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Session 3. Dashboards on Paper and in a Spreadsheet
Objective. Design a one-page dashboard with a few defined indicators for a team decision, draw honest charts by hand, and do the same calculations with spreadsheet formulas or with a paper tally.
Every term someone asks for 'the data', and a page with thirty numbers appears that nobody reads. A good dashboard is the opposite: small, honest and made for one decision. It can be drawn on A4 paper with a pencil, or built in a spreadsheet if you have one, and both give the same answers. This session helps you choose a few indicators, define them precisely, draw them without exaggeration and keep the underlying pupil lists safe.
Key ideas
Start from the decision, not the data
- A dashboard is a one-page display that helps a particular group make a particular decision, for example 'which unit do we reteach before the term test?'.
- Write the decision at the top of the page. If a figure does not help that decision, it does not belong there.
- Different readers need different pages: the team (classes by code), the head (school level), parents (their own child only).
Choose five indicators and define each one
- A balanced set: attainment (pass rate), progress (actual minus expected), attendance, a participation or homework measure, and a gap between two groups you care about.
- Define each in one line: who is counted, what counts as a success, which period and where the figure comes from. 'Pass rate = pupils with 10 or more out of 20, divided by pupils who sat'.
- More than seven indicators and the reader stops reading. Keep a longer list in a drawer, not on the page.
Draw honestly by hand
- Show the trend: the last three to six terms as a small line or row of dots next to each figure, not only today's number.
- Bars start at zero. Print n beside every percentage. Use one colour to flag what needs a look; do not paint the whole page red and green.
- Add a reference line (last year, the school average) so that a number has something to be compared with. Skip 3D bars and dial gauges; they look impressive but say little.
A spreadsheet when you have one, a tally when you do not
- Layout: one row per pupil (a code, never a name), one column per measure. Useful formulas: AVERAGE, COUNT, COUNTIF, COUNTIFS, SUM and IF. A pivot table groups rows, for example pass rate per class.
- Paper fallback for every formula: a tally sheet. Sort pupil cards into piles (passed or not, by class), count the piles, divide on a calculator. The spreadsheet only does this faster.
- Protect the file: a password, school computers only, no pupil names, and no personal cloud or messaging group. Check every formula on three rows by hand.
A one-page dashboard, top to bottom
From decision to indicator
Start with a sentence: 'We need to decide which unit to reteach before the Term 3 test.' Then ask what evidence would change that decision: item results by unit, a pass rate with its trend, attendance in the weeks before the test. Each becomes an indicator with a one-line definition: who is counted, what counts as success, which period, which source. If you cannot write the definition, you cannot compare it next term, because nobody will know how it was counted.
Balance the set. A page of only pass rates rewards teaching to the test; add progress, attendance and one equity gap, for example between Uzbek-medium and Russian-medium classes. Name an owner and a date for each flag, so that the page leads to an action and not to a sigh.
Honest drawing and safe sheets
A chart should let a reader see the truth in a few seconds. Bars start at zero because their length stands for the value; lines may use a narrower range if the axis is labelled. Put the n beside each figure, add one reference line, and use a single colour to flag. Leave out decoration: a dial gauge uses a lot of space to show one number, and a three-dimensional bar hides the value. Check your page with the checklist in the readings.
The sheet behind the page holds pupil data, so it needs more care than the page. Use codes, not names; keep the key to the codes in a different place; store files only on school machines or paper in a locked cabinet; set a deletion date. When you check a spreadsheet formula, test it on three rows by hand before trusting the other hundred.
Examples from the classroom
Thirty numbers, no decision
Scene. In a Bukhara school Malika is asked for a department data page. She prints thirty figures with red and green boxes. At the meeting people argue about colours. A colleague asks, 'What are we deciding?' Nobody knows. Malika rewrites the page: the decision is which unit to reteach, and she keeps five figures, each with n and last term's value.
Insight. A dashboard is for a decision; if you cannot name the decision, remove figures until you can.
The axis that started at 60
Scene. Aziz draws a bar chart of two classes' pass rates, 66% and 72%, on an axis that starts at 60. The second bar looks twice as tall. A colleague from another subject, Jasur, asks to redraw it from zero. The bars now differ by under a tenth, and with 25 pupils in each class that is under two children. The team decides not to act on it.
Insight. Honest axes keep small differences small and save a team from acting on noise.
The sheet on the shared phone
Scene. A deputy head in Fergana keeps a spreadsheet of Grade 9 marks with full names and sends a photo of it to a staff messaging group at night. A parent's relative is in the group. The next morning the head of studies asks for the photo to be deleted, introduces pupil codes and moves the sheet to the school computer with a password.
Insight. Protect the sheet behind the page: codes, school machines, passwords and a deletion date.
Common pitfalls
- Putting every available figure on the page 'to be safe'.
- Drawing a bar chart on a truncated axis or in 3D.
- Defining an indicator differently each term, so trends cannot be compared.
- Sharing a spreadsheet with names through a personal messaging group.
Design the Page, Then Check the Formulas
- ACTIVITY A (40 min). Open the Activity Kit: Table 7 (three Grade 8 classes, Term 2, with last term's pass rate) and the blank A4 layout. All sample data. Colleagues in trios, one A4 sheet and a pencil.
- Trios (5 min): write the decision the team must make this term. Choose it from the Kit or use your own.
- Trios (20 min): choose up to five indicators, define each in one line, and sketch the page: indicator names, the figure with n, a small trend and a reference line.
- Swap pages with another trio (10 min). Check the other page with the honesty list in the Kit: decision stated, indicators defined, n shown, bars from zero, one flag colour, no ranking of people. Write two improvements on their page.
- ACTIVITY B (30 min). Table 8: a ten-row sheet for ten pupils (codes P1 to P10). Pairs (20 min): write the spreadsheet formula for each question and work out the answer by a paper tally. If you have a computer, type the rows and compare.
- Pairs (5 min): decide how you would store the real version of this sheet: where, who has the password, how long you would keep it, and what you would delete at the end of the year.
- Alone (5 min): write your school-based task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which indicator did you leave out and why? Which one did you wish you had?
- What did the other trio's check find that you had not noticed in your own page?
- What would you change in your school's habits so that the real sheet stays safe?
Reflect
- Which decision in your team happens each term without any data page?
- Which figure in your school is reported every year although nobody uses it?
- What is the safest place for pupil data in your school today?
Try it tomorrow
- Write the one decision your team will make next term, then list the three figures that would change it.
- Redraw one existing bar chart from zero and add n.
- Replace names with codes in one of your own lists and decide where the key will be kept.
Further reading and links
A good dashboard is one page, built for one decision, with a few defined indicators, honest charts and the number of pupils behind every figure.