On Track and On Target { with Mrs. D's Corner }

One thing I really like about the Elementary Entourage is how diverse we are when it comes to what we teach. I was so excited to find out that this month I get to talk to you all about how I track data and set student goals, and even more excited that I would get to read about different ways to track data too!

Being a teacher of students with special needs, I feel like I'm really good at tracking data because I'm constantly assessing IEP goal and objective progress. On a weekly and daily basis, I take data in 4 different ways.

One of my most important data collection sheets is my weekly progress monitoring page. This is where I write down activities the students completed each day of the week and how well they did. For example, on Monday we will be talking about the pumpkin life cycle. We will do a matching activity to different parts of the life cycle... so I will write that the student maybe got 4 of 6 parts correct.

I also use this sheet to keep track of daily IEP goal and objective progress. At the beginning of the school year, someone praised me for my use of sticky notes to keep track of data. What she said has really stuck with me, but I find sticky notes SO easy! If you were to take a look at the back on one of my weekly sheets, you'd probably find at least 6 sticky notes on the back with data collection.

Lastly, on the bottom of each daily square is a set of emotion faces. This is something I recently started keeping track of is a student's daily behavior. Every day I send home daily behavior sheets to parents to let them know how their child did at school. This is a way for me to keep track of how a student did on a daily and weekly basis just incase I ever need to look back on daily behavior.

Another weekly sheet I use is this grading sheet. Let me preface this by saying I hate doing grades. For my friends who are not on grade level, I feel like it is stupid of me to keep track of grades of how they're performing on a modified grade level curriculum. Hello, they always do well! I think that IEP progress reports are a much better indicator of how well my students are doing.

Anyway, I have to take grades on 2 things in each subject each week. This sheet helps me keep track of grades, that way when I put grades in the Friday before they're due... I can use this little cheat sheet as a quick reference and spend as little time on grades as possible.

This is a new daily data collection sheet I started using this school year. In the middle of last school year, I lost one of my two paraprofessionals and the district won't hire another one for my class due to numbers, not the actual need in my classroom.

So to build my case as to why I need another paraprofessional in my classroom, I have been keeping very detailed data on prompting. This includes prompting outside of any verbal and physical prompting a student needs that is directly related to the lesson / activity.

For example:
- "____ sit down."
- "____ keep your hands to yourself."
- "____ look at your work and focus on you."

Here's to hoping it works and gets me another paraprofessional eventually :)

Back in July, I wrote a blog post all about how I will be using my FREE easy progress monitoring binder rings in my classroom this year. So far this school year, I am still in love with the easiest and quickest way I have ever used to track IEP goal and objective data.

I use these binder rings directly with the weekly progress monitoring sheet. At the end of every week, I go back and add the data to a student's binder ring that appropriately correlates with their IEP goals / objectives. If I need more data on a certain goal / objective, I make it a point to work on that skill the following week.

When the 9-week marking period ends, I need to send home progress updates on each and every IEP goal / objective. You'd think this would be a daunting task, but with these binder rings, it literally takes hours off of the time it takes me to input data. Hours?! YES, HOURS! When it's time to input data, I just grab a binder ring, flip through each goal and type in the 3-4 data points I've collected. Add a few personal notes to each objective, such as a strength with the objective or that we will continue monitoring it until the student is independent.

{ GRAB *FREE* PROGRESS MONITORING MADE QUICK & EASY HERE }

Until next time,