Using Google Forms to Take Data in a Virtual Special Education Classroom Setting

I am a special education teacher and have been teaching remotely with The Stepping Stones Group for 2 years.

It has taken a year and a half to begin to figure out what works for my two assistants and I in regards to progress monitoring and taking data. Though I feel there is room for improvement, I have created an efficient system and am spending less time on organizing and gathering data and more time using the collected data to drive my instruction. In this post, I will explain and show you how using Google Forms to take specific data on students has been a game-changer in my virtual classroom.


As a tele special education teacher, I have struggled with the best way to take student data on goals and how often to do it. Oftentimes, I would just see progress or struggles within the everyday classroom environment and jot it down in a notebook or in a Google Doc but never go back to it. When it came to progress reports, I would at times not have a solid percentage of the progress a student made. I have used paper data tracking pages where the assistants would then have to scan or take a picture and send me the pages. I would then have to take this information and decipher what my assistants wrote and put that data in a form or document on my side to ensure I was understanding and documenting everything correctly. This past summer I came across a resource that explained how using Google Forms created a smooth process for documenting data during the pandemic. Though I do not remember the site I found this information on, there are a bunch of videos and tips out there when searching for progress monitoring using Google Forms.   I took that information and created my own Google Forms that would fit my teaching style and be very easy for my assistants to learn and use right away.


I am still updating and changing things as I go throughout the year. I am learning how to make this data collection more efficient. Below is a simple way to get started with using Google Forms for data collection.    


1. Go into your Google Drive. If you are new to Google Drive, you can start at https://drive.google.com/drive. Click on New in the top left corner.

2. Once you click ‘New’, go down the list and click on ‘Google Forms’.
                                      
3. You will see this as the template for the form.

4. You can title your form. I do my forms by quarter. I write the actual goal in the form description. I also use initials for my students so I know whose data I am gathering.

5. The first section I label, ‘Today’s Date’. Once you write that, the box on the right will automatically change to ‘Date’. The boxes will automatically be turned on as ‘Required’. If you don’t care for the box to be filled out or not, you can always toggle the Required button to the left to turn it off. The form will not submit if a required box is not filled in entirely.



6. When you are ready to add another box, click on the plus sign on the right hand side of the current box you are on.


7. A new box will appear.
             

8. When you click on the drop-down box on the right-hand side, you will see several options to use. I use the Checkbox grid for a lot of my data collections.

                          

9. You can write the actual goal/objective for the student or just an idea of what the student is working on at that time. The rows will be what the student is working on and the columns will be items to choose from when gathering data. The next section shows what it will look like on the form that you fill out.

10. For each number the student identifies, you click ‘correct’ next to that number. If the student was able to get it correctly but with some teacher support, you click ‘correct’ and ‘verbal prompt’ next to the number. N/A is there in case you didn’t get to a number or you are not assessing all numbers listed that day. There is a box to add notes under this checkbox grid to give detailed information about the collected data. The red star in the upper right hand corner symbolizes that the box is required to be filled out.

11. When you are ready to add another box, click on the plus sign on the right-hand side of the current box you are on.


12. I label this box ‘Additional Comments/Behavior Notes' and change the drop-down box to ‘Paragraph’. This allows you or your para to write in detailed notes about the collected data and any observations that are important to note for that day/time/skill, etc.


13. When you are ready to add another box, click on the plus sign on the right-hand side of the current box you are on.

14. I put ‘Who is taking the data?’ with the drop-down box labeled ‘Multiple Choice’. This allows me to see who is taking the data in case I need to ask for specific information about the data being collected. It could also show any patterns regarding how the student is doing with a certain adult during progress monitoring.


15. When you are finished with your form, you need to click on the ‘Publish’ button on the upper right-hand corner.

16. When you click it the first time, you will receive this message: Responders (those who will be filling out the form), Anyone in …. school district. I like to have my forms available only to my assistants, not the whole district. Click on Manage on the right-hand side.


17. Next to Responder view: click the drop-down box and click on ‘Anyone with the link.’ Click done.

18. You should see this box, then press Publish.

19. Once you press Publish, you will see this box appear in the upper right-hand corner. This is the link that you can send to your assistants to use for access to the Google Form. I always click the box for ‘Shorten URL’ just to clean things up a bit.


20. I create a Google Doc where I paste the URL for each quarter. This link will lead you to the Google Form that can be filled out during progress monitoring.

Here is what the form will look like after clicking the link. You will be able to click on the date or the boxes next to each number and it will show you the selection. When you are finished with the form, click submit. This will move the completed form to where you can access the data on the original form you created. If you click on submit and it’s not complete, the form will show you what needs to be filled out before you can submit.
                 
The form you created is always available for you to modify and to see the responses. I have the original forms in a Google folder, so I know where to go to update or change the forms. Once you or an assistant has completed a form, you will see a number after ‘Responses’. This shows you have one response to the form.                  
        

You can click on ‘Summary’ and it will show you the date, a graph of the results, the comments and who filled out the form.


              
If you click on ‘Individual’, it will show you each progress monitor you did that quarter.


I use the individual pages to calculate percentages for each progress monitor. I use this data when writing progress reports.
              


Though there is some front-loading to complete this project, once you have the template created, it is very easy to make changes when needed. Once I have the forms filled out for 1st quarter, I can easily just copy and paste the second quarter objectives into a new form for 2nd quarter progress monitoring. Also, as I go on throughout the year, I find I may need to add another category or a different type of response form. This is easily and immediately changed and adjusted to the form one will fill out. I have been able to gather some very good data through this system and am able to adjust my instruction for each student. I am also able to write very detailed comments in each quarter’s progress reports.

I am happy to work with anyone interested in starting to put together Google Forms of their own for progress monitoring. I am also open to suggestions and/or advice on how to improve this system to make it even more efficient. I hope that this information will help at least a few teachers start to create a data collection system using Google Forms to streamline and organize their data.

Author: Katie Icenhower