ELAT Newsletter - December 8, 2017

ELAT Newsletter: November 8, 2017

Opportunities for Virtual Learning: January - March of 2018

Audience: Any ELAT participant

This fall we were able to offer two virtual learning opportunities and many of you took advantage of the two courses; Applying DIBELS Foundations with the Outcomes Driven Model and Advanced Progress Monitoring. We are excited to be able to offer these sessions again in starting in January. The sessions are designed to support you in understanding early literacy skills, their direct link to DIBELS Next as an assessment, how to use that data to inform your instruction and how to effectively progress monitor students to gauge the quality of your instruction.

Important to know:

• These courses are free to all ELAT users
• They are offered on a virtual platform so that you do not need to travel
• The courses are offered after school
• We offer clock hour credits for these courses
• We will offer multiple sessions with staggered starts January - March, 2018
• Yes, these are the same courses we offered in the fall

Feedback from participants:

• "DIBELS Next is really important. It allows me to identify students, progress monitor them develop instructions and modify instruction. This process then helps me be more aware of where my students are and how to better help them become proficient readers."
• "I have a better idea of how to really analyze my student's data, specifically their progress monitoring data to then modify the support I give them."
• "I believe I understand how to make the necessary adjustments for students sooner rather than later."
• "I really liked taking a look at three different students at three different levels. I would like to work with all of my teachers to go through this process as well, to help them dig deeper into the data to inform and alter instruction."
• "Collaboration and learning from each other in sharing our successes and concerns on how to best help students read and use the data in the most helpful way for the students."

Resources for mCLASS Users
Audience : Any ELAT Participant

As you are reviewing your data or preparing to assess students, and you have specific questions around the reports, assessment, or foundational literacy skills assessed by DIBELS Next, consider accessing one of the following resources.

• DIBELS Next Foundations Tutorial provides an overview of the key research and concepts underlying the DIBELS Next assessment. It is self-paced, and allows you to select exactly the section of the tutorial that you’d like to view.
• The mCLASS Web Reports Online Tutorial is a self-paced tutorial that delves into all features within the mCLASS teacher reporting platform.  

Pathways of Progress
Audience: Teachers and School Leaders

Amplify has recently released new functionalities to the Pathways of Progress tool on the Amplify website (www.mclasshome.com) that will allow teachers and leaders to see the pathway achieved at the composite and measure level.

As before, the Pathways icon uses a triangle to show the goal set for the student and filled bars to show the pathway achieved.  It is recommended to set the goal at Above or Well Above Typical progress.

The class summary report now shows the yearly goal that was set for the student and the pathway achieved at Middle of Year.  Note that this information is available for both the composite and individual measures (see Student A).  For students that do not have goals set (Student B, for example), the system will still show the Pathway achieved, but will not have a triangle to signify a goal.

Middle of Year Pathway data is also available in the Download Your Data report available to staff that have access to the Amplify Reporting and Analysis Suite (building and district leaders).  Click on the Download your Data icon to run the report (Pathway Achieved will be in column AU).  Please note that only the Pathway Achieved for Composite is available in this report.