Collecting data is one of the most important jobs for special education teachers. It is used to measure progress on goals, helps to write IEPs, and gives teachers a sense of where students are at any given point in the school year.
That being said, collecting data for all of the students on a caseload can quickly become overwhelming and cumbersome. One way to combat that is by using digital data collection tools to make the process easier.
If you are new to digital data collection or simply looking for ways to streamline your process, the tips below will help. They are teacher-tested and have proven time and again to save time and effort. As always, choose the ideas that work best for you and your situation to get the most out of your digital data collection process.
One of the best ways to document student progress is through pictures. Whether it’s a video of a student completing a task or a picture of an assessment, phones and tablets are convenient for taking visual documentation. As always, privacy is important, so if taking a video or picture on a personal device, transfer it immediately to where it will live online and then delete it from your device.
When your students are working with multiple teachers, it can be challenging to get accurate and timely data from all of them. Create a Google Drive folder for each student and within that folder house their IEPs, progress notes, and data collection forms for teachers. By having one folder for each student and all of the data and documentation in one place, it makes it easy to quickly see where the child is progressing and where extra time needs to be spent.
If you don’t have access to technology in the moment, taking your data on a sticky note is quick and easy to do before transferring it into your digital data. Grab these templates when you join The Intentional IEP here or by clicking the image above.
BOOM Cards are digital games, activities, and assessments that can be assigned to individual students or the class as a whole. Students log in and complete the digital activities to the best of their abilities. The teacher is then able to see how the student performed and record that data for future progress notes and IEP writing.
If there was one digital tool that could be modified to collect all of the data you needed throughout the school year and when preparing for to write an IEP, would you use it? If you said yes, then Digital Data Collection Forms are for you. This set of 143 digital data collection forms ranges from parent input forms to math skills to basic life skills. There is a form for just about every type of data that you need or want to collect on your students. The best part? They can be assigned over and over again to work with any or all of your students.
Tip #5: Collect Data in Google ClassroomIf your school uses Google Classroom, you can easily assign specific tasks and assignments to the students on your caseload. The assignments can be geared toward the needs of each individual and collect data about the goals they are working on in their IEP. It is a great way to save time using a platform that your school is already using. For schools that are not using Google Classroom, the Seesaw platform is another option.
Collecting data is never easy, but when you integrate technology into the process it becomes less stressful and more organized. The tips above can be used to alleviate some of the data collection burden and give you the information you need to create progress notes and IEPs with relative ease.
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