Suzanne Fitzgerald's Strategies for Progress Monitoring and Effective Data Use in Special Education (Part 2)

🎙️ Episode Summary:

Welcome back to The FAST 15 podcast, delivering transformative tips for special educators in a quick 15-minute format. Sponsored by Specially Designed Education Services, this episode features Suzanne Fitzgerald, President and CEO of Specially Designed Education Services and author of the Functional Academics Program.

Key Points:

Part two of the discussion delves into progress monitoring and the pivotal role of data in supporting meaningful IEP goals. Suzanne explores the benefits of proficient data collection, highlighting its impact on decision-making, progress tracking, and effective communication with parents about goal progress.

Benefits of Progress Monitoring:

1. Informed Decision-Making: Proficient data systems aid decisions on advancing or modifying lessons based on student performance.
2. Concrete Evidence: Data offers tangible proof of IEP goal achievement, especially crucial for students with complex disabilities.
3. Support in Tough Conversations: Data facilitates discussions with parents, ensuring transparency and collaboration, especially when difficult decisions need to be made.

Team Approach to Data:

Suzanne underscores the importance of a whole-team approach, involving related service providers like speech language pathologists and physical therapists in data collection. Collaboration and consistency across the team are vital for effective progress monitoring.

Challenges of Progress Monitoring:

1. Building Data into Routine: The initial challenge lies in incorporating data collection into daily routines. Suzanne acknowledges the difficulty but emphasizes that once integrated, it becomes second nature.
2. Not Using Data Effectively: Collecting data is valuable only when actively used. Suzanne stresses the importance of regularly reviewing and acting upon the collected data for effective progress monitoring.

Closing Thoughts:

Progress monitoring, supported by proficient data collection, is critical for informed decision-making and tracking student progress. Suzanne acknowledges challenges but emphasizes solutions, hinting at upcoming tools within the Functional Academics Program.

 Barb encourages listeners to stay connected, support one another, and anticipates the upcoming tools designed to make progress monitoring more efficient within the Functional Academics Program.

Subscribe and stay tuned for more impact

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Fast 15 Podcasts offering gain-changing tips, advice and motivational tools for special educators, designed to transform your special education classroom in a quick 15-minute format. Our podcast includes authentic stories from amazing educators like you and is proudly sponsored by the publishers of the Functional Academics Program specially designed education services. Join us as we endeavor to transform the landscape of special education.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Today for the Fast 15, we're excited to welcome the President and CEO of specially designed education services and the author of the Functional Academics Program, suzanne Fitzgerald.

Speaker 2: 0:44

We had so much to discuss that we decided to break this into two episodes.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Today we will discuss why we should take data around the goals to support the IEP and include the benefits and challenges of progress monitoring. We are picking up from where we left off on the last episode of the Fast 15, and if you haven't had a chance to listen to the first part of our discussion together, make sure you go back and check that out as well. And if you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to our Fast 15 podcast on whatever platform you're listening. We want to make sure that you get all that you can out of our quick time together, so it really helps us if you write a quick review so other people in the world of special education can find us and share the encouragement. Those of you who are familiar with the Functional Academics Program, you know that the primary focus really is on progress monitoring. It is highly data-driven, database-based and, suzanne, can you speak to the benefits and challenges of progress monitoring and how teachers can use data to support their meaningful IEP goals.

Speaker 3: 1:55

Absolutely so. Let's start with the benefits of progress monitoring. So when you have a proficient data collection system in your classroom, you are able to easily make decisions. Data tells you when to move a student on to the next skill or lesson, or perhaps when you need to take a step back and break a skill down or modify something a lesson in some kind of a different way to help your student get to mastery quicker. It's concrete evidence that IEP goals have been met or progress is being made. For students, this one is also is really important, but for students with more complex disabilities, frequent data can show even tiny little gains that your team can. It gives you something to celebrate, because those tiny gains can be huge in so many different ways. It's also really helpful during conversations with parents, especially when tough decisions need to be made.

Speaker 2: 2:53

So, for example, those are tough discussions to have and so when you have data like you're talking about to anchor to yes, yes, and I don't want to be the one, nor should I be the one, who makes all of those decisions.

Speaker 3: 3:09

It absolutely has to be a team decision. So when you have that data to support why you're bringing up a concern or a suggestion, it makes it a lot easier for everybody to come together and go okay, yeah, let's move on from this. Or okay, the data shows this, but can we give it a little longer and you can set a time limit on it. I use the example.

Speaker 3: 3:31

It's a lot easier for a parent of an elementary age child to make the decision to move from letters and sounds to a sight word based program when they're shown consistent data that has been taken over a reasonable period of time that reflects little to no progress. Data holds a lot more value than simply an opinion that was made by a teacher based on an observation that they had of the child. So that would be an example of where it can help parents go yeah, okay, let's move on. Let's try this for a while. Another example I'll give you a secondary example would be a parent of a who might be more open to the idea of perhaps allowing their child to be more involved in managing their finances. If they can see concrete data that shows that their child has been successfully depositing and transferring money while practicing budgeting a banking at school, that would be a clear way to be like oh okay, maybe we could explore this. Yeah, exactly, so really, data facilitates conversations and decisions. It's hard to argue with data that is taken frequently and consistently.

Speaker 2: 4:36

I'm thinking it also maybe takes emotion out of some of the highly charged IEP situations that we're in. You can talk more about that later, but I think what you're saying there's concrete evidence of where the students at yes exactly.

Speaker 3: 4:51

And, like I said, even if the decision isn't what you think it should be, you have a baseline and something to continue the conversation over. If a parent's not ready to move on, it may be being like, okay, I can see that this data has been taken for six months consistently, but sometimes it takes my child a while for it to click. I'd really like to continue this for a little longer. Can we keep going with the data for another three months or six months or whatever it might be? Then you have that framework and that concrete data to have the discussion later on again and revisit it.

Speaker 3: 5:30

I think that's just the way it should be. It should be together as a team. You have those conversations and you've got something to really be able to rely on. Gotcha, okay, yeah, in addition to being able to make academic decisions based on data collection, data is also critical in identifying and addressing patterns of problem behavior. It can be incredibly helpful for identifying what communication strategies are working or whether or not a student's range of motion has improved with stretches that were incorporated throughout the day. It really is essential for so many aspects of a child's program.

Speaker 2: 6:07

All of the related service providers may be a speech language pathologist or a speech language pathologist or a physical therapist who might be working on your team or coming into your classroom, and everybody being on the same team around that data collection.

Speaker 3: 6:23

Exactly. You know this, barb. We've talked about this all the time. We both believe wholeheartedly in a whole team approach, that communication, physical therapy, occupational therapy. None of that should be done in a 30, 60, 90 minutes a week session only. No, it has to be done all day, every day.

Speaker 3: 6:42

It really does so. Having again being able to take data on how often a student is getting out of their wheelchair and is on the being stretched or whatever it might be, that gives the physical therapist again concrete data to be able to look at and see if improvements are being made. And I've had situations in the past where doctors have actually used our data to help support decisions on whether surgery is needed or braces are like they need to a different brace, back brace or whatever it might be. So it can be useful in so many different ways.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Informing really powerful and huge decisions that a family has to make. And yeah, that's amazing. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3: 7:25

So let's talk a little bit about the challenges. Yes, there are challenges.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Data.

Speaker 3: 7:29

Everybody who knows me again I'll say knows I love data, but I'm not. I am willing to admit there are challenges with data.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Well, I've experienced a lot of challenges myself, so I'm interested to hear what you have to say about that.

Speaker 3: 7:41

So I would say probably the biggest and most common challenge with data collection is getting it built into your daily routine. Yes, so I often hear from teachers that they don't have time to take data, or they can't take data and manage materials at the same time while working with a student, or they don't have time to train paraeducators to take data. I would agree that all of these are incredibly challenging, especially at first, when you are initially learning how to take data. However, once you get over those initial hurdles and data collection becomes part of your daily routine, these other challenges really go away. If you can get through that hump, that initial hump, it just becomes second nature and so much easier. Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 8:29

Yeah, yeah, I think some of the foundational things of what we do as special education teachers or really anybody in the field, that's really critical as far as laying the foundation in your programming. If you don't have those things, you don't have anything to build on top of. It's the rebar of your program. Yes, I think it can be.

Speaker 3: 8:52

Yes, and I would say probably another big challenge with data is not using it. I know the opposite happens, where teachers are really great about taking data and I've been guilty of this myself where we're taking tons of data on something and I don't take the time to look at it, or if somebody you don't look at it to see oh okay, yikes, the student has been at 100% now for 10 days in a row, we got to move on. So taking data is great, but if you don't actually use it, then it's worthless. So that's another challenge, I think, is just making sure you're using it the way you should be.

Speaker 2: 9:29

Gotcha, I agree.

Speaker 3: 9:32

I would say yeah. Just to wrap up, when you're used to taking data, it really doesn't require extra time. It can easily be done simultaneously when working with students. It just takes a little extra practice, which is why frequent data is recommended. The more opportunities you have to practice, the more proficient you become, just like pretty much anything. And then, even if you're not able to collect data during a specific task, there's also shortcuts and ways and suggestions for collecting and reporting data at the end of a lesson. That really takes no extra time at all. Yeah, Just getting in the routine of doing that yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:09

And having that just be part of the practice for yourself and for your team. Yes, all right, and I just I've learned so much just from today talking with you, and I'm really grateful that you're taking the time to spend on our Fast 15. And it's a pleasure always to get a chance to work with you, to hear from you, to bounce off ideas, and thank you. I just wanna say thank you.

Speaker 3: 10:34

Are you kidding me? This is fun. I'm loving this. Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Thank you very much for joining us on our podcast today. We really appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise and wanna thank you for being a champion of in the field of special education and being a leader for a lot of people and for putting out some really amazing products. We have some really incredible things coming down the line that I know you're working on, and specifically around helping teachers take data more effectively, more efficiently and with fidelity. Thank you so much for all the hard work that you do. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 11:14

Awesome.

Speaker 2: 11:15

All right listeners, our time's up and that's all for this episode of the Fast 15. But real quick. Keep in mind some of the things that Suzanne shared with us. Let's do that together.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Number one it's so evident that progress monitoring with a proficient data collection system really is critical to our programs. It allows us to make informed decisions about when to move students to a next skill, when to modify our lessons and when our IEP goals have been met. It also helps us celebrate the tiniest of gains, and we can see that in the data. Remember the importance of a team approach. That's number two. Suzanne emphasizes the importance of a whole team approach in special education. Collaboration and consistency across the team are crucial for effective progress monitoring. It helps involve related service providers like speech, language pathologists or physical therapists in the data collection systems and the analysis of the data. We want them to be on the team and for everybody to be on the same page, working toward the same goals.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Number three keep in mind that there are challenges, but there are also available solutions. Suzanne acknowledges the challenges of incorporating data collection into daily routines. It really is so difficult. I know for myself. I've struggled with that for so many years. But solutions are coming. Friends.

Speaker 2: 12:45

I'm really excited about what SDES has and functional academics is bringing to the table with progress monitoring and data collection. It is going to really help us with the effectiveness of sharing the data with our IEP teams Listeners. Suzanne is the real deal. I know this because I get to walk alongside her on the journey of developing content and providing solutions for teachers. I've gotten a sneak peek into some really incredible tools that she's building into the functional academics program. Incredible and innovative tools that will really make progress monitoring more efficient will be taken with fidelity while keeping everything functional. That's what functional academics is all about. So stay tuned for more coming your way very soon. Let's continue to connect and find ways to support one another in the work that we're doing every day. And until next time you are not alone. Remember that you are not alone, champions of Special Ed. Until the next one, until the next time, you are not alone, champions of Special Ed. I am with you and you've got a whole lot of people on your team.

Speaker 1: 14:09

So until the next one, be well and be kind A heartfelt thank you to our generous sponsors, specially designed education services, publishers of the functional academics program. Please take a moment to learn more about the only true, comprehensive functional academics program that enables students with moderate to severe disabilities to improve their ability to live in dependency, to live independently and show meaningful growth both academically and personally, while creating accountability with data-driven, evidence-based results. Visit wwwsdesworkscom to learn more.