizona, South Dakota, and Virginia. Customized state content, in the form of school stories, state-required forms, and resources are presented to users based on the state of residence selected by the user when creating a free user profile.
The tool also provides structures to support collaboration between state deparment of education personnel and the growing number of schools failing to meet accountability requirements. Despite the increase in schools needing help, limited funds prevent states from providing additional personnel to visit and work with educators from these schools. The DBDM Web tool provides interactive features, such as a shared journal and direct communication with state advisors, for users that create an account. These tools are designed to help state personnel communicate with school teams between the limited visits they can make.
Outcomes: A pilot test of the web tool in over 27 states resulted in little suggestion for revision. Users found the tool easy to use and comprehensive in scope. Since being launched, the tool was customized for schools in the states of Arizona and South Dakota for a statewide training of school teams as well as for low-performing schools in Virginia in support of the work of AEL's Virginia state director. The content, examples, resources, and school stories are easily revised through a web-based administrative site accessible to users from both AEL and CCSSO.
Instructional Design Strategies: While most school improvement teams follow similar steps in the school improvement planning process, the exact procedures and forms vary across states. I used several strategies to provide flexibility to the users while making the content management reasonable.