Strategic Data Project Convening 2026

Session Description:

Education leaders often need to turn complex data into clear, usable tools for planning and decision-making. In this hands-on session, participants will use a teacher workforce planning example to learn how R Shiny apps are structured and how interactive features are built. The session will introduce the roles of global.R, ui.R, and server.R, then guide participants through simple edits that change the app layout, connect outputs to server logic, and add user controls that update what the app displays.

Participants will leave with a fully functional Shiny app template based on the Teacher Workforce Planning Tool being used at the Delaware Department of Education, available through GitHub: https://github.com/MatthewFaiello/twpt_shiny_app_toy

Intended Audience:
This session is designed for SEA, LEA, charter, and education nonprofit staff who work with data or decision-support tools, including analysts, program managers, data and technology leaders, and senior leaders who want a practical introduction to interactive data applications.

This session assumes participants have an understanding of R syntax and basic data manipulation and visualization skills.

Session Description: This session explores how emerging speech and sensing technologies and teacher-feedback tools can enhance school-readiness measurement by capturing naturalistic indicators of language, engagement, and self-regulation. Speakers will examine links between these multimodal data sources and traditional readiness assessments, highlight responsible integration within multilingual and culturally diverse classrooms, and share models for open, researcher-accessible data infrastructures. Participants will gain actionable insights for incorporating these innovations into early childhood and P20W data systems to support equitable, evidence-based decision-making.

Intended Audience: State education agencies; Philanthropies and Foundations; Managers of data or technology teams