This week, we're talking about high-leverage practice number four, using multiple sources of information to develop a comprehensive understanding of a student's strengths and needs. And Ann, this week I'm really curious to hear your perspective because you have worked with a lot of different kinds of students with all kinds of splintered backgrounds and needs. So, for you, what does this look like in your practice?

Ann: Using multiple sources is really just going out to try to collect as much information as humanly possible about a student. Because until you know all of their triggers, their motivations, their strengths, their challenges, it's really hard to craft an adequate support and scaffolding plan to help them get success in any of their domains.

So what types of, I'm thinking, like tools or assessments, or are there certain people that you're talking to? Like, how do you get all of this information on a student?

Ann: By talking to literally anybody with whom they interact. Because everybody's going to have a different viewpoint and a different perspective. I may talk to one of their support people who just doesn't have a real tight relation, and oh, it's the worst child in the world on the human planet, and then talk to somebody else where they've established a degree of trust and cooperation and workability. And that source of information is, oh, yeah, this student has really got some stuff going on.

And these are the particular areas where they really excel. And yeah, they have some challenges, but when you support them using these particular parameters and supports, then they excel and they succeed. So if I talk to just one person, I'm going to get a skewed viewpoint. But if I talk to as many people as this child or student interacts with, then I've got a much clearer picture. And I can then work on some of those interpersonal things and develop the support and trust for me that I can then use to help guide the student on an achievement level side.

Yeah, I'm going to collect the data that's out there that says what are their present levels? But I also need to understand that sometimes those present levels are influenced by what the setup is, what kind of day the student had, what their relationship with the practitioner who's administering it is. So I could get present levels from this particular source, and they'd show me one thing, present levels from a different source, and it would show me something different.

So I need to recognize that different sources give me different windows into the particular student. And again, developing the appropriate supports is tailored to the student. And students come in at all sorts of emotional highs and lows and focuses during the course of their day, week, year.

Yeah, I appreciate how you're saying, like, yes, there's a people element, like there's different professionals or, you know, just people around the student who will have perspectives. But there are also different tools and some data that we can grab and that can help fill things in. But to know that it's not always just the data, that it's that data in context of either how that data was collected or when that data was collected, and there's all of that context that then can really help us interpret that data to understand what it means for implementation with what we're trying to actually work on with the student at that moment.

Ann: And any implementation plan is always guided by and underpinned by the data, but with the understanding of how life events influence and impact the data. So that when you factor the whole student into your plan, you get a much better plan.

Yeah, and I think that's what this entire high-leverage practice is driving at, is that you can't just take one piece of data or one tool or one opinion. Right. Like you can't take one piece of information and have the whole picture. So I know you have worn many hats across your career. How do you know when you've got all the bases covered? Like, how do you know when you're not missing something? You know that you talk to, you know, these couple of people, and you're good, versus you've talked to these couple of people, and you actually need some more.

Ann: I probably always assume that I have missed something, so I collect all the data I can in the moment and foster a plan. That's the best I can do with the data that I have and run with it. Understanding that there are going to be gaps, there are going to be oopsies, there's going to be something that. Man, I thought that would be a home run, and oh, it was a complete fail. Back up the bus, retool, and try something else.

With so many of my challenging kids, I was never really effective at finding the plan because the plan only exists on somebody's paper and in somebody's head. When you actually go to implement it, yeah, it's a great plan, but life happens, and nuances change. So part of the plan is understanding that the plan is always in flux. It's the plan that works the best when it's made, and then you're constantly tailoring it and adapting it.

As those present levels change, as the triggers change, as the makeup of a classroom changes, as the student teacher, parapro, and administrative interactions change, so that just because I nailed it today doesn't necessarily mean I nailed it tomorrow. And I need to understand that. I just need to be flexible in understanding.

I love how you're taking this because the high-leverage practice is a comprehensive understanding, not a comprehensive plan. And like, I love how you're like, well, you may never understand the student. It's constant, it's continual. I'm, you know, learning what I know now and doing what I know now. And then I'm going to continue to ask questions and learn more, and watch how the data shifts, and continue to update my own understanding of this student. So, how I'm supporting them, how we're equipping them to continue in their own learning path, is then also just naturally adjusting because my understanding is maybe just never like complete. I've never fully understood a student well.

Ann: At the end of the day, you can't be 100% inside a student's head. That's just not physically possible. And when I look at all of humanity, nobody exercises the same approaches, behaviors, interactions the same day after day after day. And when I try to enforce a certain degree of you must do it this way on a child that I know is going to be moderately volatile anyway, and not have the understanding and the flexibility to say, you know, you're just not in a good place right now.

We are not going to do this this way. And I might throw it back at the student and say, All right, this is the task I'd like to accomplish today. Clearly, the way I have set it out is not working. You got any ideas for me? And I'll throw it out for the student, to the student as a mode of data collection as well, that says student, you've got sometimes a good idea of how you want to approach this, how you see it, and I should not discount you as a data point. Yours is just as valuable as anybody else's.

I'm really thankful for this conversation because so many people take this high-leverage practice, and they'll go into like, here's how you can run a record review, and here's where you can, you know, check the cumulative file, run a parent interview, right? Like, there are so many people who view this as multiple sources of information, high-leverage practice, as here's the massive checklist of all of the places that you could get all of the information, and the best practice is to check as many of those boxes as possible.

And I love how you're saying yes, but also.

Ann: All of those multiple sources that exist in paper documented interview form are fantastic places from which to start. It gives me a picture of history. It doesn't necessarily give me a picture of the future. Now, it does give me some insight into the history of, oh, well, that particular practice was a complete fail, and that one was a hit, but that was at that moment in a snapshot in time.

So that for my forward planning, what I really want to look at is the complete failure approaches. I should put those at the bottom of my try-it list. The ones that were a success, they should go at the top of my try it list. All those others in the middle are a series of flux that says, well, it didn't work two months ago, but maybe we can cycle back. Maybe they were just having a bad stretch at that moment. And the more tools and more approaches I have, the better chance I'm going to hit something that works on any given day.

So yes, I collect all that data because I have to know a starting point, and all of that historical data typically will give me a pretty valid starting point. And then the magic in education is to construct an approach from that collection of data to say, where am I going forward? If my collection of data says, on this particular math present level, they did awful on this one, they had a home run. What time of day were they each administered? Because that'll have an impact on my historical records as well. So that I don't always just look at the results, I look at the context in which those results were collected as well. 

If I ask a parent, How's their kid doing? Right after the kid has had an angry outburst, the parent is going to go, Oh, it's just been a full day. Or if it's right after we've gotten up, we had a good night's sleep, we had a chit chat over breakfast. Everything is wonderful. Which is the right assessment of the child? They both are. You just have to pay attention to the context.

You are like the epitome of database decision-making, because so many people will kind of see a scenario or take it kind of at face value and then run with that to inform their comprehension of what's going on and what should be done. Or people will get so down in the metrics, in the weeds of all of the data, that then it's just informing direction and kind of missing that agile implementation and kind of that creativity that comes out of education.

So how have you learned to balance both where you're going to the data and you're getting that, you know, good metrics, good information, you're even watching those metrics come through over time, but you're also being so present to, you know, how their morning was, what time of day assessments were given, how they're showing up on a day to day basis. How do you blend all of that together?

Ann: Repeated events of abject failure. Realistically, like any art form, you've got to understand that this is my approach. I know it's going to work. Oh, snap. It did not. Why did it not? Oh, here's our internal forces that said, Oh, this was not the right time of day to do this, was not the right approach to do it, not the right person to interact with it. So again, when those failures happen, those are additional data points that say, okay, wrong choice on that count. Wrong choice on that count.

Well, am I going to repeat wrong choices? No, I'm going to back up the bus, look at the other parameters, and say, Okay, get back on the bus. Which direction are we going this time? So that's how over the course of time, as a practitioner, you start to develop that says, I really, really, really want this approach to work. It's got historical precedents, it's been done well before, we got this, until we don't.

And yeah, there's that little stab of the heart that says, I planned that activity. I thought it was going to be a home run, and oh my goodness, how badly could that have gone? And the activity could be valid, could be solid. It was just the wrong day, the wrong time. Put it on the back burner and understand that failure is a part of progress. And to embrace that is to, again, like I said, add another data point and say, okay, I should not try to teach reading comprehension and character development with this text that's three grade levels above their practicing level. Yes, they should be reading at that higher level, but no, they're not. And the skill I want to develop is an analysis of character development. I don't need an on-grade-level text to develop that skill, so I need to be flexible and adaptable. And then once they've got the skill of Oh, I can figure out how characters develop, then you can introduce that skill in a more advanced text.

But if my task list says character development at grade level and every time I introduce that, it is a classic fail explosion disaster. Well, I've collected data that says repeating the same thing with getting a failed result is not an effective scaffold. Back up the bus, retool, and try again. And if it works, great. If it doesn't, retool and try again. With all my challenging students, one of the most challenging parts is maintaining the patience and maintaining the endurance to keep retooling and keep retrying, because eventually, if you're lucky, you hit a combination that works. And when that happens, you've got a good deal going.

I think something that's not being stated right now is that in everything you're describing, the way you're finding data, choosing what data to find, seeing if you have all the data that you need, or interpreting that data within context of however that may have been implemented or collected at that time, and then all of the interactions that you're having with them in that moment, before that moment, and those, like, future hopes that you are driving them toward all of those things are really coming from the assumption that your practice is what's making that possible.

And I want to call that out because so many times I work with staff that is so focused on the outcomes and how the student is performing or not performing, and where the metrics are hitting or they're not hitting. And it's this kid who is the problem, this kid who is the failure. This kid isn't learning. Like, they're just stuck on the outcomes of all of the interventions and all of the data collection, right? So they have multiple sources, they've got all of that information. They have that comprehensive picture of the student. But I think I want to just call out the fact that everything you're sharing is from the perspective that you, as a practitioner, can then take that information and play with it. And that creativity within the art of education is what is actually developing the comprehensive understanding of the student.

Ann: But without that comprehensive understanding of the student, as a practitioner, I'm really challenged to actually get those metrics to show growth and advancement. I can have all of the metrics in the universe, and I can know exactly how to administer those assessments, how to interpret the results. But if I keep getting less than optimal results, I need to look at why. Now, yep, it absolutely is, if the student is not demonstrating proficiency, they either A, don't have the skill, B, are having just a crummy day where there's something else on their mind and they really don't care about whatever the assessment is, or there's that third category that some blend of a blend of the blend of the two.

And as a practitioner, I need to recognize those. And I know I have had students where we mixed like oil and vinegar. I could say the sky was blue, and they would tell me, no, it is a midnight blue today. And I said, okay, fine, moving on, as opposed to getting into a butting of heads. And as a practitioner, I need to understand all those things. Because as humans, we are so widely different, both in our styles and in what we bring to the table.

So I need all of those hardcore metrics from all of those different sources to give me a snapshot-in-time picture of my student. And then I do need some outside context from the humans in the student's world to see in what world they are living? Because if they're coming to school hungry every day, their top of priority is what's my reading context score. And if I know those things, then again it informs my teaching and my support for how do I get this student to absorb as much academic information as possible in as calm and understanding a setting as possible so that they become not only more skilled humans, but also more functional humans?

Because at the end of the day, yes, I teach reading, yes, I teach math and a whole host of other academic skills, but if they can't apply those in society, then okay, great, you're reading on grade level, but you can't sit next to somebody at a lunch table and successfully get through the meal. I can give you some ideas on so go talk about that book you just read at lunch. And they would look at me like I had two heads.

But it would be giving them a skill that says, ‘How do you get through a difficult situation in a social setting using some of the academics you've learned?’ So I can cross-pollinate all of the kinds of things I would like my students to take away at the end of the day.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise here. I know there's a lot of tenure coming into this conversation, and it is so much more than just a checkbox of different metrics or observations, or people to talk with. And I am so appreciative that it is both from that perspective of it is malleable consistently and continually over time that our comprehensive understanding is always being updated.

But also, us, as practitioners, then get to continually update our practices, and then, that is giving us even more information from which to continue to build that comprehensive picture of the student. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today.