Company Overview:

• Data Warehouse, Online Reports, and Custom Analytics
• K-12 Common Core Benchmarks, NJSLA Predictions, and Comparative Growth Indicators
• Test Authoring and Online Test Taker
• Automated SGO Manager​
• Comprehensive Professional Development
• Dedicated Customer Support

LinkIt’s goal is to provide unparalleled support and truly partner with districts to:

• Effectively and frequently use data to make informed decisions
• Clearly communicate timely and purposeful feedback
• Maximize the return on time invested assessing students
• Efficiently manage of processes to save time and resources
• Respect challenging fiscal realities with multi-faceted tools and solutions

Supporting a Positive and Purposeful Assessment and Data Culture and Climate

• Strategically identify students' prerequisite standards and skills deficiencies
• Collect baseline evidence data to measure growth by test and standard
• Determine which standards/skills require small group intervention and whole class instruction to build foundational skills
• Help to identify high performing students for enrichment and standards for the whole class to explore in greater depth
• Objective and consistent data to inform PLCs and collaborative planning
• Benchmark results are strong predictors of State assessment and end of year performance

Build Consensus Around the

Benefits of Benchmarking

1. Share age appropriate feedback - "You did really well on these two skills, but this week, we are going to work together to improve this skill."
2. "Your results are going to help me decide who to group you with"
3. Build intrinsic motivators
4. "Help me avoid teaching things you already know"
5. Differentiate the messaging strategies relayed to individual students
6. Have students articulate and create their own progress monitoring reports in response to the benchmark data
7. Share the purpose of the assessment in honest kid friendly terms.
8. Strategically schedule and assign test examiners to increase buy-in
9. "Put forth the effort to do your best now, as this will result in less work in the weeks to come, not more"
10. Ask students what kind of atmosphere would make them feel comfortable taking the assessment
11. "You are never done taking tests in life!"
12. Be transparent about the data with the students
13. Build a culture of taking things seriously from early on to avoid an "opt out" culture
14. Conference with students and explain their growth or regression in comparison to class averages
15. Create a positive assessment culture focused on growth, not a test culture focused on the score
16. Explain how the results are used for eligibility and placement in special programs
17. Let students know their parents will receive the results and specific feedback about their performance

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Strategies to Encourage Students of All Ages to Do Their Best

(sorted by age appropriateness, low to high)

18. Provide students with feedback and help them set and monitor Form B and C goals
19. School pride! - "In our school, we always try our best in everything we do!"
20. Prior to Form C, share data from Forms A and B to motivate to student to hit Form C goals
21. Count effort, attitude, and time spent, as a formal participation grade, regardless of performance
22. Show students a LinkIt! teacher report (without names) and explain how the data helps teachers identify gaps, make decisions about instruction, and group students to customize learning.
23. "You've worked hard, now achieve your goal!"
24. Be genuine in asking students to put forth their best effort
25. Count Form C as a grade and/or use A, B, and C scaled percentile scores
26. Explain how demonstrating mastery of standards and concepts will result in opportunities for independent exploration and choice
27. Encourage students to set individualized goals based on their starting points
28. "You need to pass NJSLA to graduate. This test will give you your odds and help you prepare."
29. Explain how the school's collective achievement impacts colleges' perception of its graduates
30. Focus on the test's connections to graduation, college,

and career

Assessment and Data Culture

• How have you shared and celebrated success/growth in your classroom?
• What data focused PD influenced the assessment strategy you used in this lesson? What future data and assessment PD interests you?
• How do you use multiple forms of assessment including diagnostic, formative, and summative data to plan instruction and inform your work?

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Lesson Planning, Grouping, and Differentiation

• What specific data did you use to plan this lesson/unit? What decisions were influenced?
• What standards and skills are students currently performing below expectations? How did you define these expectations? Do you feel they are both rigorous and attainable?
• Are struggling students able to apply these skills during certain types of activities?
• Were there any data points drawn from this lesson that could be used with your next class? For instruction? For grouping? To identify needed resources for you or your students?
• While observing the lesson, I noticed, you collected data by [checklist, conferring notes, post-its, exit slips, etc.) Why did you choose that strategy and was it effective?
• For students scoring below expectations, which questions/standards/skills were most troublesome?
• What interventions do you feel are required to help students build the necessary foundational skills to grapple with ___ standard?

Suggested Data Questions and Prompts

for Teacher Observation Conferences

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PLC Practices

• What conversations have you had with colleagues about student achievement/performance on NJSLA?
• How have you collaborated with colleagues to uncover areas of success or deficiency within specific curriculum clusters/standards/topics? What instructional shifts have you recently implemented as a result of this data?
• What cut scores are shared across your grade level/department to define at-risk, proficiency, and advanced achievement levels?
• Based on your observations and other student work, how would you rate the accuracy and effectiveness of the ___ common assessment?

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Student Feedback

• Please share the ways you provide students with timely, specific, and actionable feedback?
• Do students have opportunities to collect their own data to set and monitor goals?
• What specific evidence of understanding data did you collect to measure students’ attainment of this lesson’s objectives? Did you provide purposeful feedback to students?
• If you could teach the same lesson again, how would improve the data you collect and feedback you provide students?
• What exemplars and rubrics can students access to assess their work?

Suggested Data Questions and Prompts

for Teacher Observation Conferences

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Challenge

• There is a lack of correlation between student performance on teacher developed tests, curricular program assessments, and report card grades in comparison to achievement on benchmark and high-stakes assessments. Annual achievement goals and corresponding outcomes frequently mirror historical trends, which puts into question staffs’ reasonable expectations for growth and the extent to which data is being utilized to pivot instruction to improve outcomes.

Practical Advice from LinkIt! Users:

• Identify persistent low performing standards, set and monitor realistic and attainable performance goals, and focus resources on systematically advancing achievement.
• Ensure staff has a strong awareness of students’ typical Form A, B, and C scores and growth rates by student, class, subgroup, and standard.
• Develop a shared definition of “growth” and expectations for effective performance targets.
• Evaluate the instruments being used to assess students to ensure they are reliable, valid, and accurately assess student knowledge and application of the standards.

Data Challenge

Set Expectations for Rigor

Challenge

• There is a frequent disconnect between school-based and district administrators regarding who “owns” the data. This often results in the individual who is responsible for managing the assessment/data initiative becoming the keeper of the data, and a lack of meaningful engagement from school leaders and teachers who work more closely with the students from whom the data ultimately derived and whom would best be served by its strategic use.

Practical Advice from LinkIt! Users:

• Create data leadership teams comprised of teachers and administrators who have the capacity to navigate online programs, understand the connection between the assessment, standards, and curriculum, lead their colleagues in the analysis and strategic use of the data. Provide the data leadership team with extensive training, time to dive into the data after each major test administration, and support to make decisions that guide the data initiative so it generates consistent outcomes.
• Ensure staff understands the purpose of the assessment, how the data will be used administratively, specific expectations for teacher use, and how it will ultimately benefit students.
• Administrators cannot just tell staff that they need to use data. They need to explicitly model how to use the data and for what purposes. Create a partnership with teachers, give the teachers the time/opportunity to incorporate their ideas into the plan, and collaboratively set clear goals for how data is to be used.
• Engage educators at all levels in meaningful conversations about their data. Communicate district/school trends and pose questions that require teacher reflection and analysis of class and student level data.

Data Challenge

Foster Shared Ownership of the Data

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Challenge:

• LinkIt! partner districts have made incredible strides organizing the abundance of data available in their schools. Educators are now able to access all their data with a single username and password and access powerful reports to analyze the data. Now what? This question of how to use this information to improve student achievement is still be asked by teachers and administrators alike.

Practical Advice from LinkIt! Users:

• Structure data engagement activities that provide staff with the time required to analyze, discuss, and strategically use the data. These activities should have specific goals and vary based on grade, department, and type/purpose of the assessment.
• Utilize LinkIt’s First 30 Days of Data and Form A-C Fidelity Solutions exercises to engage staff focused, outcome oriented, and easy to turnkey protocols.
• Identify data centric processes that can help teachers and leaders save time, satisfy compliance mandates, and improve outcomes for students.
• Before administering an assessment, develop focused questions you want the data to answer and plan how the results can help monitor specific programs and initiatives.
• Provide specific paths for staff to cite evidence of data use during observation conferences and in lesson plans. Create models and exemplars for both effective and distinguished use of data.

Data Challenge

Strategically Use of Data

Superintendent

• State that LinkIt! is providing the district leadership team with tools and evidence to celebrate achievement with the community and push roadblocks aside.

Curriculum Administrators

• Show teachers how LinkIt! provides easy access to tangible evidence to support decisions and differentiation.
• Use data to focus learning on strategic goals to improve engagement of all learners; both students in the classroom and teachers participating in professional development.
• Use SGOs as an opportunity to engage staff in specific and quantifiable conversations about instruction, content, and student learning.

Assessment, Grant and Data Administrators

• Communicate a definitive purpose for the assessment process and how the data will be used.

Program Supervisors

• Adopt a contagious top-down enthusiasm and system of modeling effective data practices. Acknowledge that data and LinkIt! simply enhances the good work you are already doing; allowing teachers and administrators to work smarter, not harder.
• Propose that giving students specific feedback on how their skill development compares to their peers will motivate many students.

Top 20 Tips for Supporting a

Positive Data Culture

ELA Administrators

• Consider and examine all available data sources, including student work.

Math Administrators

• Model how to drill into the achievement gap and find out why students are not achieving, and which standards are presenting the greatest challenges.
• Acknowledge that teachers must have access to reliable standards-based data if they are to satisfy the expectation to differentiate instruction.

High School Administrators

• Ensure data initiative goals are realistic, manageable, and attainable.

Middle School Administrators

• Explain how data can add structure and reduce subjectivity in PLCs.

Elementary Administrators

• Demonstrate how data serves as a consistent basis for providing each learner with a targeted learning experience.
• Explain that LinkIt! makes sense of a seemingly endless number of test results and provides access to data from all the different systems with a single username and password.

Top 20 Tips for Supporting a

Positive Data Culture

Middle School/High School Teachers

• Promote that if nothing else, data will validate what you are doing is working and that you have made the right decision.
• Demonstrate how LinkIt! will manage the entire assessment process for teachers. "They upload my tests so students can take them online, automatically grade them, create organized feedback for students and parents, and help me to monitor proficiency and growth."

Elementary Teachers

• Share teacher testimonials of how they used LinkIt tutorials and resources to successfully learn to use the platform.
• Celebrate examples of student-centered learning environments based on data.
• Explain that data from common assessments is not subjective and can protect teachers when parents have grading concerns.

Top 20 Tips for Supporting a

Positive Data Culture

Culture and Leading with Data

1. Clearly communicate the merits of district’s assessment strategy to ensure student, parent, and staff buy-in.
2. Celebrate positive student and staff outliers.
3. Leverage data to justify controversial decisions based on the documented needs of students.
4. Highlight growth trends and areas of strength.
5. Associate data with positively perceived resources.
6. Establish transparent, realistic, and shared expectations for data analysis and utilization.
7. Inform NJTSS, IEP, and other meetings/processes.
8. Define and communicate teacher, principal, district administration data roles and responsibilities.
9. Correlate student attendance and discipline statistics with student achievement data.
10. Model and recognize data driven practices.
11. Examine the impact of staff attendance and turnover on student achievement.
12. Clearly distinguish between state level accountability data initiatives and the school’s vision for data use.
13. Allow teachers and other stakeholders to identify data opportunities.
14. Correlate climate and teacher/student belief system data with student achievement results.

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100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Curriculum

15. Determine the root cause and contributing factors limiting achievement by standard.
16. Create common assessments with collaboratively developed items and tasks focused on essential standards.
17. Identify gaps between intended, implemented, and achieved curriculum.
18. Collaboratively align and tag assessment items to standards, skill, DOK, and other district information.
19. Examine multiyear standard and skill data for cohorts of students to identify prerequisite deficiencies.
20. Engage higher performing students with curriculum compacting and deeper exploration of mastered standards.
21. Determine effectiveness of curricular programs and validity of assessment instruments.
22. Strategically bolster rigor and adjust pacing.
23. Inspect what you expect by drawing connections between assessment and standards.
24. Adjust standards coverage based on mastery and at-risk data points.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Fiscal

25. Advocate for students and support requests for new programs and resources with a clear and objective data-driven rationale.
26. Monitor the efficacy of programmatic initiatives and instructional programs with LinkIt!’s virtual class functionality to ensure they produce desired outcome.
27. Prioritize professional development allocations based on assessment results.
28. Use data to define district/school goals and allocate funds accordingly.
29. Require teachers to substantiate budget requests with data.
30. Utilize inventory data to ensure efficient acquisition of resources.
31. Challenge staff to use data to strategically shift 10% of funding from low priority/return expenditures to identified high priority/return initiatives.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Grouping, Rosters, Eligibility

32. Efficiently create balanced heterogeneous class rosters by achievement and demographics.
33. Use LinkIt! Groups module to identify students capable of success in higher level courses and enrichment programs (e.g., algebra readiness/gifted and talented).
34. Devise program eligibility cut scores based on the LinkIt! Navigator Quartile Analysis and online Validation module.
35. Use pre-assessment data to homogeneously group students and identify candidates for strategy intervention lessons.
36. Create virtual classes within LinkIt! to provide intervention staff with efficient access to serviced students, and to monitor short and long term program efficacy.
37. Form and progress monitor RTI groups.
38. Provide artifacts to support Title I, QSAC, RAC and other compliance requirements.
39. Assign students to classroom level strategy, ability, cooperative, or other types of flexible groups based on data.
40. Determine appropriate services and grouping of ELLs students.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Instructional Practices

41. Use data to plan interventions for at-risk and accelerated students.
42. Create data walls to organize identified students, differentiation, grouping, and progress monitoring strategies.
43. Provide students with item analysis feedback and help them to set and monitor individual goals.
44. Celebrate achievement, recognize individuals/groups, and highlight high-yield strategies.
45. Structure and support collaborative planning and sharing of data driven content objectives, differentiation. process strategies, tiered products, and individualized learning supports and resources.
46. Embed time for articulation between classroom teachers and interventionalists.
47. Define expectations and provide resources for progress monitoring.
48. Provide professional development and resources to support curriculum compacting.
49. Examine student work and engage staff in a discussion of effective practices.
50. Compare informal progress monitoring data from exit slips and on-the-spot assessments with LinkIt! data.
51. Use informal formative assessment data to differentiate the subsequent day’s lesson.
52. Pair high-growth model teachers with staff to foster consistent effective practices in all classrooms.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Personnel

53. Examine correlation between student performance and teacher practice data.
54. Identify consistent achievement patterns and outliers.
55. Assign staff to instructional roles based on areas of personal strength.
56. Model effective data practices during pre/post conferences.
57. Provide specific paths for staff to cite evidence of data use during observation conferences and in lesson plans.
58. Identify and respond to areas of concern with professional development/coaching.
59. Assign and schedule supplemental staff to strategically support students’ needs.
60. Base decisions on non-subjective measures.
61. Protect staff from unsubstantiated concerns by leveraging common district/school based assessments.
62. Engage teachers in conversation regarding alignment of perception and performance.
63. Recruit/hire new staff with high SGO/SGP/AchieveNJ ratings.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

PLCs and Articulation Meetings

64. Examine work samples to identify student misconceptions and root cause of common errors.
65. Analyze and react to data trends and outliers.
66. Collaboratively examine connection between assessment instrument, pacing calendar, curriculum, and standards.
67. Enhance connection between assessment instruments and classroom practices by collaboratively associating items with standards, skills, DOK, and additional tags.
68. Have teachers reflect on how data has enhanced their teaching and learning.
69. Engage teachers in examining student assessments and work samples from prior year’s grade level to foster a better understanding of foundational standards and prerequisite skills.
70. Conduct vertical articulation sessions to promote deeper understanding of content and cognitive empathy.
71. Create common assessments and progress monitoring resources.
72. Foster consensus on essential standards, intervention topics, and enrichment opportunities.
73. Invite students into PLC to add perspective on item analysis results.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Professional Development

74. Identify skilled facilitators and target audience based on student achievement and observation/evaluation data.
75. Correlate needs assessment and student achievement data to pinpoint professional development topics, establish priority, and strategically schedule.
76. Administer self-assessment surveys for staff to evaluate their own strengths and areas of potential growth.
77. Promote teacher reflection on their own practice and greater ownership of their own professional development plan.
78. Group staff for professional development whose students have similar data-based needs.
79. Facilitate structured articulation and data protocols to share practices and resources that yield significant outcomes.
80. Provide standards-based professional learning experiences to all staff or targeted groups to bolster areas of limited student growth.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

SGOs

81. Utilize multiple measures to strategically tier students into correct preparedness groups.
82. Examine prior year baseline and post assessment results and typical growth rates to establish rigorous and attainable performance targets.
83. Progress monitor SGO targets to proactively predict goal attainment.
84. Correlate SGO and evaluation ratings with additional data points.
85. Use multiple measures to determine the root cause of students not achieving performance targets.
86. Analyze subgroup data to focus goals on priorities and populations that require additional support.
87. Examine multiple years of achievement-by-standard data to develop goals focused on instructional gaps.
88. Consider indicators of success (attendance, home support, motivation) to set realistic goals.
89. Progress monitor SGO targets to proactively predict teacher attainment of goals.
90. Examine the reliability and validity of individual assessment items and the overall assessment.
91. Correlate local assessments with state assessments and LinkIt! Benchmarks to measure predictive accuracy and rigor.

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100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Teacher Observation and Performance Evaluation

92. Strategically assign/schedule observations to coach/evaluate areas of greatest potential growth.
93. Monitor teacher utilization of assessment data with consistent pre/post observation conference questions and expectations.
94. Discuss lesson planning practices during observation conferences, and monitor evidence of strategic grouping and differentiation based on student achievement data.
95. Correlate AchieveNJ's SGOs/SGPs with teacher practice ratings.
96. Link specific data practices that are evidence of the effective and distinguished performance levels of the teacher evaluation rubric.
97. Perform quantitative and qualitative walkthroughs with specific look-fors.
98. Utilize teacher reflection and performance evaluation data to drive professional development and assignment of staff to specific activities.
99. Look for evidence of differentiation and ask staff to provide data driven rationale for use of instructional strategies.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies

Technology

100. Analyze local online assessment results by question type to evaluate student NJSLA readiness.
101. Progress monitor student growth with online intervention programs.
102. Monitor staff and student login rates of online programs to gauge utilization.
103. Identify, promote, and model the use of high-quality web based resources that support differentiation

planning and student learning.

• Utilize data to inform the investment in digital teaching and learning resources to enhance allocation

effectiveness.

• Efficiently complete QSAC, RAC, NCLB/ESEA, and other compliance reporting requirements.

100+ Data Driven Opportunities

and Strategies