From the Executive

Data Driven Empathy

Schools are awash with data sources and data points, where staff and student information is created, collected, transformed, stored, called, and finally analysed to produce valuable information and insights for staff and students.

In the film adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park one of the characters, Dr Ian Malcolm, questions the creators of the park stating that “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

At our college we have an obligation towards data driven empathy, or a process of data management that is intended to emphasise the humanity of our staff and students, not conceal or replace it. We have a responsibility as a Catholic school to wonder “why are we using this data” instead of asking “what can we do with this data”.

Data driven empathy is focused on humanizing data and bringing personal insights to life in a way that allows a school to understand their students and staff holistically.

As a school, when we are using a data driven empathy approach we might be;

• Using academic results data to help identify students who are not experiencing success and happiness in their subjects.
• Using attendance data to identify and intervene with students who are experiencing anxiety in their subjects or their social circles.
• Using teacher observation data and learning diversity data to engage students with the best adjustments to the curriculum to meet their needs.
• Using data collection methods to enable teachers to reflect on their practice for their own professional development and efficacy.

These ideas, whilst only representing a small portion of the ways in which data is used at our school, are important for us as a school to reflect on from time to time.

One idea that has arisen for me regards the use of academic data to recognise student performance. Typically, end of semester academic awards are allocated based on students with the highest overall performance in the subject. The consequence of this might be that a student who has improved from a C grade to a B grade since their last semester is not recognized, in preference to the student who has remained on A+ between semesters. Is this the way that we think it should work?

Below is a link to a simple form for you to express your opinion on a question like this.

https://forms.office.com/r/Kr6T95c7gT

Ian Malcom’s words in Jurassic Park resonate for me. We as a Catholic school, centred on Jesus Christ, must spend more time wondering about the reasons why we collect data first, being careful to ensure those processes humanize students, instead of collecting data first and wondering what to do with it after we have it.

God bless,

Mr Kyle Hoad

Dean of Data, Systems & Analysis