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Speaker: OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Sudie Whalen: Welcome, everyone. We are so excited to be here. For those of you who may have attended the CAEP Summit, you might have seen a session with Jay, Carol, and I earlier-- well, later in 2021, previously, where we've started doing this kind of collaborative conversations and really talking about how do we make data and data usage a collaborative effort. And so we're going to dive into that a little bit more today, and we're going to talk about the purpose of data collaboration. And then I'm going to spend some time sharing some tools and different technology resources that are out there for you to use in data collaboration, and then Jay is going to finish us off with sharing some of his thoughts and resources that CASAS has available to us.

So my name is Sudie Whalen. I'm with the California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project. I'm the deputy director of CALPRO, and I'm also a major tech nerd. This is literally my favorite conference every year, so I'm really happy to be here with you. Also on with me are Carol Hirota. Carol, would you like to introduce yourself real quickly?

Carol Hirota: Sure. Good morning. My name is Carol Hirota, and I'm a retired former administrator in Stockton School for Adults. And currently working as a coach with the Targeted Technical Assistance with CAEP TAP. And I'm happy to be here this morning. Thank you.

Sudie Whalen: Thank you, Carol. And also on with us is Jay Wright, who most of us probably know, but we still want to have him introduce himself anyway.

Jay Wright: Hi, I'm Jay Wright from CASAS, and yeah, I think I recognize most of these names, but I'm Jay Wright from CASAS. I do a lot of trainings and network meetings up and down the state, mostly on Zoom, presumably, the last couple years, of course. Good to see you here this morning.

Sudie Whalen: Thank you so much. So I'm going to go ahead and jump in. And so let's talk about some of the reasons why we focus on data collaboration. First of all, it's really informative and helps us utilize data to inform our instruction, to differentiate instruction when needed, and really have concrete evidence of where we need to go in those areas. It also helps us improve instruction and programs based on data-driven decision-making. You can also utilize data to create actionable steps for your data teams, and Carol's going to talk to us more about what data teams are and what they do.

Data also helps provide opportunities for teams to support each other. If you're working in a professional learning community, or a data team, or just having collaborative conversations and want to develop shared meaning, collaborating on data is really helpful to add that additional level of support and understanding.

Looking at the data specifically steers teams away from ineffective practices or procedures and moves us away from assumptions and into, what does the data actually show us? It also improves consistency from one classroom or program to another when we're being intentional about focusing on what the data is showing us and closing gaps where we see them. It helps to guide future practice and inform teaching of specific skills if you're identifying areas that the data is showing you that certain competencies aren't being met and things of that nature. Lastly, it really supports a culture that uses evidence of student learning as an essential element for continuous improvement, and not just, I know my students, or this is what I think is happening, but utilizing that evidence.

From an educator perspective, it really helps us in terms of student learning outcomes to differentiate instruction, provide interventions when needed, and promote when students are ready to move up. But it's also super helpful in terms of curriculum alignment. If you're aligning curriculum within your program from one level to the next, or if you're aligning curriculum within your consortium, looking at that data closely really helps us do that. So at this point, I'm going to go ahead and turn us over to Carol, and she's going to share with us why it helps to collaborate with colleagues on your data.

Carol Hirota: Thank you, Sudie. So with my experiences at Stockton School for Adults, the question was, why would we want to collaborate with colleagues and not work in a silo? Well, the answer was basically accountability and continuous improvement. It was the theme of Kaizen-- always improving, continuous improvement.

So what we were expecting is that we wanted to collect accurate data. So that meant our data technicians as well as our teachers and counselors needed to ensure that the data that was put into the system was accurate. You wanted to identify evidence of student outcomes. You could also identify gaps, barriers, trends, equity issues, student needs, and learner persistence. Those were some of the things when you were evaluating your data. You want to identify program, and more importantly, your student successes.

And creating establish-- establishing a culture of data is really critical so that people are not afraid to share the data from one person to another, teacher to teacher. And the data technicians just saying, we want the most accurate data when we get it over to CASAS TE, or making sure it's correct in our attendance system. But also developing a system of sharing and utilizing that data.

So let's go to our next slide, Sudie. This is a chat. So what I'd like you to do is place in your chart, how does your agency currently collaborate on data?

Can you just place it in chat? We'll give you a minute to do that. Any kind of collaboration-- OK, thank you. Gather assessment data on a shared spreadsheet and use that data to inform planning for future units. Thank you, Richard. Quarterly data meetings. Awesome. There you go. Data-driven dialogues. At staff meetings, you share your data. Informally fairly frequently tied to reports, analyzing reports. OK, those are all good ways where your agency can collaborate on data. Thank you for sharing all of that.

OK, perfect. So let's go on to the next slide, Sudie. It is-- should be-- in your chat now, indicate your role and your responsibilities at your agency with data collection and analysis. So based on your assigned role, what is your responsibility to collect that data analysis? Data collection and analysis. If you can place that in chat, please.

Sudie Whalen: Maria's doing data collection distribution of reports to appropriate staff.

Carol Hirota: Thank you, that's really critical. I know, Jay, you're always asked some questions with some of your data managers. I think Maria Alena's comment is very applicable. Managers of our team. We are a small team, so we get together to distribute the data and the responsibilities. Thank you.

OK, so let's go to the next slide. So whether you're working as a consortium or with your separate agencies, the administrators-- like was reported, you're in charge of the whole system. Creating that culture, creating a system so that data is shared. You also have to make sure that your colleagues have all of the tools and resources necessary to be able to share their data. In other words, updated hardware and access to the software. That it's not just one person that has access, that maybe several people have access so that they're able to share that. And then, of course, reviewing and analyzing the data with the team would be the administrator's responsibility.

So the other one is the data managers. The data managers need to make sure that the data is input into the system accurately. And they're also responsible for sharing that data. So you will find different ways when Sudie continues this conversation on different platforms that data managers can share their data. In Stockton, we had an internal system within the school district where we were able to post student data on a Drive so nobody else had access. The teachers also used Google to have their data team meetings and their professional learning community. So they definitely used Google. But the data managers need to be able to share that data with everyone-- with the administrators, with the teachers, the counselors, and the transition specialists. So that's really, really important.

Now, the teachers, when they look at this data, they're really looking and analyzing their data because they want to make sure that the students have access, and that they've created a lot of different opportunities and strategies for students to demonstrate learning gains. So that is a responsibility of the teachers. And I've already seen some things like data team meetings. That's really important, that teachers meet regularly to talk about their data, share their data, and have time to review and analyze how their data can improve. And if you create that system at the beginning of the school year-- in Stockton, in August, the teachers develop all of their data systems then so that that beginning of the school year, they are able to continue on. They also have their data from the previous year, and they're able to just import that data with them, because with the open entry, open exit, you'll want to be able to have access to data from the previous year.

So creating professional learning communities was the best way, in Stockton, to take a look at creating their data teams. And then of course, they went through a whole training session on how to do a data team process under the umbrella of a professional learning community. Our counselors and transition specialists are essential in making sure that the data and the conversations that they have with students are documented in the system that your agency is using, as well as making sure that your data goes to the next agency. So in this place, it would be San Joaquin Delta College. So there is coordinator from Delta College who helps with this transition, and so they're able to share this data of students who are going from one agency to another. That was essential and critical.

And then the other part is making sure that our students are part of the data system, that they are responsible for their own learning, and that they know what their student assessment is looking at. What does that look like, and that they have access to their CASAS scores, or they have access to their modules on EL Civics, or with their-- whatever it is, with their GED prep classes, their high school diploma classes, or their ESL classes. Where are they showing evidence of learning? So you want to make sure that you include all of these folks in your data collection process.

Now, you can start this at the agency level, and then you can expand it to the consortium. But you need to make sure that your agencies are comfortable and you've created that culture of data. I think that's really key. So thank you.

Sudie Whalen: Thank you so much, Carol, for sharing your expertise and experience with leading data teams, developing those PLCs, and data teams, and things like that. We're going to transition a little bit into talking about the tools that we use. So really quick, before I jump into the tools I want to share with you, I want to know from you all, what tools do you currently use technology-wise to collaborate with your data teams or those you're sharing data with? And you can respond in the chat. Or if you'd like to unmute and share, we love hearing voices and seeing people on camera.

Peg: Hi, Sudie. It's Peg from New Jersey.

Sudie Whalen: Hi, Peg from New Jersey. I love Jersey. Go ahead.

Peg: OK! So I just want to give an update, and I can give full credit to Jay from CASAS for this. Our college in New Jersey, we use Individual Skills Profile, Personal Score Report, Student Competency Report, and Student Content Standards, all from CASAS TOPSpro Enterprise.

Sudie Whalen: Great! Awesome. Thank you so much. We're going to talk a little about those CASAS and TOPSpro and TE tools in a moment, so I'm glad you brought that up. Wonderful.

So let's go ahead and-- yeah, Jay mentioned we'll be looking at all of those. We're going to go ahead and talk about some other tech tools that can integrate with those reports and things that you have. So one of which is really-- it's actually the number one most commonly used platform for collaboration amongst colleagues, and that's Microsoft Office 365. It's cloud-based or desktop-based. You can have real-time collaboration, so if you're inserting your data reports into, say, an Excel spreadsheet or an Access database, you can manipulate that and share that with your colleagues at the same time, and do that data analysis and looking at it in real time. It's also very, very data import friendly, like I mentioned. It's browser friendly too, so if you're using a Chromebook and you don't have Microsoft Office installed, you can still utilize it on the web. It has the ability for teams to collaborate directly within the same documents, including on spreadsheets, which is really big when you're looking at data.

It has Microsoft Teams integration, so if you're having your data meetings through Teams and you're a Microsoft school, it's really cool to be able to be in Teams, demonstrate what you're looking at, and be able to see each other face to face and have a real conversation. Microsoft Office is also browser-- Office 365, I should say-- is also browser, computer, and mobile friendly. That means it works on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. If you're using Internet Explorer, I don't understand why, but if you are, you might run into some difficulties with Microsoft Office 365. Even though Internet Explorer is a Microsoft product, it's no longer being updated, so I encourage you to shift over to Edge if you really want to use a Microsoft browser.

The interesting thing about it is it does require multiple applications to utilize the full suite of programs. So for example, if you have a presentation you've set up to share some of the data information, and you also want to be able to utilize the spreadsheets and other functions, you do have to have multiple applications to do that unless you're using the browser front. It's also not free. So that's kind of a downside if you're using Microsoft-- if you want to use Microsoft Office 365 but you're not currently an Office user.

And so I want to show you what it looks like on the front page of it. So this is just things I've been collaborating with colleagues on. This is an onboarding tracking thing that we use, and it allows us to see where people who are coming in are at in the process, what kind of supports they're needing, and things of that nature. We collaborate on all kinds of things at CALPRO, so it's really helpful to be able to have everything in one space on the browser, even though I have other applications I can use too. It just helps me get to the most frequently used or currently being used collaborative spaces that I'm utilizing.

So that's Microsoft Office. And then we also have Google, which is the second most popular cloud-based collaboration tool. I know no one is shocked by that. Google also allows real-time collaboration on a lot of different fronts. You can use multiple applications to utilize the full or mobile versions if you're using outside the browser. If you're utilizing the browser tools, then you don't have to download anything extra, but if you're trying to use it on your phone, which I do from time to time, then you do need to have all the different Google Docs, Google Sheets, all those things downloaded in order to use it.

It is data import friendly, though. You can import any piece of-- any kind of spreadsheet, or CSV file, or things like that, directly into Google Sheets if you want to be able to look at that in real time and collaborate on it. You can also use Google Meet with your Google Sheets so you can look at your data and collaborate in real time.

It's browser and mobile friendly, so it works on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Android, and iOS. But remember, it's not desktop, necessarily, friendly because there isn't a separate application you download to your desktop. You do need to have an internet connection to utilize this. And of course, if you're collaborating on this, you want to be able to use it in a collaborative space which requires online connection. There's no paid subscription, so you can use this pretty much for free unless you're utilizing Google Workspace or Google One, and all those really do is give you a lot of extra space for storage, because there is a limitation on storage on the free version.

However, you get a pretty good amount of storage for free, so you don't necessarily have to purchase anything, and you can still use your data collaboration here. What I love most about Google is just the fact that it's so easy to get to it. You can simply go to-- I am on the wrong page. Sorry, I was playing around with this. You can simply go to google.com, click this little icon here with your Google Apps, and you have all the tools right there at your disposal easy for you to access. You don't have to go far and dig for it or look for it, including your Google Drive, which I was just on a moment ago that you can quickly access and utilize. I use Google Drive really regularly with the CALPRO team because that's how we do a lot of applications and tracking and things like that, and it really makes it easy for us to pull information externally without having to have access to SharePoint and our Microsoft products, and still be able to collaboratively look at that data as a team. So that's also really convenient.

So onto our next tool. This is Slack. We used to use Slack quite a bit before we switched over to Teams, so unfortunately, I can't show you my Slack spaces, but I can show you the setup in just a moment. Slack allows for-- is really great for collaborative conversations and for being able to integrate into other areas. So it allows for sending direct messages and files to an individual person or a team. It's not expensive to set up. It's actually the free version. You can add a bunch of different people to the team. It doesn't limit the number of team members you can have. There's no real-time collaboration on the documents, but there's a workaround for that we'll talk about in just a minute.

You can organize conversations into various channels. So for example, let me show you what that looks like really quickly. So if I'm in Slack, I can set up channels so I can have things set up so I can have conversations with everyone. I can have specific people, in this case, group by interest. Or I can just have a randomly-selected group of people for whatever reason, if I was trying to do a social thing or something like that.

But it lets you set up different channels. So if you wanted to make sure that only specific people had access to specific documents you were sharing, you can easily customize it that way as well and keep that into a closed group. It does support-- yes, thank you, Richard. Slack is a great antidote to endless and confusing email threads. It really is. It really helps you really group that conversation and make it really easy to navigate. It supports video calling, so if you want to have a quick video call with your team that's in that channel, you can do that. You can have file sharing.

It's also compatible with other services, so in the event that you do want to be able to collaborate on a document in real time, you can leverage your Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box-- which is also a file-sharing source-- in order for you to jump in there and do the real-time collaboration while you're having your video calls. So even though it doesn't have it built in, it can be leveraged in other ways.

The free version does have limitations, which include the number of messages it keeps, and the file storage space. But if you're integrating it with something like Google Drive or SharePoint, Dropbox or Box Dot, then you can easily get around that whole file sharing-- that storage space issue. Additionally, it does clear out the number of messages after a certain point, which is kind of typical. A lot of our internal firewalls and security setup automatically delete messages after a certain date or after a certain amount of messages, so it works kind of similarly.

There's no data import, so you will have to use a third party if you're trying to collaboratively look at the data and import it. But again, Slack is compatible with so many different products that it's really useful in that way. It's browser, computer, and mobile friendly, so it has Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS compatibility. The apps are super intuitive and very easy to use. So I really like Slack. We stopped using it because we switched over to Teams, but I still kind of like it. I think it's fun, and so I wanted to include it here.

So let's switch to some kind of planning and process tools. So when you're trying to look at your data and you're setting goals, especially if you're doing SIP planning right now, and you really want to make your SIP, SMART goals, and SMARTIE goals if you're doing inclusion and equity, which I hope you are, that we're also thinking about the process of doing this, and we're setting actionable steps to work towards those goals. And so the next few tools I'm going to show you are really great for project planning to look at our data.

So Asana is one that's really great for data project tracking. You can create a to-do list for ongoing projects and set reminders from upcoming deadlines, and send requests to team members. So for example, if you're wanting your teachers to look at some specific data to identify areas of growth that they have, or say, for example, your individual PLC teams to figure out what their areas of focus are, you can give them a specific deadline to look at the data and get back to you on where they feel like their areas of focus are. Of course, you want to be involved in that conversation too and confirm with your own eyes, looking at the data that aligns with what you're seeing and that we're not going by assumptions.

You can also use Asana to organize your data projects in list and board format, which I'll show you in a second. It includes a search function, which I find super useful, because if you have a lot of data products going, or if you're the data manager or the administrator and you have teacher teams looking at data and doing their own projects, it makes it a lot easier to locate those data sets and those specific projects just by being able to utilize a quick search function. And it works way faster than our file explorer search functions that we have on our typical computers.

There's no real-time collaboration, which is a little unfortunate, but you can integrate it with some other tools. You have to have other tools if you want to work collaboratively. So for example, you could provide a link to where the document is stored in your Microsoft Office 365 or your Google Drive and Google Files areas and things of that nature, so it can easily integrate, but the collaboration doesn't happen within the documents within Asana. There's no data import, but again, you would link it with your other tools in order to make it work. It's browser, computer, and mobile friendly, so it also works on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

So let me show you what Asana looks like. So this is Asana, and you can select and have your different tasks and teams and things like that set up. Have your to-do list and things like that. I was playing around with this, and notice, I had my completion of my TDLS slides due by February 24. I did finish that, so I probably should have marked that as-- oh, I did mark it as complete. So I did that. It's all done, see? So then it disappears.

But it's really quick and easy to use. It's very intuitive, doesn't take a lot of time to learn, and the free version does a lot. The one downside about the free version is the number of people you can have collaborating with you. If you're a small school, it's super useful because you don't have to have 10, 20 people in your data sets. But if you're a larger school, Asana may or may not be the choice for you depending on your budget, because you do have to have-- you have to pay to have a lot of people added to your data sets and your data projects.

So the next tool I want to talk about is called Trello. Trello is also really good for data project tracking, but I like it a little better than Asana because of its ingenuity with its compatibility with being able to pull stuff directly into it. It's great for project tracking just like Asana, but-- and you can also organize your spaces by teams or tasks or roles, similar to Slack. So if you want to have all your things going in-- grouping things based on who you want to have access to it, and those kinds of things, that functionality is already built into Trello.

You have the option to assign comment cards, which is a way to give feedback on individual things. So for example, if you assign something to one group, but you want a separate group to be able to give feedback but not manipulate the data or play with it in any way, you can allow them access to comment cards that they can use to just give you some feedback. It's super compatible with a lot of different services, including Evernote, GitHub, Google Drive, and Slack. So if you want to be able to integrate things, it's really great. It has free version limitations, which include storage space and file size limit. It does not limit the number of people you can have on there in a free version, so that's pretty cool.

The storage space and file size limit, again, you can get around that simply by linking to wherever you're actually storing other documents, and then be able to get to it that way. So if you're using Google Drive, for example, or GitHub, or Slack, or Evernote, you can quickly and easily integrate that without any real difficulty. There's no real-time collaboration on documents, which is kind of unnecessary with Trello, because it does integrate with so many other things. It feels like you're still within Trello while you're manipulating things, but you're really not. So while there is no real-time collaboration on documents within Trello, it does integrate really nicely for real-time collaboration on documents.

It is, however, only browser and mobile-based, which means you either have to use it on your browser or you have to use it on your Android or IRS. IRS. Not IRS, it's tax season, sorry, y'all. iOS. But that's also not that big of a deal if you're trying to use this in a collaborative space.

So I want to show you what Trello looks like. Also very user friendly. So this is Trello, and what Trello has is all of these really cool ways to set up and look at the status of your different documents and areas. So you'll notice that on this particular project, the person's marked as blocked and they have this cute little cat GIF. You can make it as creative as you want, but you can also have your to-do blocks, pending blocks, and things like that. And this is on my project management board. You can select a bunch of different types of boards, and you can customize who you want allowed in there. And again, what I really like about Trello is just the fact that I can add a bunch of people and identify who specifically I want to have access to things without having to break the bank.

Another thing that I use-- and this is one of my personal favorites-- is Monday. Monday is another online collaborative project management tool which allows you to have unlimited boards, unlimited work docs, which I'll show you what that is in a second, and real-time collaboration. It does a lot of things. It's data import friendly and compatible with almost all other collaboration data services like Microsoft, Google, Asana, Trello, and Facebook Ads, if you're using that for marketing and you're trying to look at your marketing data. So it's really great for integrating all these different things into one space. It has a very customizable workspace, which is super intuitive, and really easy to use.

It is-- I cannot stress this enough-- ridiculously user friendly, very easy to utilize with no issues. The free version does have a significant limitation, however. You can only have two team members collaborate at the same time without having to spend extra money on it. So you want to make sure, if this is something you're utilizing, that you do have budget to add in extra team members if you're trying to use this as a collaborative space. Again, it's browser, computer, and mobile friendly, so Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS compatible. Super user friendly and works with so many other tools that it's really great to be able to integrate.

And if you're someone like me, who works on projects, and various projects use different tools, Monday is really cool for being able to pool all those into the same space and to limit a little bit of confusion. So I really like Monday for that reason. And most people don't like Mondays, but I like this particular Monday.

So let me show you what that one looks like. So if we're looking at my Monday workspace for CALPRO, we have some modules that we're updating, including our Motivation and Persistence for Adult Learners, to massage in the necessity to focus on motivation and persistence in online and blended learning. And that'll be piloting this summer, just in case anybody wanted to know. We're also updating our IET module too to pull in some new resources.

And so one of the items that we are stuck on here, it's not that we physically can't get it done, but there's some issues with 508 compliance. And so we're having our publications department look through everything to make sure it's 100% compliant before we move further any farther. And so we can see what was done, when it was done, and where we got stuck, and what's happening there. And looks like there's a new comment.

And then our IET one, we are started working on it on February 28. So that's where we are doing a content review. And then once we get further in there, we'll be able to do some more. We'll add in extra steps and mark things that are complete. It's just really intuitive and really useful for tracking and being able to utilize things.

You can also add in so many different types of documents, and when I said work doc, those are the different types of documents and dashboards. And you can also import your data from so many different locations. So if you have these wonderful data reports that we get from CASAS, we can totally import that. So we can utilize that, filter it to figure out how many people are passing certain competencies and not others, identify equity gaps, and those kinds of things. It is really, really super user friendly, so I think that's why I like it so much, because anybody can pick it up on one day and start playing with it and be able to utilize it. It's very user friendly.

So with that, I want to turn us over to Jay, who's going to talk with us more about what CASAS resources are out there, and the different types of data you can download and other resources that are available to you that you can use within these collaborative spaces. I've uploaded the PowerPoint PDF into the chat a couple of times just in case anybody missed it. The links to all of this are included in there, so make sure you use those.

Jay Wright: OK, thank you. Great. So what we're going to do is we're going to cover two broad areas. Obviously, we only have so much time, so no, we won't go forever. But wanted to cover the two broad areas covering a few resources related to curriculum management and instruction. Then we'll turn it over more to the quote unquote hard data side and look at the data portal. And then we'll talk a little more esoterically about TE. That's kind of five or six hours we don't have, getting into all that, but I wanted to talk a little bit about how you might go about TE. So if you don't mind, Sudie, I don't know if you want to give me access, or whether you want to just go to that web page. Your choice.

Sudie Whalen: It's up to you. I've got it open for you if you--

Jay Wright: OK, go ahead and go straight. That'll probably make it easier for everybody else. So we're on the Curriculum Management and Instruction here first.

Sudie Whalen: Oh. This one?

Jay Wright: Yeah. So go up to-- just click Curriculum Management and Instruction right where it says-- yeah, right there. Click that link-- yeah, there you go, great. So this is the page I'm starting. So this is our CASAS website. So I guess, because we were talking through that for a few seconds, I'll get everybody split on the rail. I assume we've all been here. I shouldn't assume too much, but has everybody here been to the CASAS website before, yes or no? Do these guys look familiar to you all, yes or no? Just kind of checking. All right, thank you, Lorena. OK, it looks like I'm seeing a lot of yesses, so great.

So we've all been to the CASAS website to a large extent. That's because you've been there, whether you like it or not. I'll say this is the section that perhaps you haven't been to, because this is the section that is completely out of that like it or not part. We will go there here in a few minutes, but this is the section called Curriculum Management and Instruction.

To be clear, when you go to our homepage, there's a section called Product Overviews that you click. And then when you get to Product Overviews, you then select Curriculum Management and Instruction. That gets you to this page. That's where a lot of our instructional resources are. Kind of the under-utilized part of the CASAS website, so to speak.

So what I'll do is, like all the other sections of our website, there's that list to the left of all those little blue breadcrumbs with all those typical categories. So I'll just talk through the categories and then plate out a couple that are of specific interest. So just going down the list, we have our two different kinds of content standards. You have what you might call the old school CASAS Content Standards from 10 years ago that are still embedded in our life and work tasks. We've got the newer College and Career Readiness Standards that relate to our goals tests. We have CASAS Competencies that, of course, have been there since 1980. We have Skill Level Descriptors.

One that I'm not going to dig into, but one that has gotten a little airplay lately and is one of the most underutilized CASAS resources, period, are our low-level literacy modules. That is something we did with developmental services for adults with disabilities and/or low-level ABE and ESL. Lots of resources to provide teaching-- using a lot of picture symbols, and categorizing it by different survival symbols rather than requiring reading of text and so on.

Then we will dig into QuickSearch for a few minutes. That's another heavily underutilized resource that we used to promote a lot more than we do now, so we will look at that. Then Sample Test Items, information on TE and some agency stories.

So the one I wanted to look at first, I think, was that College and Career Readiness. I think that's one we discussed as a team that would be good. So this is what's new. You can see it's been around for a while. I think the resource we used in our TE reports is 2016. That was when WEOA started, so that's when we're relating the official use of College and Career Readiness Standards for all of adult education. On this page, it goes over a lot of information about those career readiness standards.

And what we obviously-- what we like to emphasize at CASAS is the fact that the College and Career Readiness Standards are so closely related to content standards that we've been emphasizing for much longer than CCRS has been available. So we have some crosswalks that allow you to link one to the other, as well as how a lot of our CASAS system are related to those College and Career Readiness Standards. So lots of good resources for you here.

The next one I wanted to show is right below that, CASAS Competencies. Yeah. And so this is the oldie but goodie. We've had Competencies since just about our inception in 1980. A lot of you probably use these, but this gives you the everything you wanted to know and more about our competency system. You have the PDF of the official list. There's content standards again. It gives you more information about those different content or competency categories and competency content areas. So you can dig deep here and get that list and look at more information about that.

The final thing I wanted to touch on in more detail here is right below that, where we have QuickSearch Online. And so this is what I wanted to touch on maybe a little bit more than the other stuff here, is we've got the links here to QuickSearch. So I'll just stop here for a minute. I'm just curious, how many of you have used QuickSearch before or are familiar with it, yes or no? Is this something that you've worked with before, or is this a complete you've heard it here first? Just kind of wondering. OK, thank you. I see-- OK, so we're a mixed feedback. Right now, it's looking split down the middle, about 50% yeah, thumb down. About 50% yes, 50% no. So I'm glad there are a lot of no's, because obviously, that was why we wanted to talk a little bit about it.

So this has been around CASAS for a very long time. It used to be called the Instructional Materials Guide many years ago. It was a big, clunky binder that we updated every year that we used to present instructional resources. About 10 years ago, we got out of the clunky binder. For a year or two, it was on a CD. Now, for the last eight or nine years, it's been on our website free of charge. You don't need to pay a dime for this. You do need to have a login account on the CASAS website, but you don't need to pay.

But this has been a constant resource at CASAS, because we, of course, are more of like a smaller mom-and-pop organization. We're not one of the big guys, like McGraw Hill, or Stack Bond, or those larger conglomerates that have lots of money where they can publish lots and lots of published materials and training materials for relating instruction to their products. So we say, we just are never going to be able to go there at CASAS, so we have the next best thing. We have QuickSearch, where you can search for instructional materials. There's lots of different ways you can do so.

But the most common way is back to what I heard Margret talking about earlier-- that is, things like competency reports, and content standard reports, and TE. You have your students take CASAS tests, of course. You have those reports related to competencies and content standards that show you what the individual student, or the class, or the agency level. Some areas of strength and areas of improvement for your students.

So once you get that information, as Sudie is demonstrating, you can find those specific content standards, and/or you can find those specific competencies that your students might need to improve in and find instructional materials specific to those competencies or content standards of need. So Sudie's selecting a sample content standard now. There's another page here where you've got that program level and skill. This allows you to further the search and look by modality if you want only web materials, or only old-fashioned paper copies, whatever, you can select that. You can taper it for workforce, or taper it to ABE, or taper it to ESL. Different skills, and of course, different levels.

And so after you do that specificity, then, of course, you click QuickSearch. I'm not sure what we had--

Sudie Whalen: I think my search was too narrow. [chuckles]

Jay Wright: We probably mixed and matched some of our different standards. I'm not sure what, but OK, so there we go. So now you can see, we select specific competencies or standards, and then we refine our search by modality or level, and so on, and we've got a nice, neat, and tidy little list here of all the different resources we might consider for that specific area of need.

If you click a random publisher-- any one, really. I was going to say-- OK, that's fine too. You can click the title or the publisher, and that gives you a little bit more information. You can see some of them have been around for a while, but especially-- you can see some things here. Things like computation never goes out of style, so maybe not a biggie. But you get specific-- a big list of all the different standards and competencies. They cover some information about the publisher, if you want more information about that publisher and so on.

And the last thing I'll say about all of this is we don't just sit there in our ivory tower and handpick our favorites or whatever. There is somebody who works part-time that reviews all of these materials, kind of like an Inspector 12 or whatever. We don't publish any of our materials in QuickSearch until that person takes a look at it and gives it a seal of approval. Yes, this really is what they say they are. Yes, this really does apply to adult education and looks like it should be something that would be productive in an adult ed classroom.

OK, I'll just say, any questions there promptly? I have time to back out of that and move on to the next item here. So back to this slide, we'll go ahead and take a look at the CASAS data portal. So here's our segue. I guess-- sorry to have you keep hopscotching, but if you can hopscotch to that link with the data portal. Just say-- I was kind of hoping, we're right here where we're just about ready to post the most recent data from the 2021 year. I was really hoping that would be done. I got to say, I was really hoping it would be done Tuesday when I did that statewide presentation with Carolyn. I was also hoping it would be done today, but 0 for 2. But nonetheless, we can still show it with the '19 - '20 data.

So here is the data portal. I'll back up a step. How many of you have been here before? Have you used the data portal before, yes or no? Just kind of checking. A little headcount. Constantly! All right, OK. Thank you, Lorena, Lane. Anybody else, yes or no? I'm interested in no's too. I'm kind of curious. Some yeses. So sort of mixed feedback on the data portal, roughly 50/50 on this one just like the curriculum management.

So this is our CASAS data portal where we basically post end-of-year results from all WIOA Title II agencies every year. We've got-- the top part, I don't want to get into, but I'll just show it because it's on the screen. That California state-- I guess you can click it, doesn't hurt. But here's not-- this is not where you can get agency results, but it has our California statewide federal tables. You can see it goes all the way back to the inception of WIOA back in '99, 2000. So you can look at all the fed tables, including the ones we never really talk about and nobody really knows about. But if you're like a researcher and you just want the official documentation of how we did in California for a given year on any of these tables, you can do that aforementioned research right here. If you don't-- back up a step, please. Yeah.

But what I really want to show is California Table 4. Yes, I know. So California Federal Table 4, if you don't mind. So this is what it looks like. If you select table four or the persistor, the look and feel is, basically, the same. It's just the different data, table four to be clear is where we would go to look at performance for these federal levels. Persistor is where we would just look to see what percentage completed a pre and post-test payer, regardless of their actual performance. More on that later. We're not going to cover that here, but I will have a slide that refers you to this information if you want more of it.

But just to stick with what's here, you, obviously, start by saying start here. If you don't mind, we'll just do a sample. We'll select agency. We'll keep the example as basic as possible. Let's just select ABC.

Again, we can't get anymore basic than that, and then we'll select-- oh, wait a minute. I'm pleasantly surprised. I got to say, I actually looked at, like, 7:00 this morning, and this wasn't here. Some little angel is looking out for me. Well, let's click and see what happens. Click Submit. Sorry, right there, yeah. I mean, I click Submit.