Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
For a lot of teachers
, data really is a four-letter
word, and you know what?
I think that's really sadBecause, honestly, data is
probably my best friend when itcomes to teaching and when I
want something from myadministrators or I want a
(00:22):
specific result from a meetingthat I'm attending, data really
is my secret weapon and thisweek I want to talk to you about
how it can be yours too.
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
(00:46):
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.
Much for tuning in.
(01:08):
So for years I have been talkingabout advocating for the
benefits of data, datacollection, progress, monitoring
, all I mean.
There's a lot of differentwords for it, but the benefits
of data just a few of them arethat data helps with planning,
it helps with communication, ithelps with a lot of different
(01:28):
things, but most importantly, tome at least, it's how we
advocate for our students andmeaning.
That's how I've argued to getnew or better interventions or
services, accommodations,modifications, lots of different
placements, all sorts ofdifferent things for my students
(01:50):
, and data really is my secretweapon.
When it comes down to it Iguess it's not so secret now,
but it's true it's all aboutmaking sure that you're
presenting the data and doing itin an effective way.
It's one thing to stand and sit, I guess, in a meeting and say,
you know, 80% of my studentsneed help with, I'll just say,
(02:13):
fluency, sight word fluency.
I'll just stick with sightwords.
It's a completely differentthing to show it in a graph.
It makes more sense to peoplewho aren't sitting in your
classroom and who aren'tespecially to administrators.
When they're sitting inmeetings, they're not thinking
about the 18 or 25 students thatare specifically sitting in
your classroom.
They don't see the littlefrustrated faces of your
(02:38):
specific students when theycan't get these words down.
The administrators are thinkingabout the big picture.
You gotta communicate to themwith graphs so that you can show
no, no, here's the big picture.
80% of my students can't dothis skill and we need an
intervention for it.
(02:58):
And so using graphs just makesit so easy to make your case for
or against something and also,again, it makes it really hard
to argue or deny it.
It's really easy for a, I'll say, administrator.
You walk into their, you know,walk in to their office and say,
(03:20):
hey, I need a program that'sgoing to help me do a better job
of teaching sight words to mystudents and they go okay, why?
Why isn't what you're usingworking?
Are you using it right?
I don't think you're using itright.
We already you have it.
It's embedded in the curriculum.
(03:41):
You know that we gave you halfof and you don't have all the
copies and you have to share itwith your grade level.
But yeah, it's all embedded inthere.
What evidence do you?
Why do you need?
Why do you need something more?
That's not.
There's no money in the budgetfor that.
I've sat in meetings with that.
I've mishmashed a coupletogether, but I can remember
(04:02):
specific administrators sayingall of those things over the
years.
But when you come in with data,with that little graph that
shows that 80% of your studentsdon't they can't do sight words,
it's really, really, reallyhard for them to say there's no
room in the budget for that.
It's really hard to argue thatno administrator wants to say no
(04:27):
to an obvious need.
They really don't, even theworst administrators that you
have and I have had some dooziesover the years.
I will be honest If I went tothem with my data, especially
data over time, and showed this,for example, this student
(04:48):
behaviorally.
I do not have the resources tosupport this student effectively
and here's what I have done andthis is the result and the
reality is that I do not havethe manpower to do that, to
support this student in the waythat this student needs.
It's really, really hard foreven the administrators who
(05:09):
don't like you and don't theydon't, they don't like you, they
don't like you, they don't likeyou, they don't want you in
their school, for whateverreason.
It's really hard for them tosay no.
When you are bringing suchconclusive, objective data to
them, they can't say, well,you're not trying hard enough,
(05:31):
no.
Here's the long list of thingsthat I did and this is the
impact on the graph.
You see, it's not enough.
You can't argue with that.
And I love going in.
I'll be honest, I love goinginto meetings, even with the
people that don't like me.
I love going in knowing theycan't say no to me.
It's just I get.
(05:51):
Maybe I'm a horrible person,but I really like that.
So you know, with academics it'seasy to think of examples.
You know we.
There's so many ideas out therethat we know that our students
need support.
We know that Presenting that ina way that they can't say no to
(06:16):
that's really the secret saucewhen it comes down to advocating
for our students, for ourstudents.
You can't argue with the factthat the students have lost 45
hours this school year so far oflost instructional time because
(06:36):
this student over here doesn'thave the support that they need
and they're causing majordisruptions to the classroom.
You can't argue with that.
Yeah, we got to do something.
We got to do some supports.
We have to do something.
We forget a lot of the time insituations like that how data
can help us advocate withbehaviors.
(06:59):
I kind of gave you an exampleearlier, but I was able to
advocate, to argue for a betterplacement for a student whose
behaviors had improved.
They had they had improved Foracademics.
This student was in myclassroom and for behaviors, but
he had done so much work andhis behaviors were almost
(07:22):
non-existent.
They were at a range that wereit was.
I mean, quite frankly, thestudents in the gen ed
classrooms were more poorlybehaved than my student.
His academics were through theroof.
He was on grade level, if notabove, but because he had a
history of behaviors, he was ina self-contained room.
Using data I was able to showhey, even in a classroom where
(07:44):
other students are kicking offand having a hard time.
This student really should havean opportunity to be in gen ed
Over time again, because hedidn't have behaviors in the gen
ed classroom, we were able toget him into a placement where
he could academically succeedbecause he'd gotten what he
needed, you know, behaviorally,but he was able to do that.
(08:06):
But I was able to reduceservices for a student who
didn't need these high levelservices.
I was able to advocate for himto go out into more of an, you
know, an inclusion or a gen edsetting because of the data.
The flip side to that is I hadanother student who we really
couldn't no-transcript.
(08:39):
We had to work, I had to workreally hard and I had to learn
how to track that data.
Now, once I learned how to doit, it was a breeze.
Once I figured out how to do itand I'll tell you right now.
People that are asking teachersto please give us anecdotal data
I personally do not suggestviolence, except maybe on them.
(09:03):
Like I mean, I kind of want topunch them in the face Anecdotal
data.
So when you're a gen ed teacheror a special ed teacher,
doesn't matter.
Some behavior person says well,we need a lot of data.
I want you to write down allthe things that they did.
They don't mean to write a note, they don't mean paragraph form
, and if they do, they shouldn'tbe a behavior specialist person
(09:27):
.
Don't write a letter, don'twrite a novel every single day
of all the things that thestudent did or does.
That's not helpful.
When they say, hey, we need toknow how many, you know how many
instances of behavior thestudent had.
What you're going to do isyou're going to get yourself a
(09:47):
nice blank piece of paper andyou're going to think real hard
the night before and it's notgoing to be hard because you
will already have the examplesin your head and you're going to
make a list of the things thatthe student does and you're
going to you're going tocategorize those things and most
of the behaviors that you'regoing to see are going to be
attention seeking.
That's going to be stuff.
(10:09):
That's going to be like.
You know, they poke Billy sothat Billy makes a sound, or
they are, you know, tossing aball up in the air, their pencil
up in the air, tapping theirpencil or all sorts of you know
that kind of stuff.
There's also aggressivebehaviors where the student is,
you know, throwing thingsdirectly at you.
(10:29):
Know you the teacher?
There's physical aggressiontowards people where you know
they're trying to punch you inthe face.
There's those.
But you're going to see thatcategories kind of show up right
, and what you're going to do isyou're going to choose those.
You know two, maybe three, butusually two categories.
You're going to take a piece ofpaper the next day and every
(10:51):
time that that child throws aspit wad or throws a pencil or
whatever it is, you're going toput a tally mark in that box.
And every time that that childgoes to hit another child, or
they try to hit you or whateverit is, or they scream at you,
whatever it is, you're going toput a tally mark in that box.
(11:14):
You're not going to write anovel.
You're not going to do it andat the end of the day you are
going to put that data.
You're going to write the dateon there.
You probably take a picture ofit or make a copy of it and
you're going to put that sheetof paper into the behavior
person's mailbox at school andyou're going to walk your happy
butt home Because,congratulations, you just
(11:36):
collected the behavior data.
You did it, that's it.
That's all they need.
That's all they need.
They need to know that thatchild decided to throw things 40
times, that that child flippedtheir desk three times today.
That's what they need to knowand they don't need to know
(11:56):
every single the reason thatthey they threw the threw the
pencil and what you did and howeverybody responded.
Because the fact is they'regoing to do one observation and
they're going to see in yourclassroom what causes it, what
the triggers are, and they'regoing to see what happens as a
consequence.
(12:17):
It's going to happen when itcomes to data.
Get your numbers down and thosenumbers Now.
Don't fudge your data.
That's the other thing.
Yes, I have had teachers many atime fudge their data and it's
kind of obvious.
It's kind of it's reallyobvious when teachers are
(12:37):
fudging their data.
It always comes out, always,every single time it comes out,
because you'll get the data fromyou know it's always, it's
usually behavior data from youknow it's always, it's usually
behavior data.
But where the child somehowmanaged to throw the same number
of punches every day for a weekor three days in a row.
(12:58):
Statistically, that's not goingto happen, I'll be honest.
Or the child somehow has datafor am, for the morning block,
when the child didn't show up toschool until lunchtime.
Weird, right.
So, and again, behavior, people, behavior specialists when
they're collecting that data toyou know, create reports and all
(13:19):
that kind of stuff that showsup really fast, they figure it
out really fast and it puts aquestionable light on every
other piece of data that youshow.
So just don't do that, justdon't.
It's easier to not.
But aside from all of that,assuming that your data that you
(13:39):
are collecting is accurate andyou're professional, you're
going to do what's right.
You're going to put accuratedata on that.
Data is the key to advocatingfor your students.
You know what your studentsneed.
The problem is that thedecision makers don't understand
(14:02):
.
They communicate kind of likeour parents.
They communicate in acompletely different way and the
only way or I guess the bestway maybe not the only way, but
the best way to bridge that gapis through presenting data that
they can't argue with, because,again, they can argue with just
(14:25):
about anything else they reallycan.
They're really good at it.
Some administrators better thanothers or worse than others
with that, I should say.
But you can't argue with data.
You can't argue with the amountof time lost, learning loss
because this child was theclassroom had to be evacuated
(14:47):
because of a situation, or howmany missing assignments the
student has because they can'tread the material, or I mean the
possibilities are endless.
So I really I want to encourageyou to think about how you can
(15:07):
use data really to tell yourstory.
We talk a lot about what'sgoing on in our classrooms and
we give a lot of anecdotal data,but using data, cold, hard
numbers and facts to tell yourstory, it ups your chances so
(15:31):
much of getting what you need,getting what you want and, even
more importantly, getting whatyour students need.
So I want to encourage you thisweek and if you have questions,
you can always text me ormessage me through, you know,
facebook or Instagram, atTeaching Struggling Learners.
(15:51):
I'm always there.
You are more than welcome toask me questions about this and
I love helping out, especiallyif you've got some behavior
stuff going on, because I mean,next month we're going into
February and we know February isa rough month for behaviors and
all that.
So if you're, if you're havingissues.
You got questions, find me onInstagram, send me a message.
(16:14):
I'll be glad to chat it up withyou.
So, um, all that being said,next week we're going to start
talking about how to look atthose present levels of our IEPs
and how we can do a little bitbetter job of keeping them
present, so that you know theymake more sense.
So until next time, may yourcoffee be strong, your students
(16:38):
calm and, of course, yourstudents progressing.
Bye.