Collecting Data with Google - Part I

Data Collection is definitely one of the issue that is most discussed in education today. How do I take data? When should it be take? Why should take data? What will it tell me about my students. While I understand the skepticism, it is impossible to be knowledgeable about every skill for every student with out data collection.

(Data will be used throughout this post, therefore if you have an aversion to the word...keep reading anyway)

I have a few posts about how to data on paper collection form, and there are many that you find on the link below. 

Free Data Sheets

I know this process can be very scary, but I would like to talk about a few use that I refined the process to allow you to receive the most information from your students and to not loose your mind.

For this particular post, I would to focus on using a technology based data collection system. As we are learning, Google has SOME awesome pages that will help us in this tedious process.  

First we will focus on collecting for IEP students goals from the regular education teacher. For secondary teachers, Google Forms are a dream come true. Before I dive into how to set up your form on Google Drive. I want to spend a minute talking about Goal Writing. Goals that are being measured really need to be written in a way that can be broken down for the regular educators to quickly understand and assess. (I will dissect goals in a separate post.) Here is an example goal for you to check out:

In both the small group and large group instructional setting, Billy will develop a paragraph when a given a provided structure to an average 80% by November 18, 2016. 

In the large group setting, Nick will follow adult directives with no more than 2 prompts when given a directive to an average of 75% accuracy by November 18, 2016. 

These clear IEP goals give you the who, what, where, when of the students needs. Now to monitor the goals it is important to remember what all of the components to performing your goal will be. 

Getting into making the form to send to your teachers for generalization data. It use to be acceptable to send an email to the student's teachers asking how he/she was performing in the class. The answer was usually something: fine, he won't stop talking, she doesn't turn in her work. Those answers rarely correlated with the goal you were assessing, so how does that help you write quarterly update on each goal. It doesn't. Take a look at these step by step directions to creating and sending out your Google Form Goal Sheets. 

Step 1: Go to google.com and create a account -  if you do not have one already. Sign in. 

Step 2: Click on the box in the top right corner and select Drive. 

This is what you should seeing on the left side of the screen now. 

Step 3: Click the button label NEW and it will give you a variety of choices. 

(I have chosen to first make a folder for each of my students. so I can keep all of the forms nice and tidy :)

Step 4: Click on the the folder button and label your folder. Then double click to into the folder. 

Step 5: Click the NEW button again at the top of the left side of the screen. This time select form. 

Your screen should now look like:

Step 6: You are name able to label your form. This will be the name you see when you want to select the form at another time. The area for this will say Untitled form until you change it. 

Step 7: Type your first questions for your form in the Untitled question box. You may or may not want to put information into the Help Text section. either way is fine. 

Step 8: In the drop down next to Questions Type. This drop down will give you several different options. Take a look below at the drop down choices. 

Some Tips: 

Text - one line answers 

Paragraph Text - long responses

Multiple Choice - only allowed to make on choice

Check boxes - allowed to make multiple choices 

Choose from a List - allowed to make multiple choices 

Scale - rating scale 

Date - input date from calendar 

Time - input time from clock 

Step 9: Once you have finished your questions and input your choice for the Questions Type, you may decide whether or not you would like to make the question required for your form users. If you would, be sure to click the required button tab on at the bottom right, next to the DONE button. 

Step 10: Select DONE when you are finished with that question. 

Step 11: When you are ready to add a new question, press the ADD ITEM button. If you would like, you can click the arrow next to the ADD ITEM button and select your question type there. 

Step 12: Continue creating your questions until you are finished. 

Step 13: Don't forget that you can customize your form as well. Take a look at the picture below and the descriptions for the top bar on your screen. 

Edit Questions - Make any changes you want to your form. 

Change View - You can choose from different themes to customize your form. 

View Responses - This will open a spreadsheet that contains all of the responses from those who have received and answered your form. 

View in Live Form - this will allow you to see your from as those you send it to will see your form. 

 Step 14: Click the square box again and select mail. 

This is what your screen should look like:

After you have written your messages and entered your recipients information, click on the Drive button. 

Select the google form that you would like to send and it will be attached like a typical document. Once the recipients open the form, they will be to submit their response and send their results to the excel spreadsheet made for you in your Drive. 

One of the best tools that I have found to date is BoomerangGmail. 

This tool, among other things, can take your message and send it out at the exact time you would like it to...once or reoccurring. This automatically keeps sending the form to your recipients until you tell the series to conclude. This tool can be downloaded; however for all of the tools to be used, there is a small monthly fee.  Click on the link below to add Boomerang to your gmail.

BoomerangGmail

In Collecting Data with Google Forms - Part II we will examine the creation of forms and what type of questions to ask using goals. 

Good Luck getting started with your forms!

Enjoy, 

Emily 

Creating a Data-Based Essential Skills Classroom

The definition of an Essential Skills classroom is a classroom based on a student focused curriculum in the areas pf functional life skills. The Essential Skills classroom is one that identifies the needs for students with severe disabilities that impact their daily life and education. Data collection is the single most important form of information gathered during instruction. 

When I started in the Essential Skills classroom, my experience was from the ground up. I was a single teacher in a classroom of 13 students with significant disabilities, and I had 9 capable Para-Educators in my classroom. I was lucky to have the capable and experience Para-Educators on my side, but building a data based classroom where data was not previously used, is a large project. Deciding how to create your data protocol takes time, and it is also beneficial to have baseline completed when beginning the structure.  

Take a look at some of the tips below:

Setting Up Data Binders - Essential Skills 

                Data Collection is a teacher’s best tool when monitoring student progress, concept mastery, and retention.  To create a fluid system in the classroom, teachers need to think about their population, environment, and structure.  Teachers in an Essential Skills (Low Incidence, Cross-Catagorical) classroom have an enormous about of data to keep track of and continually monitor. The following system of creating a Data Binder will encourage an organizational system for all areas addressed in the Essential Skills classroom. 

Take a look at the teacher’s pre-work to create skills concepts:

1.       Identify all student goals. Breakdown the goals into individual concepts and order them according to their foundational skills. (i.e. single digit addition before double digit addition)

2.       Create data sheets that will address the concepts you have identified. 

a.       Note: As you are completing diagnostics and learning the student’s skills, you may discover additional concepts. Create a data sheet for those concepts as well. 

3.       Identify how you will address and teach those concepts. 

a.       Utilizing Task Boxes, computer programs, and direction instruction. 

4.       Create your binder!

This process builds as you work with your students. The binder is a working document through the time of instruction.  It is important for the teacher to organize a system of implementation for the concepts as well. Due to the fact that the Essential Skills classroom engages students of multiple disabilities and learning levels, it is important to have a systematic, organized instruction structure in place. This structure should include practice of the routines with prompting and needed and quickly faded.  The sample structure below gives teachers an organized plan for instruction of multiple levels of learning at one time, while also giving students as much independence as possible when working on the concept isolated for them. 

The first piece includes determining when and how you will instruction on the concepts. For the ParaEducators, it is important to give them an idea of the concepts for the student as well; especially since there implementation of the instruction is usually consistent with the students in which they are assigned.  

Example of student’s instruction breakdowns for the week would go in the front of the student binder for easy access for staff members working with that student. The concepts listed in the boxes above are those identified by the teacher through IEP goals and diagnostic tools. In the Essential Skills classrooms the concepts are foundational building blocks that build upon one another, therefore the skills will not often change. 

 Bell Ringers – A Bell Ringer is an activity that the students will participate in at they enter the classroom. (as the bell is ringing and time to change activities is approaching) This is an activity that can give the students some independence in their learning. However, completing a Bell Ringer and the routine of doing so must be taught. For more information on Bell Ringers in the Essential Skills Classroom, click the link. 

Behind the Bell Ringers are where the data sheets are stored. It is important to share your organization structure of the data binders with all staff who will be working with them for fluidity. 

Mathematics (red)

Addition Single Digit 

Double Digit

(Multi-Digit – re-grouping/decimal)

Subtraction (Multi-Digit – re-grouping/decimal

  SAME

Money (add./sub., like/unlike, $/coins)

                Rounding to the next dollar 

Time – Time to the hour

                Time to the half hour

                Time to the 15 minute intervals

                Time to the minute

Elapsed -to the hour

                  To the half hour

                  To the 15 minute intervals

Measurement - inch and half inch

            Measuring Cups

         Thermometer

Calculator (+/-/x/÷)

Multiplication – single digit 

Word Problems (one-step, two-step)

Communication Arts (green)

Reading Fluency

Reading Comprehension

Capitalization 

Ending Punctuation

Independent Writing Skills

Edmark Packet – if used 

*Dolch Words should be paper clipped and put into the Old Data Form 

Benchmarks (purple)

Reading A-Z Benchmark Sheets – used to move student to the next reading level

Social/Life Skills (blue)

Nutritional Facts 

Environmental Sight Words 

Fire Drill Completion

Following Directions

Maintenance pages (orange)

These pages list concepts that have been mastered by the student. The concepts are checked weekly for retention. 

Old Data Pages (yellow)

  The Data Binder – Essential Skills Table of Contents

The sample Data Binder Table of Contents includes some of the concepts that may identified for students in the Essential Skills classroom. Not all students would have the same concepts on data sheets in their binders.  Additionally the concepts themselves would be specific to the needs of that particular student. For example, while one student may have writing a simple sentence as his independent writing data sheet concept, another in the same class may have writing his name as his independent writing data sheet concept. This is an example of how the process truly is individualized. 

As you thinking about your students, their needs, and beginning to set up your binders, take a look at the pictures below as examples for creating a classroom environment conducive for the individualized, data-driven classroom.

The Boxes included the student’s Data Binder and manipulatives they may need to complete the data-driven concepts. The students take these binders with them to each location in which they would work. 

The Station Cards tell the students exactly what their tasks are for that class period. This serves as a reminder for routine, while giving the students monitored independence in their schedule. The cards include Bell Ringer (which all students complete with in the first 5-7 minutes of the class period), teacher and Paras names, computer program names, etc. 

The front end work of setting up this systematic approach for both the Data Binders and the classroom routine and organization will not only save the teacher time, but will also provide appropriate and on target reports for students skills and levels of mastery. 

Please comment below with additional questions and ideas! Let us know what works best for you in the Essential Skills setting.

Emily 

Follow this link to Essential Edification's TpT store to download data sheets!

Essential Edification TpT