This book offers concrete examples of how data can be used by faculty, staff, and program leaders to improve their collective work as teacher educators. Strong external accountability mandates often lead to tensions that undermine local morale and motivation. This volume focuses on the practical work of navigating these tensions so that valuable programmatic change can happen. It describes policies and practices drawn from a study of “high data use” teacher education programs from around the country that have strategically engaged the challenges of learning to use data for program improvement. Readers will see how the data-use work carried out in these programs strengthened local program identity and coherence. Representing a collaborative effort between researchers and practitioners, this volume presents lessons learned to assist teacher educators who are engaged daily with the challenges of making data useful and used in their programs.

Book Features:

• Examples of how tensions between external mandates for accountability and program improvement can be navigated in ways that are grounded in local program values.
• Detailed case study portraits of individual programs that offer a full and action-oriented sense of data use work.
• Strategies for ensuring that data systems are responsive to multiple stakeholders, such as faculty, administrators, students, and policymakers.
• A diversity of perspectives and experiences from small liberal arts colleges, large teacher preparation institutions, and research-intensive universities.