This week I found myself in a very emotionally-charged meeting. Several team members were advocating what I perceived to be drastic changes in a student's program based on concerns they had. A closer look at the data indicated that overall, things were looking pretty good for the student. The concerns that team members had were based on a couple difficult situations but did not represent a consistent pattern of behavior.
When students are having difficult moments, it's important to remain calm and focused and intervene as necessary to keep everyone involved safe. Programming decisions should be made based on patterns of behavior and not isolated incidences. To this end, teams need to take data and utilize this objective information, not emotionally-charged reflections, to guide programming decisions.
Need a good review of data collection methods, including some handy printable data sheets? Check out this useful and informative website on the topic.
