Using this Module we analyzed how students students improve in their academic achievement over time. Here is my summary of the module:

Iris RTI Module 1:

An Introduction to Monitoring Academic Achievement in the Classroom

Challenge

In this module, Ms. Begay is a first year teacher who is teaching fourth grade. She has three students whom she is concerned with whether or not they are making the progress they should be. She decided to meet with her mentor teacher to ask her advice on the situation. This meeting’s purpose was to help her best determine what steps needed to be taken in order to ensure the proper accommodations for those students were in place.

Initial Thoughts

It is crucial that teachers have all the information necessary to completely understand where their students are in their understanding. According to Slavin (2018), “it is the school’s responsibility to find ways to meet each child’s needs in the general education classroom to the greatest extent possible.” Understanding that it is her responsibility to ensure that her students are having their needs met, Ms. Begay is trying to make sure that she is doing everything she can to monitor her students’ struggles. She even talks about how she goes out of her way to modify the lessons as well as individually following up with each child to gage their understanding of the material.

It sounds as though Ms. Begay does not have all the necessary information that she needs in order to fully understand how her students learn best. Two of her students have cumulative folders from previous years that she has been able to see past test scores. However, it would be helpful for her to have all the information for her third student, who just recently transferred to her school. If she were able to know if he had an Individual Education Plan (IEP) from another school, she would be able to see the accommodations that were given to him previously. It would be a guide for her to understand what to expect from him in her classroom.

It is important for Ms. Begay to be aware of her students’ progress because she needs to understand whether or not the measures that she is implementing in her classroom are helpful for her students who are facing difficulties with the material. Monitoring the progress of students is definitely the number one way that a teacher can determine whether or not the child is able to fully access the curriculum as it is being presented to them. If a teacher is unable to unwilling to track student progress, time can be spent teaching in ways that are not helpful for the student and can be an opportunity for backwards progress. Any of the previously learned material could become inaccessible if time is spent on unhelpful practices.

Ms. Begay can implement measures to assess her students’ progress throughout the year rather than just waiting for a big evaluation after months of potentially unsuccessful material being used in the classroom. She can implement informal and formal measures for continually assessing where her students are needing improvement or even showing progress. Setting goals for each child (no matter how inconsequential) can be ways of seeing whether or not changes are occurring. A simple goal for progress in each subject they are struggling with can be a great way for her to be able to notice these changes throughout the year.

Assessment

Progress Monitoring vs. Year-End Assessments

There are several ways to assess student learning. When a lot of people think about assessments they think of year-end testing. This is a summative assessment that is administered to measure student learning outcomes at the end of the school year. However, a lot of teachers find that progress monitoring is more beneficial for teachers to see where students need work on a regular basis. One benefit of progress monitoring is the ability to create graphs showing the student’s progress. These graphs can be used during Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings. Students and parents are able to visually see the differences in their learning. Another benefit is the ability to track student goals for students who are struggling. This ability allows teachers to evaluate their instructional time and adjust things as needed. A third benefit for progress monitoring is being able to share data with special education teachers who are collaborating with general education teachers. This allows teachers to individualize their lessons for students who may be struggling.

Mastery Measurement and CBM

Mastery Measurement is a form of progress monitoring that assesses a student’s skills in a sequence. Each Skill a student is working to grasp is broken down and assessed one at a time. There is a plan for the sequence of lessons to be taught. In order to move on to the next sequence, students must meet certain criteria to show they are ready to move on to the next skill.

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), on the other hand, is when skills can be taught in any logical order. Growth in all the skills is tracked over the time of the entire year, not one at a time like Mastery Measurement. Another difference is that through CBM, student success is based on individual goals rather than a pre-set group of criterion. Each time a test is administered a teacher is able to check for retention of the previously taught skill. A benefit of CBM as an alternative to Mastery Measurement is the ability to monitor the maintenance of skills as well. Teachers are able to see if their students are retaining the information that they have learned throughout the year.

CBM and At-Risk Students

There are several ways in which CBM can help students who are at risk. Often, students who struggle will find themselves getting frustrated and wanting to give up on school. However, through CBM, students are able to visually see their progress. In some ways this allows the student to take more responsibility for their work. It helps students to understand that they are responsible for their own learning.

CBMs help teachers identify the skills that at-risk students are struggling with. This enables the teacher to create lessons that are more applicable to the student’s particular needs. This allows the educator to compare how effective their instructional strategies are. Another way that CBMs help at-risk students is by giving teachers the opportunity to simply identify those at-risk students to begin with. This helps teachers narrow down students who may need to receive special education services. That, additionally, allows teachers to track IEP goals.

Six Steps to CBM

There are six steps to Curriculum-Based Measurement:

1. Creating or selecting appropriate tests – These tests can be referred to as probes. These probes would evaluate skills taught throughout the year.
2. Administering and scoring the probes to the students – These probes occur at regular intervals either weekly or monthly, for example.
3. Graphing the scores – Creating a visual for the teacher, students, and possibly even parents to understand the progress throughout the year so that progress can be communicated. Teachers can also make quicker decisions regarding instruction by glancing at their progress.
4. Setting Goals – Taking a look at the previous scores and deciding what goals the student would like to meet by the time they are assessed again.
5. Making instructional decisions – Deicing what needs to change about the curriculum in order to meet the goals that were set.
6. Communicating the progress – Allowing the student or parents to see what progress has been made so they better understand the reasoning behind the goals that have been set.

CBM: Teaching Basic Multiplication

When testing math skills, teachers can provide students with a test that has, for example, twenty-five questions that could be selected systematically from the entire year’s curriculum. These questions could be dealing with concepts that will be taught over the course of the year. The teachers are able to administer this test and then evaluate how much the student knows. Creating a graph at the beginning of the year enables the student to see progress from the beginning of the year. They are then able to set goals. For example, if you were teaching multiplication and the student knew their two times tables then their goal could be to learn their three times table, etc. Once these goals were set, the teacher could make adjustments in instruction necessary to meet those goals. Lastly the teacher could communicate that progress to the student or other parties that needed to be aware of that student’s progress.