Family Data Night
Why have a data night?
Throughout the past several years, a pattern has emerged that shows parents are not aware of what their student's reading or math levels are currently and where they are expected to be. This became obvious at the beginning of this year at sneak a peek night, where students get a chance to see their classroom and learn a little about their teachers and expectations for the year. The time spent in the classroom was only 20 minutes before they moved onto the school tour and the information from our principal. Out of the 12 parents that attended, seven stayed behind to ask about their students' data that was just given to them. Once I realized that the parents were unaware of what the data meant and the expectations for their children, it became clear that these parents needed more support and information.
After further discussion within the first grade team, we decided that sending home data and information without an in-person conversation would not be an effective way of communication. The parents needed more information in order to support their own children. That dialogue would need to start with the knowledge of where their child is, where they should be and then moving forward, what they need to work on. A data night will allow parents to get up to date information, have open communication, learn what their child is doing in class and take home tools to support their student and what they are learning in class. The initial data was given to the parents in August and we decided to wait until December to host the data night so that we would have more data. With the additional data, the games, websites and tools we would provide would be more personalized and applicable.
Below you can see an example of the data that was given to the parents at the beginning of the year (end of kindergarten scores as they started first grade) and what their data looked like on data night (beginning of year for math and reading as well as their goal sheets that were created after their first tests). This included reading data, attendance data and math data. On the left is the data that was given to families on data night to be compared to the beginning of the year.
After further discussion within the first grade team, we decided that sending home data and information without an in-person conversation would not be an effective way of communication. The parents needed more information in order to support their own children. That dialogue would need to start with the knowledge of where their child is, where they should be and then moving forward, what they need to work on. A data night will allow parents to get up to date information, have open communication, learn what their child is doing in class and take home tools to support their student and what they are learning in class. The initial data was given to the parents in August and we decided to wait until December to host the data night so that we would have more data. With the additional data, the games, websites and tools we would provide would be more personalized and applicable.
Below you can see an example of the data that was given to the parents at the beginning of the year (end of kindergarten scores as they started first grade) and what their data looked like on data night (beginning of year for math and reading as well as their goal sheets that were created after their first tests). This included reading data, attendance data and math data. On the left is the data that was given to families on data night to be compared to the beginning of the year.
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What is Data Night?
Data night provided us, as an early learning team, to interact and connect with families about where their child is currently performing and what the expectation is for growth in both reading and math. As parents walked into data night, we provided them with a folder containing their student's information (as seen on the left above). Since the data night was an early learning data night, we planned to show the growth chart for reading and math scores from kindergarten to second grade. This allowed parents to see their child(ren)'s data and where they need to be over the next one to two years.
After presenting the data to the individual parents and sharing the overall growth charts to parents, it then turned into a night of conversation, with the opportunity to ask and answer questions and provide resources to the parents. Parents were able to walk through the cafeteria and classrooms to get personalized resources for their children. In order to give personalized resources to parents, there was preparation before on our own end. This then meant having these games or resources available and showing the parents how to use them. The goal is to give them as much information without it being overwhelming and to educate the parents so that they are best able to support the education of their student.
After presenting the data to the individual parents and sharing the overall growth charts to parents, it then turned into a night of conversation, with the opportunity to ask and answer questions and provide resources to the parents. Parents were able to walk through the cafeteria and classrooms to get personalized resources for their children. In order to give personalized resources to parents, there was preparation before on our own end. This then meant having these games or resources available and showing the parents how to use them. The goal is to give them as much information without it being overwhelming and to educate the parents so that they are best able to support the education of their student.
What makes this possible?
When planning and executing the data night, there was a variety of things that needed to happen to make sure it was as successful as possible. The first thing was finding a date and making sure that we could provide the childcare and dinner for those that attended. With the help of our pre-kindergarten para-professionals, we had childcare covered. Through our community partners, we were able to get the dinner catered at no cost to the school and two iPads donated to use as door prize giveaways for those in attendance.
The next step that required an extreme amount of work was preparing the take home materials for parents. This work took the effort of teachers, their residents and support staff in creating, cutting, laminating and bagging games for parents to take home. Once the materials were bagged, they were labeled with the names of our students and brought down to the cafeteria to give out to parents during our demonstration and distribution time. It took many different staff members participating in the execution of data night to make it as successful as it was. Although the planning was done by my teaching partner and me, the night would not have been possible if other teams were not willing to do their own research for the students, recruit parents to attend and have the materials ready to go for the night. |
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The Turn Out
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Building a base of trust throughout the community as a new staff over the past year and a half has led to a more successful turnout at events in year two of the turn-around. Parents of 20 of 41 first graders attended. That is a 50% turnout of parents. For our first data night, that was a huge success. The night of the event was after a day where we had a 2-hour delay at school due to weather. If the weather had been nicer, we may have had an even bigger turn out to the event. Our goal for the next event is to have 60% of parents attend and walk away with even more resources to support their children.
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The Take Home for Families
Inside of the classroom, students play different reading and math games as early finishers and at centers. After leveling out the game to be appropriate for each student throughout the first couple months of school, I was able to bag or box and send home personalized games for families. In the slideshow on the right, you can see the games packed for take home as well as the students playing them inside the classroom, demonstrating that they are familiar with and know the rules for the games.
Each student also has logins for several different websites that they have use for their technology station each day. To make access easier at home, each student was given a login card to take home so that they could use the tools in more than one location. On each of these websites, the students have personalized assignments, books on their reading level, math lessons based on what they need additional support in and self-adjusting levels based on their success. Parents walked away with the data for their student, the login card for online resources, one math game and one reading game that is leveled for their learning. Ultimately, we would like to create a way for students to be able to switch out their games once they have grown and mastered the different number sentences, sight words or sight word sentences, but for now, giving them a game for each subject is a great start for creating a home library of educational resources. |
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Teacher Reflection
By exposing and encouraging our families to take advantage of the data night, parents were able to note similarities to the ways they learned math and provided resources for parents to support their children with homework to encourage fluency in both math and reading. Providing the opportunity for parents to come and learn about the level that their child is performing on and give them resources to use outside of school was a great success. There were a couple changes that I would make if we were to host data night again, but overall, parents were happy with the resources and the information they received. While the parents were learning, students were enjoying having popcorn and watching a movie with their friends and siblings.
Every single parent that attended walked out with personalized information and tools to use. That benefits the parent, the child and us, as teachers, now that they have ways to reinforce what is happening during the school day. Parents and family members that attended were very receptive to hearing about the data and the resources that we were sending home. One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we received was that they enjoyed being shown how to play the games and use them effectively inside their house. They also talked about being given the opportunity to learn about what the data means, where it needs to be in the future and how to best support the learning of their scholar. Giving parents access is just as important as giving the students access inside and outside of the classroom. If the parent is engaged, educated and involved in the learning, the child becomes more engaged and invested in their own learning. Overall, the data night was a success, especially considering it was the first data night that was held by the early learning team since the turn around process began. Hopefully we can build upon that for the future!
Every single parent that attended walked out with personalized information and tools to use. That benefits the parent, the child and us, as teachers, now that they have ways to reinforce what is happening during the school day. Parents and family members that attended were very receptive to hearing about the data and the resources that we were sending home. One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we received was that they enjoyed being shown how to play the games and use them effectively inside their house. They also talked about being given the opportunity to learn about what the data means, where it needs to be in the future and how to best support the learning of their scholar. Giving parents access is just as important as giving the students access inside and outside of the classroom. If the parent is engaged, educated and involved in the learning, the child becomes more engaged and invested in their own learning. Overall, the data night was a success, especially considering it was the first data night that was held by the early learning team since the turn around process began. Hopefully we can build upon that for the future!