Mini Video Training Video 13 Let's talk data

Hi, I'm Sasha from The Autism Helper, and in this episode of the mini video training series, I'm going to talk about why data is important. Data should be the backbone of every classroom. It's something you probably hear a lot about and maybe have tried in your classroom, or maybe you're pretty good at taking data, but it's important to revisit why we're taking data. You don't want to just take data in your classroom because I told you so, or your administrator told you so, or you think you should. You want to be taking data in your classroom because you're utilizing that data. This data will give you so much important information about your students and your curriculum. It's so essential. Data is important because our opinions and our estimations are often inaccurate. We can't possibly memorize every single IEP goal and then memorize each student's student's progress on that IEP goal at any given moment. We just can't memorize that much. And when we estimate, we often over- or under-generalize those skills. We assume that, "Oh yes, Johnny's doing really well on this IEP goal and he can demonstrate this IEP goal in all of these settings and it's going so well," and maybe he is making a lot of progress, but we're assuming that he's farther along on the skill than he actually is. And this is potentially a little bit risky because he might struggle on those future skills as we get more and more complex in our curriculum. So maybe you're intimidated by the word data. Sounds a little fancy. Or maybe you're intimidated by the phrase data-driven instruction. That's thrown around the education world a lot. Data-driven instruction is actually something that you as a special ed teacher do naturally. Data is really just a nice way of saying what the student can currently do. It's the details. So in your head, replace the word data with details. And when we think about data-driven instruction, all that means is collecting information about what your student can do and what your student is struggling with, and then planning the next activities. That sounds like what you do on a daily basis, probably. So data-driven instruction isn't as complicated or as fancy as you might think. It's really just learning about your student, getting the details, and then planning activities according to that student's needs. So we need to collect data in order to plan future curricular decisions. I get asked all the time, "What should I work on next with this student?" or "I don't know what skills I still need to fill in," and my answer is kind of annoying. It's, "Well, what does the data tell us?" The data will tell us what skills this student needs to work on next. Because maybe a skill's not fully mastered, or once it's mastered, we'll know what next set of skills to go on with. So I mentioned that our opinions are sometimes inaccurate, and I think that the problem with our opinions as special ed teachers is we have this kind of risky trait of habituation. We get used to the norm real quick. I call this special ed nose blind. If you remember those Febreze commercials where the person in the commercial doesn't smell anything bad, and then someone comes in their car and it smells like a whole wet dog because the person that's driving the car doesn't smell that anymore, but someone that's entering the car will suddenly smell that wet dog smell. So I'm not saying that our classrooms smell like wet dogs, but we get used to things quickly. What's a bad day in September where you're running right home after work and telling your significant other that you're quitting your job, that same day happens in January and it's just another Tuesday. We get used to it, which is good. It prevents us from getting too burnt out, but we're not doing our kids any benefits. We're not giving them new positive pro-social skills. We're not reducing problem behaviors. We're just getting used to it or getting good at dodging punches. So we want to make sure that we're not relying on our opinions because our opinions can be inaccurate. We might think that our students are progressing in skill areas or decreasing their problem behaviors, but actually we've just learned to tune it out. We also want to be relying on data because we don't want to be unintentionally teaching half-mastered skills. We want to be ensuring that each concept we teach is fully mastered and fluent because as we go through teaching more and more complex concepts As we all know, concepts build on each other. We need to have a really strong knowledge of single-digit addition before we move on to double-digit or borrowing. So we want to build this house of academic knowledge on a strong foundation, and we need each layer to be really strong before we move on to the next one. So by collecting data, we're not assuming that a skill is mastered, we know it's mastered. So our kids will be less likely to struggle with that more complex skill. So go back to that house analogy every time you review your data and ensure that each layer is really, really strong. Don't rely on your opinions. Make sure that you're building a house on a foundation with no cracks and each skill is really fluent so your skill— kids will be ready for that big complex concept that you're teaching next. So we've been talking about data-driven instruction, which our mind immediately goes towards academics. Data-driven instruction also applies to behavior plans to reducing problem behaviors. What role does data play in that problem behavior reduction? Plays a really important role, and it needs to be thought of right from the start. It's tempting with a problem behavior, especially one that's potentially dangerous, to just jump right in with a strategy without collecting data first. Not only can this be really risky, but you can actually be making the problem behavior worse because you might be choosing a strategy that actually is counterproductive for that behavior. You need to first collect baseline data to determine where the behavior is starting off at and determine why the behavior is occurring. This baseline data will help you figure out why the behavior is happening, and you'll know where you're starting off. Then once you implement your strategy, your strategy will be function-based, plus you'll know if it's effective. You have to know where you started to know if you're making progress. If I walk into a classroom and someone's like, "Guess what, Sasha? This month we're only down to 5 meltdowns," I don't know whether to congratulate them or be like, "Oh, that kind of stinks," because I don't know what they started at. If you started at 10 meltdowns a month, awesome! But if you started at 6, Well, this behavior plan might be going in the wrong direction. So remember, when it comes to problem behavior, data first, strategy second. So maybe you are brand new to taking data. It's something that you know that you should be doing, but it's overwhelming to figure out where to start. Just jump in. Pick one thing to start taking data on. Pick one behavior to start focusing on and take baby steps toward becoming a data-driven instructor. Remember, relying on just your opinions alone is not going to have the most effective impact for your students. So just jump in and get going. Maybe you have some data systems set up in your classroom and it's going pretty well. Well, make sure that you're using that data to plan your curricular decisions. Set reminders in your phone to make sure to review data and use it to plan the next activities. Make sure that your data collection is really strong related to problem behaviors and that you're using data before selecting those strategies. If you're a data pro and you've got it going on in every area of your classroom, how are you presenting data to parents and administrators? Are you bringing data to your IEP meetings? Are you training your paraprofessionals to take data? Have you started using Google Forms yet? There's always ways we can make our data more effective and make sure that we're utilizing it in all areas of our classroom. So whether you're brand new or a veteran data collector, ensure that you're always thinking thinking about the why. Why am I taking this data? If you're not using it, there's really no purpose. You want to ensure that you're reviewing your data to see that progress and make those data-based decisions. So figuring out where the kid's at and what to do next, and feel confident in those decisions. When you switch to a new concept or you introduce a bigger, more complex skill to your students, you will know with certainty that they're ready. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the mini video training series on why data is important and why you should be doing data-driven instruction in your classroom. Please check out our video series on YouTube for more episodes related to data collection and other important classroom topics.