Piedmont Elementary School, Piedmont AL

At Piedmont Elementary School, all teachers and administrators at both the school and district levels use digital tracking logs. After each schoolwide assessment is given, teachers add their individual student data to the log, creating one central place to analyze trends in student learning. The log is the basis for conversations about student learning on data days. For example, teachers note trends in data across grade levels and across subject areas. Teachers share concerns and strategies to help other teachers identify weak areas where students are struggling with a specific skill or standard.

Using the data logs, teachers complete monthly Targeted Instructional Plans (TIPs). The TIPs include a whole group component that identifies a skill or standard that over 50% of the students have not mastered. The plan includes the skill or standard to be retaught, how it will be retaught, and when it will be retaught. TIPs also include a small group component in which teachers identify a specific skill or standard that certain individual students are struggling to master. The small group TIPs identify the students to be retaught, and an explicit description of how and when the skill will be retaught over the next month.

Since the implementation of the digital data tracking log and TIPs, the school has seen notable gains in student learning and state test scores. Individual student successes and successful teaching strategies are openly shared and celebrated on monthly Data Days in reflection of the previous month’s TIPs.