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An increasing number of schools and districts across the US are requiring teachers to collaborate for the purpose of data‐driven decision making. Research suggests that both data use and teacher collaboration are important ingredients in the school improvement process. Existing studies also reveal the complexities of teacher collaboration and the importance of context in shaping teachers’ collaborative work, especially with data. Yet, the intersection of teacher collaboration and data use has been understudied. The purpose of this paper is to examine the affordances and constraints that exist in the context of established teacher collaboration time for the purposes of data‐driven decision making.

The paper draws upon qualitative case study data gathered in six schools that structured teacher time for collaboration on data use.

An analysis of the data revealed that a variety of leadership activities and organizational conditions shaped teachers’ collaborative work with data. These included leadership focused on thoughtful use of data and the framing of data‐driven decision making in terms of collective responsibility; the establishment of norms for teacher collaboration; the implementation of data discussion protocols; and teacher groupings and subject matter subcultures.

Knowing how and when a leadership activity or organizational condition becomes either an affordance or a constraint to teacher collaboration around data use has important implications for leadership and educational change. The findings of this study also help to lay the groundwork for future research regarding teacher collaboration around data use.

This chapter explores the role and impact of adaptive thinking and transformational leadership in developing and leading an enabling culture that aligns with a school’s vision and mission. This chapter will also probe the varying dimensions that enable or inhibit a school culture and the tools needed to shape and maintain it including the challenges posed in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In this chapter, examples of adaptive challenges, data-driven instructions, and effective use of technology, will be referred to as one dimension of a culture that shows alignment or lack of it with the school’s vision and mission, the role and impact of transformative adaptive leadership on school’s overall culture, especially in the UAE, and MENA region. Finally, this chapter will examine the impact of adaptive and distributed leadership in leading a cultural change.

Assessment is at the core of high-quality education. When educators purposefully engage in assessment, the learning experiences and outcomes of all students, especially of students diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (SLDs), are improved. In this chapter, we discuss assessment as unfolding within a framework that includes purposes, processes, and tools of assessment existing in the educational context. We open the chapter with an explanation of this framework. Then, in Part 1, we review the construct of SLD and detail how assessment is used within prominent approaches to diagnosis. In Part 2, we discuss how assessment is used to inform instruction before and after diagnosis. We ground our discussion in a vignette that follows Tess, a student who, at the beginning of third grade, has undiagnosed SLD in the area of reading. We show how educators at Tess's school collaborate in the purposeful use of assessment to inform instruction before and after Tess's diagnosis of SLD, highlighting traditional and innovative assessment techniques along the way.

There’s little information available on Qatari students’ experience with information literacy. What little information does exists draws from outdated surveys and assumptions about the current population. The purpose of this paper is to describe how data collected from first-semester Qatari students who enrolled in a semester-long information literacy course at Carnegie Mellon University helped update perceptions of this population, drove changes made to content and instructional delivery, and enabled a reflective process for teaching and learning.

Pre- and post-surveys completed by students explore Qatari students’ pre-college experience with information literacy concepts, using libraries, and writing. They also compare the students’ attitude toward information literacy before and after taking the course. Qatari students’ data were extracted from the overall student population to focus on this population and analyzed descriptively based on cumulative responses. The pre-survey data were used to inform changes made to instructional content and delivery throughout the term.

Contrary to assumptions, first-year Qatari students expressed familiarity with information literacy concepts before attending college. The data indicated strong learning preferences and a positive attitude toward information literacy.

Since information collected in this study relied on student perceptions of their experience, results must be paired with performance measurement before drawing additional conclusions about information literacy competencies of first-year Qatari students. Further, the study did not explore gender and sociocultural differences; therefore no general conclusions should be drawn.

Instructional design should be based on a current understanding of local information needs and searching habits. In addition, this approach encourages reflective learning and teaching and help instructors avoid prior assumptions about their students.

This paper provides information on how Qatari students perceive their experience with information literacy before college, the importance of understanding information literacy concepts and its role in their personal, academic, and professional lives. It centers on a population for whom information literacy concepts remain both relatively challenging and critical for their future learning development and offers suggestions for future research.

The research aims at examining educators’ perceptions, attitudes and behavioral intentions toward learning analytics (LA) and the role of self-instruction within the proposed model for LA adoption.

A quantitative approach is utilized in which a questionnaire is designed as a tool for data collection and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used for data analysis and model testing.

Results show that performance expectancy and effort expectancy have a significant effect on educators’ attitudes, which in turn significantly affect educators’ behavioral intentions. Self-instruction mediates the relationship between educators’ attitudes and behavioral intentions. The attitude towards LA mediates the relationship between LA performance expectancy and educators’ self-instruction. The research model explains 54% of the variance in learning analysis adoption.

Findings open a path for research on pedagogical factors affecting LA adoption and guide education managers toward facilitating LA adoption. The tested model contributes to LA and teaching and learning literature by highlighting the role of educators’ self-instruction in LA adoption.

Purpose – To provide a resource for educators and graduate students that contains information about using formal assessment data to plan literacy instruction and intervention.

Design/methodology/approach – Several aspects of formal assessment are presented, including a definition of formal assessment, types of formal assessment scores, commonly used formal assessments, and recommendations for using formal assessments for individuals and groups. Information about formal assessment is informed both by documented sources and the experiences of the authors.

Findings – The authors provide an overview of common, commercially available assessments designed to measure literacy achievement in either individuals or groups. Reviews of formal assessments include scores, number of forms, literacy domains measured, and published reliability figures. Recommendations for formal assessment use include using assessment data to plan instruction and intervention for both individuals and groups. In addition, a case study is presented demonstrating the efficacy of using formal assessment data to plan instruction and intervention in a K-6 elementary school in the United States.

Research limitations/implications – The review of commercially available individual and group literacy assessments does not constitute an exhaustive list.

Practical implications – Information about formal assessments, assessment score types, and formal assessment uses is consolidated in one location for easy access by graduate students and other educators.

Originality/value – This chapter provides graduate students and others in the field of education an overview of formal assessments and how formal assessment data can be used to make instructional decisions for both individuals and groups.