Data collection is a super important part of teaching, but so many teachers dread it! I promise you don’t have to.
There are ways to make the process simple, effective, and meaningful. I sat down with Rebekah Poe to chat about how to streamline the data collection process.
Rebekah Poe is an award-winning special education teacher and national teaching conference presenter. She has over a decade of experience in special education. As an educator, Rebekah believes all behavior is communication and all feelings are valid, and she focuses on providing equitable education and establishing connections to students of all ability levels in an inclusive setting.
In this episode of Real Teacher Talk, we discuss tips and tricks for how to streamline the data collection process, suggestions for collaborating with other team members to best support students, and ways to differentiate between academic and behavioral data collection.
Resources Mentioned:
Rebekah’s quick reference guide
Rebekah’s website
Additional Resources:
Register for the 3 PM Teacher Training at www.easyteachingtools.com/3pmteacher!
I would also appreciate it if you would leave me a review on Apple and a rating on Spotify!
I read each of them, and they help me make sure I am providing the content that you love to hear! Plus, you get to pay it forward because it will allow other teachers like you to find the podcast!
Click here to review, then select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review”.
Data collection is a super important part of teaching, but so many teachers dread it! I promise you don’t have to.
There are ways to make the process simple, effective, and meaningful. I sat down with Rebekah Poe to chat about how to streamline the data collection process.
Rebekah Poe is an award-winning special education teacher and national teaching conference presenter. She has over a decade of experience in special education. As an educator, Rebekah believes all behavior is communication and all feelings are valid, and she focuses on providing equitable education and establishing connections to students of all ability levels in an inclusive setting.
In this episode of Real Teacher Talk, we discuss tips and tricks for how to streamline the data collection process, suggestions for collaborating with other team members to best support students, and ways to differentiate between academic and behavioral data collection.
Resources Mentioned:
Rebekah’s quick reference guide
Rebekah’s website
Additional Resources:
Register for the 3 PM Teacher Training at www.easyteachingtools.com/3pmteacher!
I would also appreciate it if you would leave me a review on Apple and a rating on Spotify!
I read each of them, and they help me make sure I am providing the content that you love to hear! Plus, you get to pay it forward because it will allow other teachers like you to find the podcast!
Click here to review, then select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review”.
Kristen Donegan 00:03
Hey everybody, welcome back to real teacher talk, I am so glad that you are here. If you are a teacher right now who may be struggling with, you know, collecting data for your students who are receiving services, or maybe your students who you have concerns about, this is the episode for you because we have a special guest, Rebecca Paul, she's an award winning special education teacher and national teaching conference presenter, I think we've actually presented at some of the same ones as I was scrolling. And she also has over a decade of experience in special education. As an educator, Rebecca believes all behaviors, communication, and all feelings are valid. And she focuses on providing equitable education, and establishing connections to students of all ability levels, and an inclusive setting. So Rebecca, welcome.
00:54
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Kristen Donegan 00:57
Oh, I'm just reading that you sound absolutely amazing. So, um, well, let's chat before we get into data collection and all that stuff. What has your education or your teaching experience looked like up until this point?
01:14
Well, I actually never wanted to be a teacher going into it. That was not my plan. But you know, things have a way of happening for a reason. So I actually started my career as a paraprofessional. In a special education setting. I loved it, my principal encouraged me to go back and get my degrees. So I finished my bachelor's degree in English, my master's degree in collaborative education K six. So I had a little bit of a different journey into teaching than most but it's not one that I would trade I gained invaluable experience as a paraprofessional. And I think I learned more in my years as a payer that I did in my college
Kristen Donegan 01:59
accreditation classes. Oh, my gosh, I bet and see in my undergrad and credential and everything. I didn't know what a paraprofessional was, I actually didn't really hear about it up until maybe eight years ago. So that was not in the general education world. That wasn't something I heard of much. So are you a big advocate then for parents knowing exactly
02:24
what apps Absolutely. So my time as a parent, I did, almost just as much as the as the teacher did for the students. And usually parents do, we don't have to do the paperwork necessarily, or pairs. I keep saying we because I still, you know, they're still my people. Totally. Parents don't have to do as much of the paperwork, but the relationship with the students, the passion and the care that goes into working on those lessons, and working with those kids, that is just as emotionally involved as, as the teacher would be, apparently, is just as much, you know, a piece of that student's life and that student's success as the
Kristen Donegan 03:07
teacher. And this is a side note, but just when I think of the different parents I've had in my classroom, they are so underpaid, like not only for what they do, but just in general, like, I would just look at them like help. What can I do? Give me some resource? Like they're absolutely amazing.
03:25
Oh, for sure, for sure. And yeah, I mean, if we say teachers are underpaid parents in my area, make about half of a teacher salary for the same amount of hours worked.
Kristen Donegan 03:36
Yeah. And it's insane.
03:38
It's insane. Yeah.
Kristen Donegan 03:41
Well, back on topic a bit. Thanks for sharing about how you got started. Something I wanted to ask before we really got into this discussion, as I was talking with teachers is what is the correct terminology? Now I know, you know, teachers are like, Oh, my, my sped students or my students, but that's probably not correct anymore, right.
04:04
I've used that in the past as just an acronym for special education, because special education is such a long thing to say, but when referring to the students. Now, I might say a student with an IEP. Okay, rather than labeling the student as sped or special ed or anything like that, just they're a student that's in your class, who has an IEP they're involved in special education.
Kristen Donegan 04:31
What would you say then for the teachers because so often you see like the gen ed teacher or the sped teacher what, what is the correct way so we can all make sure we're being super inclusive as well in our own schools.
04:44
I've always heard special education teacher or exceptional education teacher, data collection, Rockstar is one that I tend to prefer. All right, go along those lines inside.
Kristen Donegan 04:58
All right, that's just something I've been seeing more and more of and it's changed a lot in the last couple of years, and I haven't been in the classroom then. So I want to make sure that I'm, you know, using the appropriate, appropriate word. So we brought you on, we were talking to teachers who were saying they really, really struggle with collecting data. And I know no matter what your classroom looks like, as teachers, there's just so much to collect for all of the things. Why do you think data collection is so challenging for teachers?
05:33
Well, I think it's almost the way it's presented to teachers as Oh, you have to collect this data, but then you're not really given any sort of specifications for how that needs to be done, or any parameters of how that needs to be done. It's just make sure you do it. And then, you know, first year teacher, Rebecca was like, okay, but what does that look like? How often do I do it? And I remember thinking I needed to do data collection and progress monitoring every day. Like, if you didn't have data on it, did it really happen. And that's something here on education. So I was, I was doing the data, I was collecting all of the information, and I was exhausted, I then my students were burnt out, and I was burnt out. And it's so much pressure is put on there. But there's not really a lot of teaching, for now, for people in college who are going to be teachers, for student teachers, for first year teachers, there's not a lot of examples of what that actually looks like when you apply it to a classroom.
Kristen Donegan 06:39
Yeah. Totally. They're like, you just need to make this better. But how and you're like, but how? Yeah. Now? In your opinion, why do you think it is so important to collect data? Without
06:55
the data, you don't know if something is working, or if something is not working, you can't really see the games that a student might have made? You know, sometimes I will be looking at assessment scores. And then I have to go back and look at previous assessments. I'm like, oh, no, we've made quite a good bit of progress, this student has come a long way compared to where they were, that data is what's going to drive our instruction. It's what we use to determine if accommodations are working appropriately, if different strategies that are in place are working or not working. At times that can be you know, does a student need to be referred for special education testing? That data is what has to drive all of those decisions that we're making in the classroom?
Kristen Donegan 07:41
So what would you say to the teacher who's like, Okay, this is great, I have a couple of students and mine, but how in the world do I even fit this in? On top of everything else?
07:51
So the very first thing that you need to really look at is, what are you trying to collect data on? You know, you don't want to pick a very broad skill like reading, I'm going to collect reading data, okay, well, what kind? Are you doing fluency? Are you doing decoding and coding, comprehension, there's so many different facets of that it's got to be something specific. So before you even really get into data collection, you want to look at the goals that you're setting for the students, and probably every teacher who is listening or who is watching, right now has heard the term smart goals, or is that specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. So whatever goal that you have set for that student needs to hit all of those marks. So a specific goal, you know, we want little Johnny to get better at reading words with consonant blends. At the beginning of the word, measurable, we want to know, you know, by a certain percentage, like this goal will be considered achieved when they're at 95%. Accuracy. Four out of five times achievable needs to be something that makes sense for the student. If you have a student in first or second grade, make sure that that goal is something that's attainable for a first or second grade student. It's not going to make sense for a student in special education in second grade to be reading at 100% on grade level, because chances are, if they were doing that, they would not be in special education. Make sure that when you're setting that goal, it's got to be right on that line of challenging enough, but still attainable. And the same with relevancy. You want to make sure that it's something relevant to the general education curriculum and time bound you want to have by a certain date. So typically for our IEPs we go by calendar year instead of school year, so we might be working on something from December of 2021 to December 2022. So we know it within that year. We want the student to be at this percentage, this number of timed out of this number within the year. So when you're looking at what you're going to be collecting data on, start with that goal, know exactly what you're going to be collecting the data about. And that will kind of help shape the tools that you'll end up using for progress monitoring.
Kristen Donegan 10:20
So when you say all that, I'm having thoughts in my head, like I sat in a bazillion IEP meetings, for me, as the teacher who's with this child most of the time, what, what would you say then to take back from that IEP meeting with that SMART goal? What would you say? Like maybe your next steps would be as that teacher,
10:46
so it wouldn't even necessarily have to be an IEP goal. If you've got a student that's in the MTS s process or the PST, that referral, kind of initial, tier two, tier three intervention, any kind of goal for that, but I would I would start by looking at that goal and seeing, okay, if this is the goal, where do we, like, you know, where the end is? You got to kind of plan backwards, like, what are the skills they need to get to that goal, you're not just going to teach that one thing, but it's kind of going to build one thing on top of another to get to that point where the student is able to meet that goal.
Kristen Donegan 11:27
Awesome. I think that'll be really helpful for teachers were like, Okay, great. But then as
11:31
as an example of that, if we've got a student who is, let's say the goal is long division. Well, for long division, you also need to know multiplication facts, you need to be able to subtract two digit numbers, possibly with regrouping or whatever the term is. Now I don't think regrouping is used anymore in the third grade world, but I only teach second. So I'm not really highly when it's a second to the big kids. Goodness, much for me. But yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of things that build up to a certain skill. So go back and look at what those activities are and what their skills are that those kids are going to need to work on to get to where they need to be.
Kristen Donegan 12:10
I love that. And then what would you say to teachers who like that's awesome, but like, when do I do it? How do I how do I make it simpler so that I'll actually do it.
12:22
So unlike me, like first year, teacher, Rebecca, I do not recommend collecting data every single day, that was a bit excessive, even sometimes, once a week might be a little bit much depending on what the goal is. And really, frequency of when you're going to collect the data is going to depend on what type of goal it is whether it's academic or behavioral. So for my academic goals, currently, we progress monitor every 10 days, so don't go to school weeks, because we want to work, we're gonna have time to work on the skills, you know, we're not just going to get a reading passage every day. To check our fluency, they need to be taught how to read more fluently, which includes being able to decode words quickly, and understand the onset and rhyme and letter sounds and everything that goes into reading fluency. It's not just being able to read fast, it's knowing how, so that you can increase your speed. So for that we usually do about every two weeks, that way, we've had time to work on the skill that lead up to it. And I can see within those two weeks, okay, is this working? Is it not working? Are there some things I need to tweak or change our words with digraphs, the biggest problem that they're struggling with, and then I make a plan for the next week or so. And then we go from there. For behavior goals, it's really going to depend on how often that behavior is occurring. So if I have a student who is coming into the classroom every day, and demanding that he has snack at 830 in the morning, and that's an everyday thing, then I can collect data on that every day if I need to. But if I have a student who struggled in art class, which is once a week, then I'm not going to be able to collect data every day, it's gonna have to be when the behavior occurs
Kristen Donegan 14:15
on it. Sorry, my mind. Since having my baby, my mind just blinks out so many
14:25
times, it doesn't get better. My daughter is 10. And I I still struggle.
Kristen Donegan 14:32
Oh my gosh, it's yeah, it gets worse. Each kill. Yeah, it's the wildest thing. When you're talking about collecting data, something that I wish I had from the different teams I worked with, and I know I didn't give you this question ahead of time, but I'd love to touch on it. How or is it reasonable to ask teachers to kind of like share, like, what are you guys doing? Get on this week, or what's your focus this month so that I know, in my classroom that I can kind of reinforced that?
15:07
Absolutely. So I taught middle school for two years, and God bless middle school teachers, it was not for me. But what I love is that several of the teachers would work together and make things a little more cross curricular, so that the students were getting like kind of double whammy, you know, what we were working on in what they were working on in social studies, we could take back and work on in the ELA class, and then science and math kind of the same thing. Or if you're reading an article for science and researching something, apply those same skills in the ELA class. So yeah, absolutely. If you can make something cross curricular and make it make sense that makes it more relevant to the student because they understand how it's going to be needed in multiple environments, not just oh, this is something I need enough for science class, it's oh, this is something that makes sense in a variety of areas of life. Students are well by and more to that. But then also you have that CO teacher kind of mindset with you to where you're both working on something you can share what's working and what's not. And just kind of really double team, that academic setting and that student to make sure that they are understanding it a little bit more in a broader sense.
Kristen Donegan 16:20
I love that. Because I think it's so separate as it is right now. It's just like, it feels like you just send your students off and no idea what's happening. And then they just cruise on back to the classroom. I'm like, you just Yeah, I would. I would love that. So what would a way be to bring that up? To the team? Like, I mean, is there even a capacity to be able to do that?
16:45
I think so I like to talk to my gen ed teachers about what they're working on, just so that I can kind of bring it into the resource room as well, because in my resource room, we're working on specific IEP goals. But their reading curriculum, they they've actually been discussing mythology this week, and I had one of one of the students who just thought the story of Poseidon was the neatest thing he'd ever heard. And I told him today, I said, you're going to glue this picture beside this one. And he's like, Oh, beside kind of sounds like Poseidon. And so we had a whole discussion about that. And I think like Poseidon was the, one of the gods of the sea and fish, and we're working on diagraph. So that tied right into it. And he was like, This is so cool. They can just anytime you can take what they're already working on and bring it in, they're gonna get excited about that. They're gonna they're gonna like it a lot. Totally. Well,
Kristen Donegan 17:42
thank you for that suggestion. Um, what are the differences? You mentioned academic data and behavioral data for those who may not know what are the differences.
17:52
So the academic data is going to be like your reading your math. And then behavioral, it could be, you know, social skills, functional skills, which it's, it can also be separate from behavior, but it's going to be more interactive, more of what the student is doing, not doing that they need to be, so that they can progress through the curriculum. If you have a student who is really struggling with organizational skills, and not turning in homework that's going to affect them in the classroom. So they might need specific strategies taught to them about how to organize their supplies. And you'll need to collect data on that, you know, how often did Susie bring in her notebook and her pencil like she's supposed to? Did she bring it today? Did she not bring it today and kind of keep track of that, and see if the strategies are working and strategies could be using a planner or having a list on her, I had a student that I had a list that I laminated and put on the ring of her backpack, like the zipper part. So she could see for each class what she needed. And she would just check that in between her classes in her locker, grab what she needed, and then went to the next one. So she wasn't having to remember everything. She had a checklist to look at. And that worked
Kristen Donegan 19:08
pretty well for her. What would you say to the teacher who's listening who isn't in the resource room? But it's like the main string teacher? Are they collecting data as well on every time you know, a student brought in? I don't know their homework, or is that more? Not in their scope? It would be
19:29
and what I've done in the past when I needed gen ed teachers to collect data for me is I'll have a Google form. And I created a QR code for the Google Form. So when they when they turn in homework they could the teacher would take it like open up a camera on their phone, scan the QR code, fill out the form homework brought today no homework brought today. That way I'm getting the data that I need without you know, I might not necessarily be in the classroom with them because when I did In middle school, I only did math and English classes. So I wasn't in science. I wasn't in social studies. But there was still some data that I needed those teachers to collect for me because I wasn't in there. So the Google Forms helped out a lot. It was very convenient. We Yeah, paper that had to travel back and forth. If you can put something online and save the trees, I am all for that. And that's something I mean, yet, it is.
Kristen Donegan 20:27
That makes so much sense. I feel like as a teacher just thinking, Oh, I can do this real quick and remembering to take notes and then having to get those to you. That just seems like that helps the process. Be a bit easier. Do you have some other ideas or things to make data collection? Simpler? Or no, we did I say, Did I ask that one?
20:47
I'm sure I did put together a list of some free and paid sites that are good for data collection. If you want me to go over some of the
Kristen Donegan 20:57
let's do it, then I did not ask that. But yes, let's do alright. So
21:03
one of the first sites, this is free, and I use it for collecting math data. It's called 99 math.com. And I'm not affiliated with any of these, like, I'm not, there's no affiliate link, there's no use this code. This is just stuff that I have found that I want to share. So 99 math.com is a great way to collect math data, I can set it to whatever skill we're working on. My sixth graders were obsessed with multiplication facts, because it's gamified. So they're competing against each other to see who can get the most right, who can get the most points. But what I love about it is that at the end, it automatically generates a report, so I can see what mistakes were made, I can see how quickly they were able to answer each question, you know, that helps me know about automaticity? Like, did they actually know it? Like off the top of their head? Or did they have to figure it out? And that's a free site. And I've used it with elementary, middle school. Everybody seems to love it that I've used it with and I love the data that it gives me. I love
Kristen Donegan 22:09
that it sounds like how prodigies to be, huh? Yeah, yeah.
22:14
Um, another one is easy. cbm.com. And that one, they have a paid version and a free version, the free version, generates progress monitoring graphs, and has item level reports and progress monitoring assessments. And then the paid version also has benchmark assessments. And then Spanish translation allow or for math for math problems and Spanish audio. And that if you pay for it, it's $49 a year. For like argon, though. Yeah, like it's, it's practically nothing and a bit, you know, you get your school to pay for it, right. And it's done. And it generates the graphs and puts everything into the tables. It's fantastic. And it's they do have the, the free version, and then there's a paid teacher version. And then there's even like a district level version, but I have not looked into that. But like, everything just kind of builds on it. Awesome. Another one for reading that I really like is readworks.org. And so they have the free printable worksheets. They also have digital classes where the students log in and participate with the class that way. And when they do that, it does automatic progress reports and automatic grading that the teacher can go in and access. Yeah, so instead of giving a worksheet, getting it that grading all of it, documenting the data that way, they do it on the computer, and it's done. It's done for you.
Kristen Donegan 23:50
Very cool.
23:52
And then one more paid version is es Gi. And it is kind of like the gold standard of online progress monitoring tools. It's pricier it's 235 a year. But it automate automated charts, graphs reports literally 1000s of different progress monitoring assessments that are ready made, you can also customize your own and it's for any kind of goal you can imagine. I love
Kristen Donegan 24:25
that I see that all the time and I always see like kindergarten teachers promoting it. It's not just kinder, right?
24:30
No, no, it's not it can be the highest I've seen it used would be like upper elementary, but I think it might be good for middle school too. But I know through like K five teachers, this would be really something to look into.
Kristen Donegan 24:47
Well, thank you for sharing. We will link all of these for you guys in the show notes too. So you can have access to those. It's worth it. I feel like these days I always say this if I don't think teachers should have to spend Manny and I spent so much in my classroom. And it's so hard sometimes not sometimes, most of the time to convince anyone to give you money to pay for things. But sometimes I feel like at the end of the day, if it's saving me time, and how often you're using our resource, right, that's so worth it.
25:17
Absolutely. So that that easy. CBM, I think is like, up to 200 students a year. So like, you're, it's not like you have to buy multiple licenses like it's, it's real, it's really good. And it's only 49 If you do the paid version, but the free version is just as good. So use the free version and you love it, check in checking to see if your if your school will purchase the
Kristen Donegan 25:40
the paid version. Very cool. Thank you. I'm gonna take a peek at that when you're done today. This is something we talked a lot about inside our program, easy organization tools, and it's the big challenge I hear most teachers having right now is what can they do if a student right now is displaying challenging behaviors, or unexpected behaviors, but they don't have an IEP in place? Maybe they're just starting here in California, we call it SST, but like just starting the process, what do you do until you get some help?
26:20
Unfortunately, I'll get to like his document, document, document, collect that data, use use the tools and the strategies that we talked about earlier today and document everything. Note, you know how many times you have to redirect the student because when, and if they do come up for referral for special education, you want to have that data ready to go for that special education teacher as quickly as possible. And if you've got, if you've got months worth of data, you don't have to start the process. When the referral comes in, you're ready to go. Just be patient, don't take it personally, most of the time, you know, those behaviors that we see are the result of something that we don't see. And don't go into it thinking, you know, this child is doing this on purpose, because they're probably not they're not. They there's other Yeah, not there's other there's other influencing factors that that come into play, and they are trying to communicate something, one thing you could do is look at a behavior function assessment, like the function of the behavior and try to determine, you know, are they doing it because they're trying to access something? Are they doing it because they need attention are they trying to avoid? And that will just kind of help give you an idea of the function of the behavior. And then you can look into some strategies that relate to each of those functions. And I actually just created a resource for that for some teachers, I'd put a poll on my social media account of people, like what did they want to see. And overwhelmingly, it was strategies for behavior in the classroom. Yeah, so I have a quick reference guide, and includes a very short function assessment, and then strategies and interventions for each type of function that you can utilize in the classroom. And it's not to take the place of a full functional behavior assessment or behavior intervention plan, but it's at least something to kind of get the ball rolling and let you kind of get an idea of, you know, what the function could be in some ways to reinforce a positive behavior that serves the same type of
Kristen Donegan 28:31
function, who will get that link from you as well. So teachers can purchase that I wished I had something like that in the classroom instead of just struggling because one of my big frustrations as a teacher was I wasn't taught how to, you know, support students, maybe who had extra needs or who had behaviors that were not your typical behaviors. I don't know if that's the right word, but I just I'm like help, can someone help and everyone just seems so overloaded with their case loads and things that it just sometimes felt like you were drowning, because I just didn't have the tools. Yeah. And so that would be that would have been really, really helpful to have a place to go and then to recognize, like, I'm not alone. And this is not alone. And here's what we can do to support in the meantime, and not even just in the meantime. But I mean, it's just best practice no matter what
29:27
right for sure. For sure.
Kristen Donegan 29:30
That's really helpful because you're probably seeing it then to just so many teachers are struggling. Well, that kind of goes to my question. I went out of order a little bit, but um, what kind of support is there for teachers? Well, this was, I guess, my frustration, who really want to support their students but aren't necessarily trained.
29:52
My biggest piece of advice for that is to talk to the students case manager.
Kristen Donegan 29:57
What if there isn't even one yet if there isn't
29:59
one? yet, still maybe talk to that special education teacher, if the behaviors are that significant, they're probably on the radar, so to speak. Just say, Hey, this is what I'm seeing in the classroom, do you have any strategies for that. And usually, I mean, I know for me personally, I am always willing to help out the Jenner teacher, even if it's not a student that we share. Because there is there's so much that goes into, and you've got 30 kids in the classroom, and five of them are displaying high need behaviors. I want to do everything that I can to help that teacher and to help those students. So talk to that special education teacher reach out to your co workers and say, Hey, what's working for you? What's, what's not working, collaborate with each other. Look into some trainings, possibly I know, the Bureau of education research offers a lot of information and like one day professional development training events that are related to behavior and self regulation strategies. And they're not very expensive. My school has paid for me to go to a few of those before, and most of them are virtual now, because of COVID. So it's a lot easier to get access to that kind of information.
Kristen Donegan 31:27
All right, that would be helpful, because I just know, people are struggling right now. And they say the last couple of years, it's even more challenging than in the past. So this is, I guess, sort of on the same topic as well, what are the best ways that teachers can advocate for their students? When maybe admin isn't on board? And maybe they're not on board because of funding or budgets? Or I've had them say, Well, no, this this child's, you know, an English language learner. So like, that's the issue when you're like, No, they can be both. What would you say to them?
32:09
Have the data? I know it keeps going back to that, but argue, though, it's true. If you have data to support what you're saying, then it's not just your opinion. It's factual. It's based on something other than a feeling or a reaction. If you go to your admin and say, I've been doing this specific intervention for this long, these are the results. It's not working. So we tried this intervention, are this long, these were the results. It also didn't work. They can't really say, Oh, well, what if you haven't been doing what you need to be doing? Because you've got the documentation that yes, you have, there's something else going on with that student. So if you've got that data, and that documentation, you're setting yourself up for success, and you're sending that student that perceives that's because you're showing what has worked, what has not worked. And you can't you can't argue with a piece of paper.
Kristen Donegan 33:16
They'll try though, sometimes they'll
33:19
know that you've gotten the data on your side.
Kristen Donegan 33:23
It's true. And for those teachers who are listening, you're like, well, that that sounds a lot. I'm very old school and I just had a notebook and I just documented behavior stuff. I'm seeing it the carpet or like what you know, what's happening, why it's happening day and time. And I just had kind of like a running record of, of things so that when I saw name, keep popping up. That's when I'd say hey, I think there's a concern. And I'd reach out to my grade level, and to admin and to their caregivers to say, Hey, I'm seeing some of these things. Are you noticing any of this at home? What has worked for you so that we're starting to work together? Right away? Instead of waiting for that? Yes,
34:03
yeah, that initial collaboration, I always reach out to parents at the beginning, you know, just to say who I am what I'm going to be doing. Have that positive interaction first, and you building that team that way? If there is a concern that comes up later, or a problem that comes up later, you have that positive relationship to fall back on, and the family knows that you're expressing concern and not judgment,
Kristen Donegan 34:28
totally that you're in it for the interests like best interests of their child or you're not just there to complain or like lately, point things out, you just know it's can be really frustrating for that child. And you want to help them as soon as possible. Well, thank you for all the work that you do with teachers and with students and doing what you can to support them. I know it's so necessary always but especially the last couple of years. Um, I wanted to play a quick game that I do with guests that I it's just a quick word association. Okay, the top thing that comes to your mind that's it just a little fun.
35:14
Nervous, okay?
Kristen Donegan 35:15
It's nothing bad. But I probably the same way I'm not great on the spot. Puppies, dogs dress up days.
35:27
Exhausting, right? Oh goodness. Except for pajama day I will do pajama day, every day of the week for the rest of my life but the costumes together
Kristen Donegan 35:37
we had one week it was like two or three straight weeks of spirit week and I
35:45
was in Red Ribbon Week and the high school homecoming and the middle school homecoming and like I am out of amount of dress up days please don't please dress up anymore.
Kristen Donegan 35:54
And I'm a parent now and so my daughter has to dress up and like I'm never gonna make anyone dress up again.
36:01
No, my salon I'm a teacher. My husband's a teacher I have a fourth grade daughter and dress up days we walk out of the house looking like some kind of hot
Kristen Donegan 36:11
like what happens I always think what happens if I get pulled over today All right. Next word rigor mortis expected that pineapple on pizza throwing
36:31
what watched a lot of CSI growing up
Kristen Donegan 36:35
that's a good show. That was a good one.
36:38
That out don't show that to anybody.
Kristen Donegan 36:43
pineapple on pizza. Well,
36:46
no thank you people feel
Kristen Donegan 36:47
so strongly about it. Yes,
36:50
I don't I cannot do
Kristen Donegan 36:52
no lace Yeah, I
36:54
love it. My husband does I cannot I pick it off but then even like it's still got the flavor. It's just it's it's infected and infected piece of pizza. And I can't eat
Kristen Donegan 37:06
all right, last one bus duty cold because it's cold. Are you okay?
37:14
It will be it will be so you've got just knowing that it's coming because I'm a southern girl. We like our warm weather. We like our sunshine. But every winter we have like one month where it's just freezing for no reason we never get snow. It's just cold and you just stand there and you you're shivering and the children are shivering and then you've got the one kid who doesn't have a jacket you give him yours and then you're really shivering and it's just we do it because we got to keep the kids safe but my goodness it's probably my least favorite.
Kristen Donegan 37:47
See that I moved here we don't have less duty because we don't have buses in California really? No they stopped those can the last recession like 2009 ish. Wow, no, no bus. Oh, but instead of us is then you have carpool duty where you're opening the car doors and the whole thing and that yeah, takes forever. So that's no fun either. All right. Well, Rebecca, thanks so much for joining. Can you let everyone know where they can find you to connect? Yes,
38:16
so I am on social media as Rebecca Poe teaching I was formerly lessons in lattes so if you are following lessons in lattes, you'll notice the name change so you recently changed it that I did I actually changed it over the weekend. Oh my God, because people would people recognize lessons and lattes. But then they didn't recognize my name. People would say Oh, Rebecca Oh, and they'd be like who? Oh, you know, lessons and lattes and then Oh, yeah. Okay. I get it. I wanted to use my name. I want people to know who I am. Awesome. Well, social media Rebecca teaching and then website Rebecca teaching.com.
Kristen Donegan 38:56
Perfect. We will leave all those links for you guys as well. But Rebecca, thank you so much for being here. We really remember
39:02
having made it. I enjoyed it.
Kristen Donegan 39:04
Thanks. Bye.
39:06
Bye.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
student, teachers, data, classroom, behavior, special education, collect, progress monitoring, rebecca, goal, reading, strategies, working, data collection, education, year, struggling, class, specific, poseidon