Dr. Lisa Dieker, a professor at the University of Kansas in the Department of Special Education, and Dr. Rebecca Hines, a professor at the University of Central Florida in the College of Community Innovation and Education, have worked with schools and parents across the country. Dr. Dieker directs a center in the Achievement and Assessment Institute called Flexible Learning through Innovations in Technology in Education (FLITE) and Dr. Hines directs several doctoral grants and the teacher preparation program. In this podcast, they take a fun and informal look at "practical" solutions from teachers, parents, and people with disabilities. The approach in this podcast is to provide fast, flexible thinking about "real" life problems. This podcast is not about the "legal" approach but their best advice from personal and professional experience.
In today’s episode, Dr. Rebecca Hines interviews our very own, Dr. Lisa Dieker, as she talks about Progress Monitoring.
Lisa Dieker:
Welcome to practical access. I'm Lisa Dieker.
Rebecca Hines:
And I'm Rebecca Hines. And in this episode, we have, we have a guest that Lisa Dieker is going to absolutely love. Our guest is Lisa Dieker.
Lisa Dieker:
Really like myself, Becky. So thank you for reminding me.
Rebecca Hines:
Dr. Dieker, we would be remiss if we did not tap into your best expertise, as we as we think about bringing in different voices into the field and into the discussion. So this morning, I know both of us have just been thinking as have all of our colleagues across the country about about the shutdowns and emergency situations and this move to a lot of online learning. And so I think in this episode, you're going to share with us some specifics on progress.
Lisa Dieker:
So I'm really excited to talk about this topic, because it's something I have personally been trying to kind of think through because I keep getting asked this question by my friends and colleagues. And you know, it's funny, I go back to something that seems so silly, but so important. And it's what I've always called my one minute co planning model, where you know, what's the And I think they're equally important both in brick and mortar and online. But that's why I think we start with progress monitor.
Rebecca Hines:
And I think those are both great points, the the behavior and the academic piece, and even little subtle academic pieces that might not be grade related. But let's let's take that kind of broad concept, because we know as educators, we're always looking to improve or increase a behavior in one of those two areas. So tell me specifically Lisa, so let's go back to your example of the teacher who expects kids to turn that that camera on for that, you know, split second, how does she progress monitor that specifically, you must have know what I was wanting to talk about next. And we By the way, we didn't practice this in a bit. I honestly I'm a big piece. And so once you have your checks and minuses or whatever I'm putting on my chart, what do you do with it from there? Do you share that with the students and say x percentage of us Did this today? Do you have kids set personal goals with that data? Or do you just use that yourself as the teacher for something?
Lisa Dieker:
Yeah, so I'm a big believer that that at the end of the lesson if my Bullseye is that you can name the main conflict in the French Revolution, and I gave half the class and minus probably I need to do a mini reteach. But if two kids are a minus, I think I should reach out to them in an online environment and have a little office hour chat with them, or try to pre teach them something And you if you do one of those, you get to a C, two of those, you get a B three of you, you get an A. And I said he said but my C assignment is so stinking easy that if you don't do it, you'll look really stupid, like lists the two countries in the conflict to the French Revolution. It He's like, well, that would be one, right? And so it's kind of a trick question. But he said then the kid gets a C, then they're more motivated to work towards the B, they're more work. So again, trying to make sure that the kid is a minus isn't a minus forever. And I see too much of our progress monitoring being flatline data. And never resuscitating a kid from that flatline.
Rebecca Hines:
I think that's a great point. And we do forget that, that one principle is that success breeds success. We have so many kids who are so accustomed to failing that they've given up trying. And I think that's a great a great specific strategy. I want to circle back a little bit to what you were saying about this idea of all of the all of the students have mastered, whatever my
Lisa Dieker: Yeah, so I think it could be synchronous or asynchronous. So if I don't have a co teacher, and my class ends at 11, I say, hey, join me from 11 to 11:
10, for an enhancement enrichment activity for those of you who really want to and teacher does this, she said, it's great. The kid is a minus always shows up in the enrichment. She's like, cuz I don't close it off to anybody. And I and tomorrow, you might be a minus. So on those plus days, offering that option, but not making it if you don't do this, your score is lower. I think that's the other mistake we make is that if a kid is gifted, you know, we think they're gifted and everything. Well, maybe I really like writing, but reading Come on, you know, that's just not my genre as much. And so giving those options but not
Rebecca Hines:
Yeah, I love that idea of having a scheduled extension time every day for any kid who wants to drop in. And I know from teaching online for 20 years now myself that when You, when you offer something extra like that, you know, often we judge ourselves by how many people show up. And I try to encourage all of our doctoral scholars, and my colleagues, you know, when you add that something extra, even if only two people show up, it's okay, because those two people are teaching classrooms full of kids. You know, and in the same way, you know, those two kids who might You mentioned your paper pencil version. I know that as somebody who is very tech savvy, you must have some ideas on how we could accomplish this easily as teachers digitally. Thoughts.
Lisa Dieker:
I mean, I think that that goes, I start with paper pencil, because sometimes digitally is complicated if there's more than one individual involved. And so you know, I love like a class dojo for getting data points. But again, if I'm the dojo person and you hate it, that's really not the best tool. So I always say go with the path that works for you the best. I have another friend That that's the data you gathered, I think the mistake we keep making is at the end of the semester, because like what I got a D, I thought I was getting an A in this class. You know, Mom, I can't explain it. Because, you know, and I think that's what we've done wrong. And my my tip for doing better with that data is open up your options. And we've always talked about UDL. But I truly believe
Rebecca Hines:
Great point. So to wrap up this episode, I will say for those of you who are using tools like classdojo, and I've mentioned that tool in particular, don't forget, you can set academic goals. And there you could say something like identifies a noun. The good thing about a product like that, when you have your whole class there, you can open it on your phone and just click on the I think Lisa's point about making sure that we use whatever is our most comfortable. And at least so the other thing that I think is key that you mentioned today is that idea of making students a part of the progress monitoring process. You know, I've seen fantastic teachers who have kids literally chart their progress. And when we raise student awareness about it for our kids who are high For a final goodbye.
Lisa Dieker:
Well thank you Dr. Hines for having me as our guest today. It was fun to have just a conversation with you today. And again, thank you for listening to our podcast and hopefully you found some practical tips. And if you have questions, please send us questions on Facebook. It's practical access is our Facebook page. Or you can tweet us @accesspractical. Thanks for joining us.
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