GPA and Pass Rates

The problem:

School leaders must be able to identify trends in academic data to answer a wide range of questions. These questions can range from, “How do grades vary between a teacher’s class sections?” to “Which academic departments met their goals for student pass rates this year?”

This data lives in student information systems but cannot be easily accessed or manipulated, making it difficult to identify the trends that inform decisions around key issues like staffing, course offerings, and student supports.

The solution:

I built a dashboard solution using Tableau and SQL that pulls together key academic information for school leaders. I interviewed users to determine requirements based on their unique needs, and structured the dashboard so that it was highly interactive and customizable. This enabled users to access data that was previously hidden, and make data-informed decisions about everything from developing growth plans for teachers to identifying which students are in the most need of support. The dashboard refreshes automatically overnight, giving leaders instant, live access to the information they need.

User Needs and Requirements

Before building the dashboard, I conducted user interviews with stakeholders including principals, academic department chairs, student support services, and counselors. I used this information to define the requirements for the dashboard, including:

  • Aggregates data at multiple levels (department, course, teacher, and class section)

  • Provides comparisons between a wide range of grading terms and school years

  • Focuses in on particular groups of students (gender, race/ethnicity, individualized education program (IEP), cohort)

  • Provides detailed student information for any criteria selected

Functionality

In order to meet the requirements gathered from users, I built a hierarchical data structure that enabled major elements in the dashboard to be expanded and collapsed, so that data could be aggregated at the user’s chosen level.

I included several user-friendly filters in the dashboard, so that users could filter by student demographics and other key variables.

Finally, I built additional views for student-level detail and created relationships between views. Clicking on any element of the dashboard automatically filters the other views, and provides a detailed list of the students included in that group.

Default view of the first dashboard tab

View filtered to one department (Art), aggregated at the course level. Quarter 3 average GPA for Class 3 has been selected by clicking the bar in the visualization, automatically filtering the corresponding pass rates view on the lower left, and supplying a detailed list of students in that group on the lower right.

Views

In addition to the criteria above, I used requirements gathered from user interviews to determine which views were needed in the dashboard solution. I created views for:

  • GPA and Pass Rates (visual view)

  • GPA and Pass Rates (table view)

  • Course averages vs. percentage of scores within each letter grade

  • Assignment grades

  • Gradebook maintenance

See below for snapshots of the additional views.

Use Cases

Since it was introduced, the dashboard has been a go-to tool for academic teams. Some of its uses have included, but are not limited to:

  • Providing data-based feedback for reviews and observations

  • Identifying trends within departments or courses

  • Quality assurance for teacher gradebooks

  • Progress monitoring throughout the school year

  • Predicting course and exam outcomes

  • Identifying students who are in need of additional support

GPA and Pass Rates (table view); Can be summarized at the department, course, teacher, and class section level

GPA and Pass Rates (table view); Can be summarized at the department, course, teacher, and class section level

Average grade vs. Percent of students within each letter grade group; Can be summarized at the department, course, teacher, and class section level

Average grade vs. Percent of students within each letter grade group; Can be summarized at the department, course, teacher, and class section level

Assignment scores; Can be summarized at the department, course, teacher, and class section level

Assignment scores; Can be summarized at the department, course, teacher, and class section level

Gradebook maintenance; Used to flag grading errors and monitor when grades were last updated

Gradebook maintenance; Used to flag grading errors and monitor when grades were last updated