Maggie Kearns SPED 441 Data-Based Decision Making My practicum setting is an elementary school.

I am in what is called the inclusion classroom, where six students come for math, reading, spelling, and writing each morning. The students spend the rest of their days in their general education classrooms where they also receive instruction in these subject areas. Progress monitoring for our students occurs in our classroom. Progress monitoring is done for reading fluency using Aimsweb. Each student orally reads a passage for one minute while the teacher records how many words they read and errors that they make. The passages are specifically chosen for each student based on their current level of performance that is determined at the beginning of the school year. The student performance on that passage is scored and, if it is found that the student is appropriately reading at that grade level with those passages they continue to be probed using that grade level. If student performance is below that of the grade level, the grade level below is used and so on until the correct grade level is found. The data that is collected is input into the Aimsweb system and the teachers are able to track the student progress and compare it to goals that were set for the student, as well as other students in the school and even national data. Aimsweb is also used at my school and throughout the district for math. Students are given 8 minutes to complete an assessment that is at their appropriate level. For students that are not able to successfully demonstrate their skills and knowledge within 8 minutes because they take longer to process, the time may be doubled (written in on the IEP). If the time is doubled, the teacher marks at what point the student was after 8 minutes, and then they have the next 8

minutes to continue demonstrating their knowledge so that the we can appropriately determine their skills. The data is entered into the Aimsweb system in order to track the students progress. In my classroom over the past three months, I have only seen a handful of probes given. Throughout the school; however, data is collected on reading fluency through probes every 2-3 weeks. This information is very helpful in determining each students progress and if they are making adequate gains in their reading fluency. If students are meeting their goals, then instruction is working for them and changes should not be made. If students are not meeting their goals, we are able to see that changes must be made so we change reading instruction based on those needs. Using Aimsweb, we are able to track student progress and determine if students need more or less support and if the instruction that they are receiving is appropriate for their learning needs. If students are not making progress over time, they will be moved to Tier 2 intervention where they are given more supports and more individualized instruction, in addition to receiving the general curriculum. If the student continues to not make progress, he or she will move to Tier 3 and receive even more individualized instruction to best fit his or her needs. An example of RtI taking place in my school using progress monitoring was when it was determined that one of the students was not making progress throughout the year, he was moved to Tier 3 and given some small group instruction each day, in addition to the general curriculum. When it was determined that he was still not making adequate progress with these supports, he began coming down to our classroom for small-group instruction with much more individualization, which has allowed for him to be more successful.

One way to improve this system would be to use other forms of progress monitoring in addition to Aimsweb. Aimsweb is a wonderful resource for progress monitoring, but it should not be the only system in place. While other forms of assessment are used throughout the school already, I do not believe that there is enough of it taking place. The difficulty with using other forms; however, is that assessment could start taking up too much time, making it difficult to get in effective instruction. Assessment is an essential part of the instruction process, but it cannot take up all of the time. Finally, I think that the data-based decision making process at my school is a very good system, but I believe that my cooperating teacher should probe our students more often to collect data. This will help to make better instructional decisions based off of our students needs. Without this data, we do not truly know what kind of instruction our students need, but instead we are guessing. If my cooperating teacher does this, we will be able to better track our students, who are in Tier 3, and hopefully move them down to lower tiers. Giving probes on a regular basis is extremely important to effective instruction, which will lead to student success over time.