#78: Rethinking Math Goals and Maximizing Progress Monitoring in IEPs

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Ever found yourself tangled in the complexities of math goals within IEPs, particularly those pesky word problems? You're in for a revelation as we tackle the misconceptions and unveil a more strategic approach. Word problems have been the go-to for encompassing multiple skills, but as I've experienced firsthand, this method isn't the golden ticket we thought it was. Through an eye-opening discussion, learn how I pivoted from using word problems as catch-all goals to focusing on specific foundational skills, leading to crystal-clear objectives and remarkable student progress. We'll dissect the essence of crafting math goals that truly cater to the needs of struggling learners and leave those overly broad targets behind.

Hold onto your calculators, because this episode is also your gateway to mastering progress monitoring in math. I'm thrilled to share a math progress monitoring bundle that's been a game-changer in my teaching arsenal, and you won't want to miss the free guide I've put together. It's a succinct five-step walkthrough to kickstart your progress monitoring journey with confidence, tailored to fit even the most jam-packed academic schedules. Discover how to harness the power of focused, strategic intervention, and give your students the boost they need to excel in math, all without the overwhelm. Join us for this enlightening conversation and equip yourself with the tools to make measurable strides in your students' math abilities.

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Links Mentioned in the Show:

https://teachingstrugglinglearners.com 

5 Steps to Getting Started with Progress Monitoring

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Many times when we talk about math progress
monitoring goals, we tend todefault to using word problems
as our main goal.
The thought is that it's goingto allow for practice, right in
the target skill, other skillsand word problems which, let's
face it, there are.

(00:22):
I mean most students.
If they're struggling in math,they are struggling in word
problems, right?
So it sounds great.
We'll make our goal be for wordproblems and all these other
goals.
You know, all these otherskills, we will practice that.
When we practice our wordproblems, we're hitting, you
know, 20 birds with one stone.

(00:42):
That sounds, that's absolutely.
It sounds great, right.
Is that actually the best wayto go?
Let's talk about that today.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis of Teaching Struggling
Learners.
I'm a boy-mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning in.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
All right.
So hands up and I wouldabsolutely be putting my hands
up not that long ago.
Hands up if you feel personallyattacked when I said maybe word
problems for math aren't theway to go.
Yeah, just about all of us putword problems in for our goals,

(01:47):
don't we?
That's, I mean, probably thesingle most common IEP goal that
I have seen and I have read alot of IEPs, and under that goal
are so many other differentskills, right?
So if you, if you're feelingpersonally attacked because I'm

(02:08):
kind of coming at word problemsas math goals, you're not alone
and, believe me, it's not apersonal attack, it is a hey, we
need, we really need to startthinking a little bit more,
because when we're putting ourword problems in there as our
goals, as our main goal, we'reactually making more work for

(02:30):
ourselves.
So, yeah, let's talk about that.
So if you, if you listen to thepodcast last week, you know we
discussed the MTSS progressmonitoring IEPs.
Take your pick.
They are generally focused onreading, that's, that's the big
focus, right?
But we know that there are alot of kids struggling with math

(02:52):
.
So, again, check out lastweek's episode for steps that
you can take to help yourstudents who are struggling in
math, and of course, we're goingto talk more about that in the
coming weeks, but you can alwayscheck out last week's episode,
for you know step by steps onhow to do that.
So this week I want to talkabout the fact that, you know,

(03:16):
since a big part of progressmonitoring is setting high
quality goals, I thought thatbefore we got into too in depth
in this topic, we should reallytalk about this before we get
into the intervention system asa whole.
So if you've followed me forany length of time, you know I

(03:38):
am borderline hyper focused.
Okay, I'll admit it, I'm notborderline, I am.
I am hyper focused on makingsure that the most foundational
skill deficit is identified, andthat's where we progress
monitor.
You're probably sick of hearingme talk about the most basic
skill deficit, but I am.
That is, that is, that's my,that's my Roman empire, that is,

(04:02):
that is where I'm at.
So there we are.
Yeah, you know how focused,hyper focused, because
Absolutely obsessed with findingthe most basic skill deficit
and making our goals on that,right right on that.
So it may surprise you to knowthat I used to write word

(04:24):
problem goals for kids that werestruggling with addition
fluency, multiplication, fluencyoh goodness, adding decimals,
all sorts of things.
That was my go-to.
That was that.
That was how I wrote a lot ofmy math goals and the reason was

(04:46):
just like what I talked aboutin the intro Earlier.
It just makes sense You'regonna work on word problems,
which you know are difficult,but then you get to work on
these other things too, and it'sjust this beautiful umbrella
and it just wraps it up and itlooks so pretty and wonderful,
and that that was the way I didit Course.

(05:10):
Then, when it came time to meactually collecting my data, it
meant that I was trying toprogress, monitor so many
different things and the focusof my intervention time it was
cloudy.
I Because I was okay.
I have to make sure that mystudents are working on word
problems and that's vocabularystuff that they have to do.

(05:32):
But part of that vocabulary isUnderstanding how to write the
number sentence correctly basedon those words.
But then, oh, my goodness, theydon't even know how to add
fluently and multiply fluentlyor subtract, or goodness, oh,
divide, oh, oh.
That makes me night, that makesmy head hurt.
They can't do those things.

(05:52):
So then, even if they wrote theproblem correctly.
They couldn't do the problemcorrectly and so my entire goal
was just like so.
So the results I couldn't workon fixing, on helping them learn

(06:15):
how to do word problems, solveword problems, because the
prerequisite skills weren't done.
And I was just Beside myselfbecause my goal, my end goal,
was that they would be able to,you know, solve 80% of the word
problems correctly or whateverit was.
There was no way that mystudents were ever going to meet

(06:36):
that goal because they didn'thave the prerequisites goal, the
prerequisite skills to meetthat goal, and so my results
were Cloudy.
The information that I wastrying to provide was cloudy.
My results were At the end ofthe day, my results was my
students made less progress andthat hurts my heart that I have

(07:01):
to say that, but that's thereality.
Because my goal was sobeautiful and wrapped up in such
a beautiful umbrella of things,I Couldn't focus my time and my
students didn't get the benefitof focused intervention time.

(07:23):
The fact is, it feels right, itfeels good to go with the word
problems and you're hittingmultiple birds with one stone
and all that stuff, but it bitesus, it really bite, and it
bites you hard when you'reyou're actually there and you're
having to explain.
Well, yeah, I mean, you know wereally still need there's still

(07:44):
working on word problems.
We've been working on wordproblems for four years.
Well, we're still working onthem Because we can't make
progress, because the goal isn'twhat it should be.
So, being focused on the mostfoundational skill, it means

(08:04):
that the supports and theinstruction is focused on one
thing Allowing the kids to makemore progress Much more quickly.
And that's when you see theincrease in confidence, we see
the increase in motivation, wesee the increase in
Participation, all the shuns.

(08:26):
It's beautiful because they getto see progress, they get to
feel like they're doing better.
We're not just beating ourheads against the same brick
wall every single session,because we're actually working
on the part of their skilldeficit, that they're ready to
make progress on Some more focusgoals.

(08:50):
Some some examples right,because it's it's it's painful,
it is.
It's painful to step away for astep away, step away from the
word problem goal.
But some examples could becorrectly complete 20 addition
problems in one minute, okay.

(09:10):
Or identify place value to10,000.
Given a number, add two digitnumbers with regrouping, with
90% accuracy, 100% accuracy.
However you want to do it, allthose types of things that are
Much more focused in that.

(09:31):
Don't that aren't a beautifulumbrella, that all of those
things?
When we hyper focus in on themost foundational skill deficit,
that's when our students aregoing to make leaps and bounds
of progress, progress.
So you, if you are looking forprogress monitoring materials to
help with math, I do have amath progress monitoring growing

(09:55):
bundle.
I'll put it in the show notesfor you.
But the fact is, whether youwant that or not, if you're
getting ready to get intoprogress monitoring, I want to
highly encourage you to checkout my five steps to start
progress monitoring.
It is free.
I'll put the link in the shownotes but it is absolutely a.

(10:16):
It's the first step.
It is the way that you get intoprogress monitoring confidently
and comfortably.
It's got everything that youneed to jump in and feel
confident in your own abilitiesto do that.
In the meantime, I hope thatyou are having a wonderful week

(10:39):
and may your coffee be strong,your students calm and your
administrators forgiving,because this time of year is
absolutely crazy.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Bye.