SPP 044: Progress Monitoring Part Two Show Notes

In this episode, effective methods for monitoring progress of both learning and social behaviors are discussed. Tips for developing meaningful goals and approaching their assessment are given with illustrations.

Progress monitoring helps teachers and parents stay on track, use effective interventions and assess outcomes.

The latest podcast episode focused on the topic of progress monitoring. We introduced the concept of progress monitoring and discussed how to go about setting up goals in an effective way.

Unfortunately, problems with interventions are often due to poor goal setting or even neglecting to set goals. To review from my previous episode, you should

1) Set goals that are specific, achievable and measurable.
2) Monitor progress to assess effectiveness of instruction and to inform decisions about changing instruction.
3) Use multi-tiered intervention levels to match the intensity of instruction in a system (school) to the needs of the students. Some students get less intense instruction and some get more intense instruction, with a continuum of intensity levels.

It is not enough to talk about learning or social behaviors in a vague manner. If we want to lose weight we might talk about calories or pounds. If we want to stop drinking, we might talk about days of sobriety.

In psychology, there are different dimensions of behavior which also relate to learning behaviors. There is the most commonly focused dimension of topography. This is a description of how the behavior looks to an observer. However, this can be broken down into various sub-diminesions, such as the form of the behavior (hitting, reading, talking, walking), the frequency of the behavior (it happened 5 times), the rate of the behavior (5 times per hour), the duration (the tantrum lasted 20 minutes), latency (it took her 20 minutes to start her homework), intensity (his speech was inaudible) and focus (he always yells at the male teachers).

I picked dimensions of behavior that are observable and measurable. They can be plotted on a graph or at least charted in order to determine changes in behavior. The dimensions made sense with the type of behavior I chose and the convenience of being able to record the behavior.

Reference:

Alberto, P., & Troutman, A. C. (1999). Applied behavior analysis for teachers (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.

Other resources:

http://www.studentprogress.org/default.asp


http://www.interventioncentral.org/


http://www.jimwrightonline.com/php/rti/rti_wire.php