Well, it's been a solid twelve days, not quite the once-a-week goal I threw out there. Oh well, my SMART goals at work have also been a washout, I should get used to it. Now, using data to drive instruction is all well and good. Certainly it's better than assuming that everyone needs the exact same thing, and damn the torpedoes. However, SMART goals are quickly becoming the bane of my existence (or at least a close second to a few of my darlings). We are supposed to meet as a "data team" once a week to set goals, think of ways to meet our goals, review student work to see if we've met our goals (generally, no), and set new goals. All of this takes valuable time, obviously, and tends to be depressing to boot. I can only sort my students into groups (close to proficiency, far from proficiency, needs major intervention to reach proficiency) so many times before wanting to tear my hair out and shout, "Who is supposed to deliver this major intervention anyway? And when?" In the course of a day, I have my hands pretty much full. Trying to find the time and resources for intensive small group instruction, while figuring out just what the rest of the class is supposed to be doing......yikes.
A small chuckle this week came when one of the third grade teachers took a day off. Her sub didn't show, so our literacy coach (the one who's been running all these data team meetings) took over her class. She came into lunch exhausted -- "We've got to DO something about some of these third graders. They are impossible!" Umm, and you wondered why we weren't doing small group instruction? Walk a mile in my shoes, honey.
However, I have seen some progress lately. I can't claim that data teams and SMART goals have made the difference, but hey, I'll take what I can get.
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