Data Literacy for Educators


Book Description

Data literacy has become an essential skill set for teachers as education becomes more of an evidence-based profession. Teachers in all stages of professional growth need to learn how to use data effectively and responsibly to inform their teaching practices. This groundbreaking resource describes data literacy for teaching, emphasizing the important relationship between data knowledge and skills and disciplinary and pedagogical content knowledge. Case studies of emerging programs in schools of education are used to illustrate the key components needed to integrate data-driven decisionmaking into the teaching curricula. The book offers a clear path for change while also addressing the inherent complexities associated with change. Data Literacy for Educators provides concrete strategies for schools of education, professional developers, and school districts.




Becoming Data Literate


Book Description

Data is a must-have for any business looking to thrive. So is having leadership who 'get' data and use it to support their decision-making. But how do you embed the use of data and analytics across your organisation so they truly support every process end-to-end? Becoming data literate in this way is a journey that involves vision, strategy, value creation, culture and data foundations. With an evidence-based framework to guide you, this book lays out a roadmap to ensure you get where you need to go.




Creating Data Literate Students


Book Description

Creating Data Literate Students provides high school librarians and educators with foundational domain knowledge to teach a new subset of information literacy skills -- data and statistical literacy, including: statistics and data comprehension; data as argument; and data visualization. Data -- both raw and displayed in visualizations -- can clarify or confuse, confirm or deny, persuade or deter. Students often learn that numbers are objective, though data in the real world is rarely so. In fact, visualized data -- even from authoritative sources -- can sometimes be anything but objective. Librarians and classroom educators need to be as fluent with quantitative data as they are with text in order to support high schoolers as they engage with data in formal and informal settings. We asked contributors to this volume -- experts in high school curriculum, information literacy and/or data literacy -- to explore the intersections between data and curriculum and identify high-impact strategies for demystifying data for educators and students alike.




Data Fluency


Book Description

A dream come true for those looking to improve their data fluency Analytical data is a powerful tool for growing companies, but what good is it if it hides in the shadows? Bring your data to the forefront with effective visualization and communication approaches, and let Data Fluency: Empowering Your Organization with Effective Communication show you the best tools and strategies for getting the job done right. Learn the best practices of data presentation and the ways that reporting and dashboards can help organizations effectively gauge performance, identify areas for improvement, and communicate results. Topics covered in the book include data reporting and communication, audience and user needs, data presentation tools, layout and styling, and common design failures. Those responsible for analytics, reporting, or BI implementation will find a refreshing take on data and visualization in this resource, as will report, data visualization, and dashboard designers. Conquer the challenge of making valuable data approachable and easy to understand Develop unique skills required to shape data to the needs of different audiences Full color book links to bonus content at juiceanalytics.com Written by well-known and highly esteemed authors in the data presentation community Data Fluency: Empowering Your Organization with Effective Communication focuses on user experience, making reports approachable, and presenting data in a compelling, inspiring way. The book helps to dissolve the disconnect between your data and those who might use it and can help make an impact on the people who are most affected by data. Use Data Fluency today to develop the skills necessary to turn data into effective displays for decision-making.




Data Literacy in the Real World


Book Description

Knowing how to recognize the role data plays in our lives is critical to navigating today's complex world. In this volume, you'll find two kinds of professional development tools to support that growth. Part I contains pre-made professional development via links to webinars from the 2016 and 2017 4T Virtual Conference on Data Literacy, along with discussion questions and activities that can animate conversations around data in your school. Part II explores data "in the wild" with case studies pulled from the headlines, along with provocative discussion questions, professionals and students alike can explore multiple perspectives at play with Big Data, data privacy, personal data management, ethical data use, and citizen science.




Avoiding Data Pitfalls


Book Description

Avoid data blunders and create truly useful visualizations Avoiding Data Pitfalls is a reputation-saving handbook for those who work with data, designed to help you avoid the all-too-common blunders that occur in data analysis, visualization, and presentation. Plenty of data tools exist, along with plenty of books that tell you how to use them—but unless you truly understand how to work with data, each of these tools can ultimately mislead and cause costly mistakes. This book walks you step by step through the full data visualization process, from calculation and analysis through accurate, useful presentation. Common blunders are explored in depth to show you how they arise, how they have become so common, and how you can avoid them from the outset. Then and only then can you take advantage of the wealth of tools that are out there—in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, the right tools can cut down on the time, labor, and myriad decisions that go into each and every data presentation. Workers in almost every industry are now commonly expected to effectively analyze and present data, even with little or no formal training. There are many pitfalls—some might say chasms—in the process, and no one wants to be the source of a data error that costs money or even lives. This book provides a full walk-through of the process to help you ensure a truly useful result. Delve into the "data-reality gap" that grows with our dependence on data Learn how the right tools can streamline the visualization process Avoid common mistakes in data analysis, visualization, and presentation Create and present clear, accurate, effective data visualizations To err is human, but in today's data-driven world, the stakes can be high and the mistakes costly. Don't rely on "catching" mistakes, avoid them from the outset with the expert instruction in Avoiding Data Pitfalls.




Turning Data Into Wisdom


Book Description

This book presents a 6-phase, 12-step process to help those at all levels of an organization use their knowledge, skills, and experience to make data-informed decisions that can help transform their companies-and sometimes, even the world.




Effective Data Storytelling


Book Description

Master the art and science of data storytelling—with frameworks and techniques to help you craft compelling stories with data. The ability to effectively communicate with data is no longer a luxury in today’s economy; it is a necessity. Transforming data into visual communication is only one part of the picture. It is equally important to engage your audience with a narrative—to tell a story with the numbers. Effective Data Storytelling will teach you the essential skills necessary to communicate your insights through persuasive and memorable data stories. Narratives are more powerful than raw statistics, more enduring than pretty charts. When done correctly, data stories can influence decisions and drive change. Most other books focus only on data visualization while neglecting the powerful narrative and psychological aspects of telling stories with data. Author Brent Dykes shows you how to take the three central elements of data storytelling—data, narrative, and visuals—and combine them for maximum effectiveness. Taking a comprehensive look at all the elements of data storytelling, this unique book will enable you to: Transform your insights and data visualizations into appealing, impactful data stories Learn the fundamental elements of a data story and key audience drivers Understand the differences between how the brain processes facts and narrative Structure your findings as a data narrative, using a four-step storyboarding process Incorporate the seven essential principles of better visual storytelling into your work Avoid common data storytelling mistakes by learning from historical and modern examples Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and Visuals is a must-have resource for anyone who communicates regularly with data, including business professionals, analysts, marketers, salespeople, financial managers, and educators.




How to Become Data Literate


Book Description

In this follow up to Statistics Made Simple for School Leaders Carroll and Carroll have provided an updated, easy to comprehend, manual for practitioners. Now more than ever, educators are being held accountable by taxpayers, students, parents, government officials and the business community for supportable documentation of educational results. Data management has become everyone’s job and everyone’s concern. But the regression of data has exposed a raw nerve. The lack of comfort that many educators have in working with data poses a great challenge as school districts make the transition from a data rich to an information rich environment. How to Become Data Literate is the solution. Educators need the ability to formulate and answer questions using data as part of evidence-based thinking, selecting and using appropriate data tools, interpreting information from data, evaluating evidence-based differences, using data to solve real problems and communicating solutions. This book is intended to be a user-friendly, educator’s primer. It will leave the reader with the confident attitude that “I can do this." In the long run, it is intended to underscore the magnificence of data. Decisions based on excellent data produce meaningful action strategies that benefit students, parents, staff, and the community at large.




Data Information Literacy


Book Description

Given the increasing attention to managing, publishing, and preserving research datasets as scholarly assets, what competencies in working with research data will graduate students in STEM disciplines need to be successful in their fields? And what role can librarians play in helping students attain these competencies? In addressing these questions, this book articulates a new area of opportunity for librarians and other information professionals, developing educational programs that introduce graduate students to the knowledge and skills needed to work with research data. The term "data information literacy" has been adopted with the deliberate intent of tying two emerging roles for librarians together. By viewing information literacy and data services as complementary rather than separate activities, the contributors seek to leverage the progress made and the lessons learned in each service area. The intent of the publication is to help librarians cultivate strategies and approaches for developing data information literacy programs of their own using the work done in the multiyear, IMLS-supported Data Information Literacy (DIL) project as real-world case studies. The initial chapters introduce the concepts and ideas behind data information literacy, such as the twelve data competencies. The middle chapters describe five case studies in data information literacy conducted at different institutions (Cornell, Purdue, Minnesota, Oregon), each focused on a different disciplinary area in science and engineering. They detail the approaches taken, how the programs were implemented, and the assessment metrics used to evaluate their impact. The later chapters include the "DIL Toolkit," a distillation of the lessons learned, which is presented as a handbook for librarians interested in developing their own DIL programs. The book concludes with recommendations for future directions and growth of data information literacy. More information about the DIL project can be found on the project's website: datainfolit.org.