When I was in elementary school, maybe 2nd or 3rd grade, I was in a small intervention type group for reading. This was in the early 90s, so RtI was not something that was yet federally mandated. I remember meeting in the group a few times, but don’t remember exactly how often. I know they were using progress monitoring to track my reading fluency because I remember having to read from booklets and being timed. I am not sure if they deemed my fluency as on the cusp (“good enough”) and maybe that’s why I didn’t have to stay in the group long. Throughout school, my fluency has always been on the slower side and I was very self conscious of finishing tests last because of how slow I read. I would also have to reread passages several times to make sure I understood everything. I think that being in the group I was in felt odd, but fun because they tried to entice us to work by playing games afterward. I think if they had had access to the fluency interventions like many schools where I’ve worked, that would have helped me more. 

Progress monitoring is ongoing assessment over a period of time, with careful attention to any interventions tried, specific areas of strength, and specific areas of challenge. Data is collected both informally and formally, and must be interpreted based on valid methods of evaluation. SMART goals are a helpful element of progress monitoring, as it helps practitioners define progress and find more objective ways to determine the quality of progress being made. 

Progress monitoring is important because it helps identify if the instruction the student is receiving, and any interventions in place for that student, are working. If they aren’t working, monitoring creates opportunities to understand why, or what aspects may be more effective than others. This evaluation is done on an ongoing basis, enabling those instructing students to be more agile and to shift sooner, rather than waiting until critical learning opportunities have been missed.

In addition to being in school in the 80s and 90s, before current methods of progress monitoring were established, my mom and I moved constantly across state lines and did not have consistent teachers or curriculums until high school. 

Progress monitoring would likely have helped me significantly. In some grades I was a failing student who couldn’t (or refused to) meet the academic standards. In others, I excelled and was evaluated for placement in gifted classrooms. I even scored quite poorly on SATs but excelled with high honors in college. Handling these kinds of tasks, such as picking the best answer from a set of answers that can all be debated due to nuance, is still a skill I have not fully mastered, and still presents challenges for me in collaboration and work. Progress monitoring may have helped identify my specific challenges and strengths, and enabled teachers to help me form skills that would have helped me then and now. 

That said, I’m not sure how progress monitoring might work for children like me, as it seems to rely heavily on stability. Has anyone experienced trying to implement these techniques with transient students?

Progress monitoring is the practice of collecting data on student performance using assessments on a continuous basis to determine how the student is doing.  In regards to RtI, progress monitoring is used to determine if the student is responding to instruction and instructional modification, or if the student needs additional support, via Tier 2 or Tier 3.  

I don’t recall having experiences with progress monitoring as a student.  I was in elementary school in the early 1990s and graduated high school in 2001.  I wish that this type of monitoring had been around.  I experienced a few traumatic events by the age I was 10 and my dissociation became very problematic by the time I was in college.  I often wonder if this had been flagged as a behavior problem, if I would have received the type of counseling and help that would have saved many years of shame and suffering.  When I transitioned out of ESL, I was placed in a G&T class, but I felt that the assignments were not relevant to my experiences and though I received high grades, I did a lot of going through the motions, which I think contributed to disengagement and dissociation.  I think it would have been such a huge help for me to have someone realize that this was not typical for me.  That would have meant that there may have been someone to reach out to my family as well, which would also have flagged that we were really struggling, which would have been a huge help.  Not being from this country, we were never aware of any type of assistance.  I think this is a huge reason why I do tend to be hypervigilant with my students SEL needs.  Though as an emergent teacher, I need to learn how to discern between responsibilities that fall on me as the teacher, and what to pass on to the school social worker.

 

When I was in high school, I had an Algebra teacher who would have us do a weekly worksheet to determine whether we would be ready for the module quiz and then test. If we did not show our work and have the correct answers, we would be required to sign up for a one-on-one session with her to review before moving forward. We had charts with our grades made that we got to keep seeing our progress. I think this was a fantastic idea and probably the only reason I was able to do so well in her class and the math classes I took after her.

 

The only experience with progress monitoring that I can recall as a student from my own K-12 school experience were report cards. There were times that I accompanied my parents at parent-teacher conferences in elementary school to review my report cards. I remember that my teacher would review my work samples and grades in each subject area, as a way to document and discuss my academic performance, but there was also a section of the report card for conduct, social skills and classroom participation that had a different rating system (satisfactory, unsatisfactory, etc.). This section was used to compare behavior and skill development throughout the school year and to identify if support was needed in a given area.

 

I grew up in Bangladesh. In my middle school and ninth and tenth grade level, I was evaluated pretty much by using two tools. One tool was the traditional quarterly tests at grade level. Another tool was using maintenance of a school diary regularly. Using diary as a progress monitoring tool, school maintained my attendance, class participation, homework for each subject area. The class teachers recorded those reports in the diary. The diary was treated somewhat as a good progress report in day-to-day academic and non-academic activities. I think this diary keeping stayed us focused on study and other daily activities even though it was sometimes stressful. In my 11th and 12th grade level, I was in different schools. There used three tools to monitor our progress in academic and non-academic areas. The academic progress areas were evaluated and monitored by quiz and traditional tests. Non-academic part was monitored by student counsellor in a very restrict way that resolved many behavioral issues and helped focusing on study. Even though the progress monitoring tools were not too formal like I know now in this course, it has similar implications to my academic and non-academic accomplishments back in my secondary schools.

2. Yes, I do recall times when I was subjected to progress monitoring as a student in high school though it was not in the context of Special Education. I was in an English language learning program and once in while students would be pulled in the hall way to be assessed one-on-one by the teacher. Teacher used this data to decide who needed additional support and to identify for whom current methods of instruction whether effective. So, in many ways it was similar the PM discussed in this module.