IEP Bins and Data Collection

I really, really, really love data. It helps me to know that I am truly hitting my student's goals and objectives as well as understanding where the problems may arise and how to modify the way I am instructing. That being said, I would love to do more data and keep working with different things to find easy and effective ways to track and review data.

I have always like the IEP bin idea where you keep data on all students goals and objectives and have bins with work that pertains to each of the objectives in it. It is a great way to quickly assess and makes for an easy hour or so out of the day of personalized instruction. It also came in handy during IEP progress report time because I would have specific data points to list.

This is what I used this past year and it worked well, however, there were some downfalls to the system. I didn't keep up with it as much as I wanted to during stressful times, such as alternative assessment and right before holiday breaks. Also, it was hard for a lot of my students to complete tasks independently, so I found myself working with the same students over and over while the select few always worked independently on a task because they could. Finally, reviewing the data was time consuming and I have to admit, I didn't keep up with it as well as I should have.

Here is an example of a student's IEP Bin. I got the bins at The Container Store for less than $4.00/each. This student was one of my third graders with goals including coins, coloring in the lines, identifying letters in random order, matching lowercase letters, identifying positional concepts, counting when given a number, etc. 

Each group had a binder. I grouped just in pairs (small class size) of student's with similar goals. I had one student who was significantly higher and one student who was significantly lower so they had their own programs. Inside the binders were data sheets for every single objective for the student's IEP.

Here is an example of a data sheet. I know it is hard to see. At the top it says what goal # it is. On the top row is where you would put the date. Along the left side is each objective, separated by the line going across. I tried to make each one as simple as possible, mostly using + and - for each data point. Each objective needed thought on how I was going to keep data on it, it wasn't easy trying to keep it uniform. As you can see, I would stop taking data once the student was struggling (at the bottom they were only counting to 30 or less so we wouldn't continue). Before each data sheet, I would have a copy of that IEP goal page so that anyone doing this work would understand what the goal was before taking data on it (the instructional assistants would do this with a group while I was working with a group as well, or substitute teachers could easily work on this). In the back of the binder I would keep old data sheets as they would fill up as a record. I tried to review the data weekly or bi-weekly. It was an easy way to see what objectives you weren't hitting each week!

This was just simply a set aside time (IEP Time) where I would see the progress on their goals. I would not use the binders during regular instruction to take data on goals because it would be too confusing and time consuming. However, I would try to note their progress during lessons elsewhere. 

Please leave any suggestions you have on this system, if you use one yourself and how yours is different!