Learning Analytics to Support Education and Reporting (LASER)
LASER Introduction Video
LASER Description
Learning Analytics to Support Education and Reporting (LASER) is a new decision analytics platform developed by the Virginia Department of Education and will be available to all school divisions serving grades PK-12. LASER contains three modules that help to empower teachers, administrators and support personnel to better understand their division, schools and students, while providing comprehensive data to drive improvements over time. The three modules within LASER are The Basic Accreditation Tracker, The Early Warning System and The Student Group Comparison module. All three modules take a division’s data and create powerful visuals that enable stakeholders to make data-informed decisions.
The Basic Accreditation Tracker
The Basic Accreditation Tracker dashboards are built based on the data that is available within the VDOE. The SOL (Standard of Learning), VAAP (The Virginia Alternate Assessment Program), and ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 data, used for English/Math/Science Achievement and English/Math Achievement Gap, directly come from the VDOE. The board-approved substitute test scores, and the data for other quality indicators such as Chronic Absenteeism, Graduation and Completion Index, Dropout Rate, and College, Career, and Civic Readiness Index, also reside within the VDOE, but are submitted to VDOE by the divisions through Master Schedule Collection (MSC), Student Record Collection (SRC), or the CTE Credentialing Collection (CTECC).
The Early Warning System (EWS)
The Early Warning System (EWS) can be a powerful tool for educators and school leaders to impact the progress and outcomes of their students. The VDOE approach to LASER EWS is to follow an ABC’s model - Attendance, Behavior, and Coursework. The tools and dashboards that are built will help users identify not just the students who are in need of help and intervention, but the type of intervention that may be most impactful for them. Metrics derived within attendance, behavior, grades, SOLs, and others will help determine real-time and longitudinal status of all students and schools.
Student Group Comparison
The Student Group Comparison module is composed of three dashboards to compare student groups by gender, race, disability status, and economically disadvantaged status, on a number of metrics and factors in the ABC model.
LASER Benefits
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LASER provides educators an all-in-one platform to make data- driven decisions.
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Users can look at data from a division level and then drill down to an individual student level.
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Users can build various charts and visuals with LASER to determine trends and find correlations.
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LASER allows for educators to a build community around data using a common language.
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LASER saves educators time; all the important academic data is housed in one application with user-friendly visuals.
Who will have access to LASER
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Central Office Administrators: Basic Accreditation Tracker, EWS, and Student Group Comparison - division level data
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School Level Administrators: Basic Accreditation Tracker, EWS, and Student Group Comparison - school level data
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Teachers and Support Staff: EWS: Attendance and Coursework - associated students
LASER is accessed through SSWS. Your SSWS Administrator can enable access to LASER by checking the box for LASER in the user permission page once LASER is live in your division.
LASER Professional Development
Self-Paced Training Opportunity:
VDOE LASER Canvas Course: The VDOE LASER Canvas Course is available to any LASER user to enroll in through Virtual Virginia Professional Learning. The course provides the user with an understanding of the architecture of LASER, shares instructions on how to navigate the modules and dashboards, provides explanations of the data elements and how to use the data to identify the possible need for division, school or individual student interventions. Enrolling in the Canvas course will allow you to receive direct announcements and updates from the LASER team. You can enroll in the course using the following link: LASER Canvas Course. If you already have a school division account, you may be able to sign in with that account. For users who do not have a Canvas account you can create an account when you enroll. Please make sure you always choose “Virtual Virginia Professional Learning” when you sign in to Canvas.
In Person and Virtual Training Opportunities:
We will be conducting virtual training opportunities using Microsoft Teams Webinar. Dates and Times for training opportunities will be added in the future as needed.
LASER Contacts
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Mike Dunavant - LASER Team Lead