Protocol and Question Library
Overview
The following protocol templates can be used to design an interview or focus group session for your stakeholders. Editable versions are found in your resource folder.
Leaders and instructional staff
The goals of hosting a focus group with school leaders and instruction staff are:
- To surface how school leaders and instructional staff use and manage data.
- To understand what school leaders and instructional staff want to achieve with data.
- To identify school leaders and instructional staff data barriers and growth points.
It’s important to protect these direct identifiers and handle them with care to avoid any misuse or breach of privacy.
Community Stakeholders
The goals of hosting a focus group with community members are:
- To explore how data is disseminated and communicated to the public
- Identify actions and perceptions of how data is used and manage data
- To understand what school districts want to achieve with data
- To identify data barriers and pain points
Question Library
Consider the following questions from Ed-Fi Alliance when developing your district’s focus group protocol.
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- What service or support are you trying to achieve for…
- An individual student
- A group
- A program
- A campus
- District level?
- Who receives this support of the outcomes of this work? (individual student, group/population, program?)
- Who provides it? (e.g. classroom teacher, special services staff, etc.)
- Who is the primary user of this information?
- Who will be able to take action once you have an answer to the essential question?
- What role do parents have in the communication of this information?
- How do you do this now?
- Is it straightforward today? Or is it challenging?
- What are the current roadblocks to do this?
- How is this data used once you have accessed it?
- What systems do you use today?
- What’s the frequency and how often does this occur?
- Knowing your current state…describe the ideal state?
- What does that look like and mean to students, to staff, to parents?
- What’s the impact and what could you do without roadblocks of systems and data?
- How do you envision being able to use the information if you had no restrictions on accessing the data?
Consider the following questions when developing your district’s family/student focus group protocol.
Family/Student Questions
- Reflect on an experience of inequity or exclusion that you’ve had in our district. How did that experience impact you as a person and a learner? (from Street Data, p. 66)
- Imagine you could wave a magic wand to strengthen equity, relationships, and deep learning in our district. What would you change and why? (from Street Data, p. 66)
- What changes would you like to see in our classroom or school and why do they matter to you? (from Street Data, p. 90)
- When data is gathered, how do you identify yourself (ie. when reviewing demographic breakdown choices, etc.)?
- What information do you currently have about your/your student’s learning, skills, and growth? Is it useful to you? If so, how do you use it? If not, why not?
- What information is missing about you/your student that we should all know and that is important to understand you/them as a person and learner?
- What information would help us to partner together to ensure your/your student’s growth and success?
Focus Group & Interview Note Catcher
When you have recruited your focus group and are ready to run a session, use the Focus Group and Interview Note Catcher found in your resource folder. You will use these notes in Module 4 to create your Affinity Diagram and write a summary of needs for your project plan.