Practical Tips for Better IEP Goals and Data Collection

When you’re working with students who have IEPs, it’s important to write specific and measurable IEP goals, collect good data, and keep the data organized. Today’s post gives you some tips you can use to improve your IEP process. Excerpted and adapted from Cindy Golden’s new book, The Data Collection Toolkit, this post is a starting point for writing better IEP goals and putting a solid data collection system in place.

Let’s start with two sample scenarios Golden offers in her book. Read them and see which one sounds more like your current process:

Scenario 1: Mr. and Mrs. Mulhern, I would like to talk about Regina’s IEP goals. If you look at Goal 1, you see that the mastery level for basic math facts was set at 75%, and I would guess that she began the year at about . . . maybe 50%? During the first 3 weeks, she seemed to make progress. She was learning her math facts and did pretty well on most of the work. But she did fail a test. Did you get that test I sent home? Overall, though, I think Regina’s doing well. I really love her; she’s such a sweet girl. We did take lots of data, but I think I must have left those data sheets in the room. I have nearly 100 of them, and they are pretty hard to carry. So, we prob­ably should just keep the math goal on Regina’s IEP because I don’t think she’s quite mastered it yet. What do you think? Maybe if you could help her with her homework and her studying, we could get rid of that goal during our next IEP meeting.

Scenario 2: Mr. and Mrs. Mulhern, I would like to talk about the data that we have been collect­ing on Regina’s four IEP goals. If you look at Goal 1, shown in red, you will see that the mastery level for basic math facts was set at 75%, and her baseline data showed that she began at the 45% mastery level. During the first 3 weeks, she stayed at a pretty consistent level, but you can see that around January 19 she began to rapidly make gains. Regina really began to grasp her math concepts, and she ended up achieving the mastery level that we set for her by the first week of February. That is remarkable! Here are analyzed work samples that are shown by the data points on this graph. Do you see the upward trend shown on this graph? I put copies of the data and graphs in a folder of IEP handouts to take home.

Number 2 sounds better, right? What did the teacher in the first scenario do wrong? Golden points out that this educator:

• didn’t bring the data sheets to the meeting
• didn’t summarize, analyze, and graph the data
• had to guess at the baseline level
• said “she’s such a sweet girl”–which may be true, but can sound like the teacher is covering up for not being prepared
• said the vague phrase “she seemed to make progress” without explaining the evidence to the parents
• put the responsibility (or blame) back on the parents by saying, “if you could help her with homework…”

By contrast, the teacher in the second scenario did lots of things right. This teacher:

• clearly summarized and graphed the data
• calculated baseline levels and compared them to the student’s mastery level
• showed and explained the trendline
• brought analyzed work samples and matched them to data points
• provided the parents with a copy of the data and graphs

So how can you make sure your interactions are more like Scenario 2? There are two essential things to do: write measurable IEP goals or objectives and then orga­nize a system for collecting data on these goals and objectives.

Write measurable IEP goals or objectives

 
Good data collection depends on having a measurable goal to work toward. Write IEP goals correctly, and it should be fairly easy to figure out which data collection method you should use. The data you gather should then inform your IEP decisions as you monitor the student’s progress.

Writing a measurable IEP goal can be summarized as a four-step process. To remember the steps, just think of the acronym GOAL:

• Given. Use this word at the beginning of the goal to set the condition. Given a journal prompt, Sarah will . . .
• Observable. Next, use an action word to clearly identify the behavior you’re measuring. Given a journal prompt, Sarah will orally read . . .
• A target is set. Set the criterion for exactly what the student should do to meet the goal: how much, how often, at what level. Given a journal prompt, Sarah will orally read 90 words per minute with 3 or fewer errors . . .
• Limit time. By when should the student master the goal? Given a journal prompt, Sarah will orally read 90 words per minute with 3 or fewer errors by the end of the 2017″“2018 school year.

Address all the components contained in the acronym, and you’ll have a well-written goal for your student to work toward!

Orga­nize a system for collecting data

 
Golden identifies three main types of criteria used to measure goals:

• Rate: The student must repeat the task or behavior to demonstrate mastery. Example: Tarik will correctly complete 4 out of 5 assignments. Danae will correctly answer 15 single-digit addition facts within 5 minutes.
• Time: The student must complete the task within a specified time limit.
• Percentage: The student’s level of performance is measured relative to 100%. Example: Anna will give her correct phone number in 90% of the opportunities.

Remember to consider each student’s goals–and each individual child–before determining whether rate, time, or percentage is the best way to measure mastery.

Once you decide how your goals will be measured, you can keep track of them using a tool like Cindy Golden’s IEP Goal Data Sheet, a customizable form you can complete weekly to record progress for any type of IEP goal. The IEP Goal Data Sheet gives you space to list each goal, indicate which method of measurement you’re using, and track student progress on IEP goals for each day of the week. You can then record the student’s weekly total progress and compare it to the criteria for mastery.

Here’s an example of a completed IEP Goal Data Sheet for a student named June:

Goals and objectives are filled in on the left, and the specific methods used to measure each goal are indicated in the shaded gray column. As you can see, two of June’s IEP goals measure progress using percentages, her second goal uses a frequency count, and her last goal uses the number of prompts she is given to track her progress toward working independently for 10 minutes. June didn’t reach mastery level for any of her IEP goals during this week, but as the form indicates, she’s aiming for mastery by the end of the IEP year on May 2.

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Hope this post gave you some helpful tips for setting and measuring IEP goals and objectives. To learn more (and get a reproducible version of the IEP Goal Data sheet and many more data collection tools), check out Cindy Golden’s Data Collection Toolkit. Read the reviews and get a free excerpt at the link below!