PROJECT COMPLETED: January 2016

Global Community Charter School Data Analysis Kit | Spreadsheet by David White — **Global Community Charter School Data Analysis Kit** | Spreadsheet by David White

THE STORY OF THIS PROJECT

Stakeholder’s Problem: “We need a way to quickly identify the areas where our students are strong and where they need more support.”

Global Community Charter School (GCCS) is a tuition-free, independent charter school located in New York City. It serves 400 children in Kindergarten through Grade 5. GCCS is committed to inclusiveness and serving all children in its community (Harlem and Washington Heights). The school employs a rigorous, inquiry-based model of education and it has been authorized by International Baccalaureate to offer the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP).

After giving students practice exams and other assessments, GCCS teachers needed to determine specifically what their students’ strengths and weaknesses were. After the tests, they knew that they may need to review or possibly re-teach certain topics. However, it was unclear exactly which topics needed to be reviewed and specifically which students needed extra help to master those skills. To solve this problem, I designed and built a data analysis kit for GCCS. The data tool I built helped teachers quickly identify which topics they needed to re-teach and specifically which students needed help where. The data analysis kit I built saved teachers’ time and it helped them deliver better, more targeted instruction.

Work Process:

Here’s the design process I used to complete this project—

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Case Study 002. GCCS Mock Exam Data Analysis Kit: Step 1

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School

Step 1 - Discovery

My first step was to meet with teachers and instructional coaches to determine specifically what their challenges were and what kind of tools they needed. We looked at the testing schedule and the topics to be covered by each test. We identified that the targets were for each classroom on each test.

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School

Case Study 002. GCCS Mock Exam Data Analysis Kit: Step 2

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School

Step 2 - Sketch

Spreadsheets can often be overwhelming to look at and difficult to use. I wanted to avoid those problems by making the new tool both aesthetically-pleasing and user-friendly. I sketched out what I wanted the tool to look like and how it would function.

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School

Case Study 002. GCCS Mock Exam Data Analysis Kit: Step 3

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets

Step 3 - Prep Data

The data tool predicted the students’ performance on future exams. In order to accomplish this, I researched past state exams and mapped them to the material on the practice exams.

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets

Case Study 002. GCCS Mock Exam Data Analysis Kit: Step 4

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets

Step 4 - Build

To build the tool, I used Microsoft Excel. I chose Excel because it was available to everyone in the organization and it was a tool that staff members were already familiar with and felt comfortable using.

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets

Case Study 002. GCCS Mock Exam Data Analysis Kit: Step 5

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets

Step 5 - Publish

I published the finished data kit on the school’s shared drive where all staff members could easily access it. The tool was used by teachers, school leaders and instructional coaches during their weekly meetings and it helped them with lesson planning and organizing small-group instruction.

CSY-002, Global Community Charter School, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets