Choosing a progress monitoring tool that your teachers will embrace may seem impossible. But, we promise, it can be done! The trick is to look for key features to help make your teachers' lives easier. Before you know it, you’ll have widespread adoption throughout your district resulting in excellent data for your MTSS and Special Education teams. 

‍Where to Start‍

An organization like NCII should vet your tool to ensure the data you are gathering is valid and reliable. Once you narrow the list, you can focus on the features that matter. 

Eliminating Manual Data Entry‍

The number one complaint teachers have about progress monitoring is manual data entry. A program that automatically assigns the probe to students and then graphs the results each week for at least nine weeks is a huge timesaver.

‍Hint: There’s an easy way to check if a tool will be easy to use. It will have both a student and teacher module. Take it a step further and request a demo. Ask to see the entire process to confirm the teacher never has to type in results or plot data on a graph. 

One Platform with All Grades and Subjects

Make sure your program includes math and reading and covers the grade levels you need. Your teachers and school psychologists will thank you for only having to learn one program for progress monitoring, regardless of subject or grade!

Reporting

Evaluate how the data displays in the reports you need for Student Team and IEP meetings. If you will be adding this data to another tool, confirm that it can be exported in other formats, like CSV files. It doesn’t help the teachers if they have to re-enter all the data from one program into another. 

Professional Development

Finally, ask about the professional development associated with the tool you are adopting. A good vendor won’t just train on button pushing. They will coach teachers on how to read the data, make intervention adjustments, and select new levels or domains as students move between tiers or into Special Education.

Your Ideal Progress Monitoring Tool

Let’s summarize the key features for your ideal Progress Monitoring tool!

It should:

• Include a student and teacher interface
• Assign at least nine weeks worth of probes with one click
• Include all the subjects and grades you need to progress monitor
• Offer flexibility with data 
• Include PD for teachers so they are empowered by the data, not overwhelmed

Learn More about Classworks
Classworks progress monitoring is an award-winning tool teachers embrace - not dread. To learn more about Classworks Progress Monitoring or how we help schools simplify their tiered intervention processes, chat with us or email hello@classworks.com.