Mozilla

Teachers need to observe behavior every time they enter their room.  This is especially true for special education teachers who must not only observe the behavior of their students, but must objectively record that behavior to complete Individual Education Plans.  Each year federal and state law require more and more precision in you data collection even though class size and other paperwork gives you less time to take good data.  The !Observe software can help with this problem. With the easy to make and use templates, a teacher can make their computer a useful and individualized tool for taking data on each goal for each student in your class.  Below is an example of one of the many potential uses teachers have for the !Observe software.

John is a very, very active third grade boy.  He requires a great deal of structure in his schooling and the vast majority of his school day is spent in Ms. Stevenson's resource room.  In fact, Ms. Stevenson has another aide in her class this year just for John.  Until this year, John has required a one-on-one aide the entire school day.  Being able to stay on task even with a one-on-one aide has been almost impossible for John.  This year he is making some progress in his ability to work independently.  Ms. Stevenson, John's father, and school psychologist have developed an IEP with the following objectives:

1. John will be able to remain on task with one-on-one instruction 75% of the time over a three week period as measured by the !Observe behavioral data collection system.

2. John will be able to remain on task with one-on-one instruction 95% of the time over a three week period as measured by the !Observe behavioral data collection system.

3. John will be able to remain on task without one on one instruction 30% of the time over a three week period as measured by the !Observe behavioral data collection system.

To take data on this goal, Ms. Stevenson sat at her computer for 5 minutes and developed the following template using the !Observe software.  She will use this template the entire year for John without having to make another (unless, of course John makes some remarkable progress).  For objectives one and two she will simply use the top two buttons and for objective three she'll use the bottom two buttons.

Ms. Stevenson or her aide can take now take data whenever they want simply by sitting at their desks, turning on their computer and clicking the !Observe icon.  With the Autorepeat option checked, they only have to click a behavior button (such as On Task No 1-1 or Off Task 1-1) whenever there is a change in behavior after the program is started.  The !Observe software does the rest for them.  The software allows Ms. Stevenson to summarize all the data together if she wishes.  So, in accordance to the IEP, Ms. Stevenson takes data once a week, and every three weeks she summarizes all of the data collection sessions to see how John is doing.  The first time she did so, this appeared on her screen.

With two clicks of her computer's mouse, Ms. Stevenson had this page printed and simply attached it to the IEP as documentation of her data collection and John's progress. Data collection had never been easier!