The Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI) at Manchester Metropolitan University and The Research Lab on Digital Education Governance at Helmut-Schmidt-Universität are pleased to invite you to an exciting workshop that we are hosting in March 2021 to explore strategies for building data literacy with the teaching profession at global scale.

Datafication is reworking all aspects of education today, from the governance of schools and teachers’ work to classroom curricula and pedagogies. Datafication involves rendering human activity into digital data and has become a primary mode of production and control.

Teachers are increasingly required to produce, analyse and use data in their work, but are also subject to the impacts of data use by others such as international organisations, EdTech companies, but also state bodies or evaluation agencies. To enhance teacher professional autonomy today, teachers must understand how data are used to shape schooling, in order to (1) make appropriate use of available data, (2) contest detrimental uses of data; and (3) develop alternative uses of data and/or alternatives to data-driven approaches. This is data literacy.

This event will bring together teacher organisation staff, academics and others involved in data literacy initiatives to discuss needs, challenges and promising strategies for building data literacy with the teaching profession. The aim of the event is to share knowledge and experience, and identify opportunities for further work and international collaboration.

The event will provide:

(1) insights into the present state of datafication in education and the challenges it creates;

(2) a platform for initiatives, groups and projects around the globe to share experiences of developing data literacy with teachers and teacher organisations in different contexts, and to address common challenges; and

(3) an opportunity to discuss how we can develop and advance strategies for building data literacy at global scale.

We invite Presenters who would like to share information about their work in this area and Participants who would like to learn more about this work (Please state your preference when registering).

Presenters will be asked to provide a brief synopsis of their current work in the area to aid us in compiling the programme. Further details about the programme and meeting platform will be sent to registrants in January 2021.

For more information, please contact Sam Sellar (s.sellar@mmu.ac.uk) or Sigrid Hartong (hartongs@hsu-hh.de).

Building data literacy with the teaching profession at global scale