Drowning in Data?: How to Collect, Organize and Document Student Performance.

DROWNING IN DATA?: How To Collect, Organize, and Document Student Performance. Mary Shea, Rosemary Murray, & Rebecca Harlin. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005. 174 pp. $22.00. In this era of accountability, as classroom teachers find themselves juggling assessment requirements with teaching responsibilities, Drowning in Data? puts into perspective the need for teachers to focus on best practice. Shea, Murray, and Harlin concentrate on the importance of teachers recognizing and collecting evidence that is relevant in their quest for actively monitoring student performance. They build their assessment system on eight essential principles: 1) assessment occurs all day long; 2) assessment drives instruction; 3) assessment is not subject-specific; 4) assessment includes information about the learner's life outside of school; 5) assessment engages learners, teachers, and parents collaboratively; 6) assessment is based on accepted developmental standards; 7) assessment encourages teachers, learners, parents, and administrators to take ownership of the performance of learners and schools; and 8) assessment focuses on the whole person. With these principles in place, they strive to present a practical perspective on assessment that looks more like "teaching" and less like "testing."

In the presentation of Chapter One ("Recognizing Developmental Changes"), the authors introduce two acronyms that are referred to throughout the book. CARP is a feedback loop based on the work of Stiggins (2002), which essentially refers to the assessment cycle: "Collect data, Analyze data, Report data and Plan instruction based on data findings." As a practitioner, it is encouraging to read about a system that reminds us of the need to plan instruction based on data findings. Too often, teachers find themselves collecting data with no connection to future learning experiences. This book establishes that assessment has a purpose of focusing future instruction--which is particularly critical for new teachers, who often find themselves in training to collect incredible amounts of data without connection to the need for continuity. Second, they introduce the TWIN acronym in order to remind practitioners of the four categories of evidence that should be collected: Thinking evidence, Work samples, In-the-classroom benchmarks, and Norm-referenced or other types of standardized achievement tests. Each of these acronyms is explained in great detail, with practical examples.

The work of Shea, Murray, and Harlin can meet the needs of novice classroom teachers who are seeking a way to organize the abundance of data they collect; this work also can be a resource for veteran teachers who now find themselves justifying the changes taking place in their settings. The unique examples will make this book a wonderful guide for teachers and curriculum specialists searching for new ideas on how to link assessment to the instructional process. Reviewed by Lilia C. DiBello, Assistant Professor, Graduate Education and Research, Adrian Dominican School of Education, Barry University, Miami Shores, FL