DAT Professional Development
Professional Development Resources
The Data and Assessment Team (DAT) provides many professional development opportunities for Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) employees.
Performance Matters Professional Development
We offer training in Performance Matters, which ranges in topics from building assessments within the platform to utilizing the reports to monitor progress.
360 View on Performance Matters: This class will provide a complete view of progress monitoring, both from the perspective of a student and a teacher/administrator. While there are many ways to perform these tasks, we hope to highlight ways that may make monitoring performance easier and more efficient.
Creating Interactive Items: This training will focus on how to build technology-enhanced items within PM. These items are attached to standards to aid in data analysis and can mimic various interaction types. By learning how to build items, users can then create tests using their own material.
Test Creation: This session will offer an introduction to test writing within the PM platform. Participants will build assessments from items in banks as well as multiple choice items they will create. Both test styles will be covered including Online Administration and Answer Key Only (AKO) assessments.
AI Generation in Performance Matters: This training will show how Performance Matters PowerBuddy (AI Generation) augments educators' work of developing personalized and effective assessments for students. Questions, passages, and other assessment content are tailored to grade level, standard, and topic and can be conveniently generated directly within Performance Matters in a single workflow.
Microsoft Excel Professional Development
We facilitate multiple levels of Microsoft Excel trainings. These courses span from beginner to advanced users and cover a wide range of topics. The skills covered include but are not limited to filters, find and replace, formulas, XLOOKUP, PivotTables, and creating engaging data visualizations.
Foundations of Excel - Level 1: This course is designed to introduce new or developing users to Excel. The work will include skills such as adding and deleting columns, formatting, formulas, filtering, and printing spreadsheets.
Advanced Excel - Level 2: This session is geared towards users that are proficient in all basic skills. Using prerequisite abilities such as formulas and basic formatting tools, participants will learn how to use tools such as VLOOKUP, PivotTables, graphing, and Mail Merge.
Mastering Excel - Level 3: This training will expand on the Advanced Excel Level 2 course. Topics covered in this Level 3 course will include, but are not limited to the following; turning a data set into an Excel table with slicers, combining data from separate sheets with XLOOKUP, exploring more Pivot Table features, and utilizing Advanced Excel formulas.
Excel Tips & Tricks: This course is designed to help users of all levels learn techniques and best practices for using Microsoft Excel. We will share tips, tricks, and shortcuts that can help you leverage more of what Excel has to offer.
Accountability & CAST Professional Development
DAT also trains DCPS employees on the Collaborative Assessment System for Teachers (CAST), which is DCPS' teacher evaluation system. DAT handles all questions or concerns regarding student growth scores. Human Resources assists with inquiries related to Individual Professional Development Plans (IPDPs) and observations.
Demystifying CAST: This course is designed for all teachers and school leaders to better understand the growth portion of CAST and VAM evaluations. Some topics that will be covered: major updates to the MyAccountability Portal, an overview of the different tests that are used for the growth portion of your evaluation, and how your growth scores are calculated.