CBL Data-Driven Decision-Making Course
Educators can use a variety of measures to assess the outcomes of character education. These measures include school climate surveys, student self-reported attitudes, as well as the rate and severity of disciplinary infractions. In addition to quantitative data, formative assessments may provide valuable in-depth, qualitative measures of ethical thinking. Use the Case Studies for high school and college students and the Ethics App, to assign ethical dilemmas to your students. We recommend that teachers download and print the classroom poster to remind students of the framework for ethical decision-making.
Take note of the following aspects of your students’ work:
- Ethical sensitivity – the ability to identify the ethical problem or dilemma in the case study.
- Ethical reasoning – the analysis of various responses to the ethical problem as well as the anticipated consequences of each action.
Use qualitative and quantitative data when making decisions about curriculum and instruction. Watch the video What Do You See in These Data? to learn about extracting practical, relevant information from data.
Watch an expert interview with Elizabeth A. City, senior lecturer on education and director of the Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This video about the effective use of student data was produced by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education (6:31 minutes).
How do you turn data into information? One way is to spark conversation between teachers about new ideas for instruction. Watch an interview with Dr. Don Davis Superintendent of Waterford Unified School District about creating a process for teachers’ classroom visits to learn how their colleagues manage classroom activities. These Instructional Tours (also called Learning Walks) are used today in the Waterford school district in California. Teachers may use structured forms that detail the instructional principles of the curriculum and map what they see onto these key principles. This video was produced by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education (2:08 minutes).