What Makes a Dashboard Great?

Schools are collecting more information than ever before. Yet student outcomes have largely stalled across America. Do we need to rethink how we do data?

"Excuse me," the glowering barista hissed. "But I'm going to have to ask you to leave." I looked up from my laptop in horror. The coffee shop was closing, and I was no closer to finishing the task in front of me.

Messy Excel spreadsheets and hastily scribbled Post-it notes had somehow become 111 mail-merged reports that I was still editing by hand. Forget about uploading them to my supervisor's folder. That night in January, I packed up my laptop, left the coffee shop, and worked until three o'clock the next morning to finish my assignment for my students. I felt like a failure.

The irony wasn't lost on me. My instructional leader had the best intentions. He wanted me to collect meaningful student data so I could better support my students. But instead, I was spending so much time gathering, organizing, and analyzing information that I had very little time left to actually respond to it.  Collecting data doesn't improve student outcomes. Acting on the right data does.

More Data Isn't the Goal

Schools are collecting more information than ever before. Assessment results, attendance, behavior, intervention logs, demographics, progress monitoring, and countless spreadsheets all promise to help us make better decisions. But we have plenty of data, and yet students aren’t doing better. American education progress has stalled since the mid 2010s. Perhaps we need to shorten the gap between the data and the decision. I've seen beautifully designed dashboards filled with colorful charts that looked impressive during presentations. But, they’re not helping teachers reach the right students with the right information.

A good dashboard should immediately help the user see their next right action. Consider a GPS. When you're driving somewhere unfamiliar, your GPS doesn't display every road in the state. It simply tells you what comes next: take a left, merge onto the highway, or even recalculating when you ignore the first two directions. Your dashboard should work the same way. Whether it's identifying students who need additional phonics support or recognizing attendance patterns before they become chronic absenteeism, the dashboard should help educators keep moving forward instead of getting bogged down in the data.

A Good Dashboard Removes Friction

The best dashboards don't create more work. If educators have to spend hours cleaning spreadsheets, reformatting files, pasting data, or manually combining reports before they can begin analyzing information, the dashboard has already failed. Educators already have enough on their plates. They shouldn't need a degree in information systems to answer basic questions about student performance. Good dashboards work with existing data whenever possible. They simplify complex information into something that can be understood quickly. They allow users to filter, sort, and explore without requiring them to rebuild their data every time new information arrives. The less energy educators spend wrestling with data, the more energy they can spend supporting students. 

A Good Dashboard Leads Directly to Action

Removing friction is only part of what makes a dashboard good. A doctor who knows you have a disease but doesn’t prescribe medication isn’t healing anybody. A good dashboard is going to point you to what to do next. When we help students with what they're actually missing, they have an incredible ability to close the gap between their current performance and their potential. But have to see the gap first.

That same philosophy guided the development of the Cohort Achievement Tracker (CAT). We wanted to create a tool that works with educators instead of creating more work for them. By bringing student information together, making subgroup analysis simple, and allowing educators to quickly organize intervention groups, the CAT helps users move from analysis to action, no buffering needed.

The Picture That Matters

A dashboard's value isn't measured by how impressive it looks. It's measured by how quickly it helps someone improve outcomes for students. There's an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and what’s a dashboard other than pictures? 

A good dashboard should be a quick picture that keeps you from having to read and synthesize a thousand words every time you want to understand something. It should remove the barriers between information and action so educators can spend less time interpreting data and more time teaching. Students don't benefit from the dashboard, but from what teachers do after they look at it.

Final Thoughts And How to Take Action

Want to learn more? We invite you to view our video tour of the CAT or sign up for a free one-on-one tour here. What are you looking to do with your data collection and analysis? How are you keeping your eyes on the right data points and not getting caught up in spreadsheet mania? Join the conversation on social media and share.

About Instructional Data Solutions: Our mission is to remove barriers to enable education organizations to focus on what matters most. We assist school systems and education organizations of all sizes by collecting, analyzing, and clearly communicating data. We are committed to empowering educators through comprehensive data analytics and tailored support. Additionally, we provide dedicated support for operational needs, process improvement, and special projects, offering customized solutions to enhance effectiveness and success. Our solutions bridge the gap between data collection and instructional improvement in PK-12 settings.