17: Taking Data on Self-Advocacy Skills
How I take data on “soft skills” like self-advocacy using rubrics!
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transcript episode 17: taking data on self-advocacy skills
Hey welcome to the TOD POD! I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fun. Today we're going to talk about different ways to collect data for self advocacy goals which is notoriously tricky to do but before we get started, a few updates for you. Kimmy is going to be focusing on a new job, so I'll be doing the POD solo from now on. If you want to stay in touch with Kimmy, you can still find her on Instagram and TPT @TheHardOfHearingTeacher and on her blog at thehardofhearingteacher.com I will miss her but I wish her all the best in her new job.
That being said I really like podcasts that are more conversation based and not just me talking so I will be looking to have more guests on the POD to share info on different topics. I've always seen myself more as like a facilitator of information, someone who makes things easy to use and shares information. So I would love to share this platform with people who have expertise or experience in different areas. So if you feel you have a topic relevant to itinerant TODs that you'd like to chat with me about, please reach out to me on Instagram @ListeningFun I would really like to have a variety of voices on the show. But for now you got to listen to me talk about self advocacy [laugh]. If you've been following me for a while you probably already know the answer for me collecting self-advocacy data is rubrics. I make rubrics, I have some that are editable in my TPT store, but I'm going to talk through exactly how I set them up. So if you have time you could make your own or you can go look at mine. Whatever floats your boat.
So I break up the rubrics into two categories: skill rubrics and observation rubrics. Skill rubrics are used to determine like mastery of a skill. So some examples of IEP goals that this might work well for are like: student will understand their own hearing loss, or student uses hearing devices appropriately, student interprets information on audiogram, student understands factors that impact classroom acoustics and visual access... things like that. I can use rubrics to put some hard data to those like softer skills.
When I'm setting up a rubric I usually first think about like the highest score... What would demonstrate mastery of this skill? What does a student need to do to show me that they really understand and can apply this information? Then for like the lower points like the 1 and 2, I think about what skills come before that mastery or what scaffolds need to be in place for them to reach it. So for example, if I want a student to independently report problems with their hearing device, I want them to use specific language, I want them to describe a specific problem, that would be mastery for me. Like not only do they always tell the teacher what's wrong, but they tell the teacher specifically what's wrong.
So maybe one level down from that would be the student alerting the teacher to the problem but not being specific about it, just saying like it's not working. And then one level down from that would be alerting the teacher occasionally and then the lowest level would be never alerting the teacher. So you can take any skill, think about mastery and then work your way down from there.
Let's look at a specific goal to like go over how this would work for an example, if I have a goal that has something to do with understanding their hearing loss, I'm going to use a rubric and break it down into the specific sub goals. So that might be knowing the parts of their hearing device, troubleshooting their device, and identifying important information about it. And then those 3 sub goals are the column on the left hand side and then each one of those sub goals can be scored from 0 to three. Zero being like never and 3 being mastered. So if I'm looking at identify information about the device like that sub goal, 0 points would be like cannot name any info about the device. One would be like uses the correct vocabulary to name the device like they know it's a hearing aid, they know it's a cochlear implant. Which is not a given because I have a lot of kids call their cochlear implant a hearing aid. So that is like the first step of of this skill. 2 points would be maybe they use the correct vocabulary to name the device, and they're able to turn it on off, they know their battery size or they know how to charge it. That shows me that they have a decent understanding of the important information about their device. And then 3 points mastered would be they name the device correctly, they're able to turn it on off, they know the battery size or how to charge, they can name the brand and model and they know if it's waterproof. If they know all that information, for me that is mastered, I circle 3.
So basically as I'm doing different activities throughout the year, I'm teaching the student about their device. I can periodically take data on their skill set and circle the corresponding box in the rubric. So maybe the first time I progress monitor at the beginning of the year, they know the name of the device but that's really it. So I circle one and then a month later presumably we've worked on this goal. Maybe they know a little more information and I can circle two. This provides me with an opportunity to put hard numbers on some of these softer skills. I find this more meaningful than like for example, writing out a list of 10 vocabulary words related to the device and giving it as a test to collect data on vocabulary. It just... it doesn't feel like it matches the goal. It feels awkward to collect data on. This just feels more specific and more relevant and it gives me a number which I can report on.
Part of the reason setting up a rubric like this is helpful is that it makes report writing really easy. So based on the example I just shared if I was writing a progress note, let's say in November which is when I do write my progress notes. I might write something like this:
Names baseline score on a self-advocacy rubric was three out of 9. He was able to name 1 to 2 parts of his devices: the battery and the ear mold. Troubleshoot one problem: a dead battery. And use the correct vocabulary to identify his devices: hearing aids. Name benefited from direct instruction on vocabulary, role-playing, and discussion based lessons to learn more about his hearing aids. In October, Name scored 7 out of 9. He's able to name all important parts of his hearing aids, troubleshoot 2 different problems, a dead battery and cleaning the ear mold, and is able to name his device, turn it on and off independently, and identify the extra battery size and location.
I took all that language straight off the rubric. It makes it really easy because I can give numbers and show progress and offer helpful specifics. But is so easy to write because I'm pulling that language right off the rubric and now I have a really detailed and helpful paragraph.
So those are the skill rubrics. The other type of rubrics are for observations. These rubrics can be used to take data during classroom observations in order to take data on skills being applied in the classroom. So since it can be difficult to observe many skills in one session. I recommend the rubric be completed over a date range maybe 2 or 3 consecutive sessions over the course of a month for example. Then I just note this at the bottom that this data is from the month of September for example. So what I've done in the past is I start with the skill rubric. And then once the student has mastered the vocabulary and the content information, I move on to an observation rubric. This gives me data on how they're taking that information I taught them and applying it in the classroom which is kind of the whole point. So sometimes I'll observe like 10 to 15 minutes before pulling for an individual session. And sometimes I push in and I'll join the class or I'll observe for longer. I'm kind of flexible with it depending on how it’s written in the IEP. But if you know you're going to be looking for certain skills generalizing then I might try to push in more frequently so that I have the opportunity to observe these skills.
Alright, let's look at another example, this time we'll be observing a student for compensatory strategies. Are they using compensatory strategies in the classroom? So the different like sub-skills that we're going to be looking at in the left hand column are seating, maintaining visual attention, repetition and clarification, and background noise. And then the points 0 to 3 reflect various levels of using those compensatory skills. We'll look at background noise specifically. 0 points would be they do not alert the teacher to extraneous background noise. 1 point would be they occasionally alert a teacher to background noise using generic language, i.e. "I can't hear." 2 points would be consistently alerting the teacher to background noise using generic language. And 3 points, mastery, would be consistently alerts the teacher to background noise using specific language, i.e. "I can't hear with the music on." As long as a student has a few opportunities to demonstrate this over the course of a month, I have enough information to circle one of these boxes. I can also jot down on the side or in the box how many opportunities they had. So for me if they have like 3 opportunities and they do it once or twice, I would say that's occasional. And if they have you know 2 opportunities and they do it twice or 3 opportunities and they do it 3 times that's consistent.
I also like observing for communication repair strategies. A rubric makes it nice because you can break it down between like instruction and peers. So some kids will use their communication repair strategies during instruction with teachers or other adults but they won't ask their friends to repeat. Or anything like that.
So if you have the opportunity to observe during group work, you can get some interesting data on how they communicate with peers versus teachers and that's information that a rubric can capture really well because teachers can be 1 row and peers can be one row. I also have one rubric at the end that is a teacher consult rubric. Sometimes if I can't observe a student enough I will just ask the teacher some questions and fill out the rubric based on their observations of the student in class. This is good for things like participation, if they ask for help frequently, if they use their like hearing technology or they use their HAT system frequently, and if they use some specific compensatory strategies. This type of rubric can work really well if the IEP goals are in as like “observed by classroom teacher.” Usually I prefer to do the observing but there are situations in which collaborating with the classroom teacher is appropriate and helpful.
If you want to take a look at the rubrics and visually see what I'm talking about they'll be linked below in the show notes. The ones I made are completely editable so you can change them up. Or if you plan on making some for your students I hope this explainer of my process helps.
If you inherit an IEP goal or you wrote an IEP goal last year and you think you want to try to get data for it using rubrics but you're not sure how, feel free to post the goal in our TOD Community Facebook group and maybe people can give you some ideas of how to set up a rubric or if there's a rubric already out there that works well for that goal. Because sometimes you just need to like talk it through with other people. So if you want to try it and you're not sure feel free to post like the the goal type um in the Facebook group and we can definitely like brainstorm together some ideas.
Alright thanks for listening to my very solo episode of the TOD POD. A full transcript of this episode and links can be found at listentotodpod.com You can reach me on Instagram @ListeningFun and seriously if you have a fun episode idea let me know I'd be so happy to chat with you. And have a fantastic day... bye!