Showing posts with label t. Show all posts
Showing posts with label t. Show all posts

Data Collection Dred--With What?

Each school year brings dred and worry over how to progress monitor IEP goals and establish baselines. When it comes to setting and tracking IEP goals... there's NOT an app for that. I have tried just about everything but the advice I give is always find what works for you—otherwise it won’t happen. We all know in this age of RTI and MTSS that if they don’t have it there is nothing we can do. The same is true when explaining to parents if their child is making growth—without your sunk. Here are a few ideas to get you started on figuring out what works for you. This is by no means everything.

As we get ready to begin the school year, I must assess my goals for the year. A goal I always seem to make is to find a better way to document data for progress monitoring, especially for my students with IEPs. Over the past 12 years, I have talked to other teachers, scoured the internet, and made up my own resources. I have been secretly hoping that an app developer would come up with some IEP-specific apps that I could use on my iPad, but no such luck yet.

According to the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs, effective progress monitoring provides for accelerated learning, informed instructional decisions, and more efficient communication with parents and other professionals. This is why I feel it is so important to come up with an effective way of collecting and using this data.

Use IEP Goal Pages Teacher Binder

Use the IEP goal pages: In the past I have kept a binder that had only the IEP goal pages for my students and made notes directly on the pages. I was able to then carry this teacher binder around with me throughout the day. I always choose a teacher binder that is a different color than the usual black or white so that it would stand out if I was looking for it.

Personalize Your Tracking Pages

Teacher-created pages: I have made my own pages to document progress monitoring which include a column for the goal, date, notes, and progress code. I find transferring all of the goal information onto this page to be time consuming, but transferring information to the progress reports is fairly easy.

Tap into Online Templates

Last school year, a fellow teacher suggested checking out the assessment & testing form templates on Mrs. Perkins website. I must say these were a fantastic resource for me in tracking sight words and letters. Her simple format made it easy for myself or a paraprofessional to assess student progress. I could also easily send the form home for parents to review.

 Utilize Online Assessment Tools

There are a ton of resources online to save you time and energy in progress monitoring. One of my favorites for elementary math is Numberfly, which is great for assessing students’ number recognition. Numberfly creates your assessments for number recognition and has built-in tracking resources. For reading I use, Intervention Central. I love their reading fluency making, I use it for reading records.  I was able to also use a chart on the site to chart information to take to IEP meetings and the student progress monitoring team.


Still looking for more ideas-check out my RTI Data Collection packet from Teachers pay Teachers for more ideas. 



How do you keep track of student progress? I'd love to hear what everyone else does.



About Me

Welcome to my all thing special education blog. I empower busy elementary special education teachers to use best practice strategies to achieve a data and evidence driven classroom community by sharing easy to use, engaging, unique approaches to small group reading and math. Thanks for Hopping By.
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