in a Day is a tool that a learning community might use time and again to collect information that can help improve performance, the authors note. It is not the only self-assessment tool schools can use, but the flexibility it offers and its power to involve all groups make it an attractive choice. THE EXCITED fourth-grader announced, I grow up, I want to be a researcher! Cherelle had just spent a September morning observing activities in three different classrooms in her school, where she had coded and learning behaviors according to how well they matched the school's vision, mission, and goals. Cherelle and 25 other members of the Alexander Elementary School research team had met the previous afternoon to review their assignments. Less than 24 hours later, the team reported its findings to the entire faculty. The process that Alexander Elementary School uses to collect and analyze a wealth of information in a short period of time is aptly called Data in a Day. When principal Earl Wiman first heard this approach described, he recognized the potential it offered for engaging the entire school community in the reflection and self-assessment that could help maintain the necessary focus on and momentum for continuous school improvement. Wiman had reason to believe that the faculty would embrace the process. The school's commitment to serving all students has made Alexander Elementary a model for special education inclusion and Title I services. Visitors frequent the K-5 school in downtown Jackson, Tennessee, to observe its success in serving an ethnically and economically diverse group of 530 children. Over the past decade, Alexander has extended the school day to serve students at risk of failure, provided a rich variety of instructional materials as well as Internet access in all classrooms, and hired a full-time coordinator to offer parent training and technology support. The leadership at Alexander has invested in professional development through a collaboration with AEL, a federally funded regional educational laboratory. Teachers use AEL's Questioning and Understanding to Improve Learning and Thinking (QUILT), and the school community participates in the lab's Quest project, a network for continuously improving schools.1 Alexander used in a Day to conduct a quick checkup that would allow representatives of the school community to examine the congruence between these improvement efforts and what was actually going on in the school on a given day. Special Features of in a Day First developed by the Restructuring Collaborative of the Regional Educational Laboratory Network in 1995, in a Day has a number of features that distinguish it from other self-study processes and make it particularly useful to schools attempting to strengthen their capacity to act as learning communities. (For an outline of the steps in the process, see the sidebar on page 550.) Focuses on and learning. are collected through classroom observations that focus on what occurs during teaching/learning interactions. Observers record what they see during 20-minute observation periods. Collectively, these observation data provide a snapshot of and learning in a school on a given day. These snapshots show how well the school is doing in pursuit of its expressed goals. One of the four observation topics at Alexander, for example, was the use of teaching and learning strategies that reach all students. Researchers first identified what would qualify as a positive example of working toward this goal. Then they observed classrooms to capture examples of such activities as cooperative learning, the use of manipulatives, peer tutoring, the use of computers, students learning in a variety of ways (listening, looking, talking, doing, moving, and creating), active student participation and engagement, teachers giving students some choices, teachers bringing humor and fun into the classroom, and individualized assignments. …