Students: Interventions
Our easyCBM interventions are a template-based feature, in the Deluxe version, that provides teachers with a way to log interventions they are providing for their students. The template progresses through a series of item selections such as curriculum, subject, strategy choices, ratio, intensity, and frequency of the intervention.
Because interventions can vary so much in context, and educators need to be able to personalize them for their students' needs, the easyCBM system does not tell teachers what interventions to use with their students. Instead, we offer a way for a teacher to identify students who might need additional instructional supports, log the interventions that are provided to them, and then track and monitor the resulting progress their students are making. In addition, our template list also incorporates a brief summary of their evidence of effectiveness (based on What Works Clearinghouse reports). Once you complete a template, and administer an assessment, information from your intervention notes (as well as the students' scores on the assessments) show up on the individual's graphs.
When implementing the intervention log, teachers will still need to provide instruction to their students outside of the easyCBM system. The logs then assists in monitoring the effectiveness of instruction, the appropriateness of assigned measures, and the evaluation of how students are doing.
Creating an Intervention
Use the Interventions tab (Deluxe) to log what specific instructional interventions are being provided to students. The Interventions interface is based on templates and then applied to groups of students or individual students.
Click on the Intervention tab. In the Instructional Interventions box, click on the green Create Template button.
This opens the intervention wizard, where you are directed to provide information about the Intervention. On the first screen, enter a short but descriptive label (this will be plotted on the Individual Student time series graphs), select the subject area (reading, math, or Spanish), and add a brief description of the intervention in the Description section. Then, click “Next” to advance to the next screen.
On the next screen, enter which tier of instruction is being provided, select the student-teacher ratio, and indicate the duration and frequency with which the intervention is being provided
On the following screen, select the curriculum being provided. The list of curriculum is subject- specific (in other words, if “Reading” was selected on the prior screen, then the list will only include published Reading Curricula. If “Math” was selected, then math curricula are displayed instead). Hovering over the icon (or tapping, on mobile devices) displays information about each of the listed curriculum, including publisher and grade range recommended by the publisher. If the curriculum being used is not on the list, enter the curriculum name into the ‘Add new curriculum’ text box and then click on the green “+” button (or press the Enter key) to add a custom curriculum to the list of options
On the next screen, select the instructional strategies being provided. The list of strategies comes from the What Works Clearinghouse’s analysis of instructional strategies with some scientific evidence of effectiveness. Unlike the curricula, strategies are intended to be equally applicable across subject areas.
Hovering over the icon (or tapping, on mobile devices) displays information about each of the listed strategies, including a brief description of what the strategy involves as well as information about the level of evidence of effectiveness as reported by the What Works Clearinghouse.
If the strategy being used is not on the list, enter the strategy name into the ‘Add new curriculum’ text box and then click on the green “+”button (or press the Enter key) to add a custom strategy to the list of options
Once the green ‘Create’ button is clicked, the template will be created and you will be presented with the final screet. Here you can either “Close” the wizard or “Apply” the template to groups or individual students.
Now apply a template to groups or individual students, and indicate the date (lower left hand corner of the screen) on which the intervention has or will begin (defaulting to the current day).
Once a template has been applied, a log of the interventions is displayed under the templates themselves. Selecting a student name from the list on the left opens all interventions in that student’s records. All currently active interventions are shown first, with the most recently- added at the top of the page. Any de-activated interventions (those that a student is no longer receiving but did receive at some point in the past) appear at the bottom of the list, with a line through the name of the intervention.
To edit or deactivate an intervention, click the gear button in the upper right corner to open the drop-down menu, and select the desired action to perform. This is the same process one uses to apply an intervention again, after it has previously been deactivated. Simply click the gear button, and select “Apply Intervention” from the drop-down menu.
Once the intervention has been applied, it then becomes editable and enables the logging of notes to track intervention progress. The Notes section can be found at the bottom of each intervention To add a note to an intervention, simply enter the note into the “Add a note” text box, and click the green ‘”+” button (or press the Enter key), and the note (with timestamp) will be logged. Clicking the red “+” to the right of a note will prompt the user to confirm deletion of the note
Graphed Interventions
Once students start taking tests, their scores, along with the intervention information appear on the Individual student graphs.
Changing an Intervention
An important part of RTI is ensuring accurate records of interventions being provided. When one or more parts of an intervention are changed (for instance, moving the student to a smaller group for instruction, increasing the duration or frequency of the intervention, or changing curricula or instructional strategies), this change should be noted in the records. To make this happen, first deactivate the original intervention (logging the date on which it was changed) and then apply the intervention to the student again, with the new date, then edit the newly-applied intervention to alter the name and the specific details that were changed.
If there are so many changes that it would be easier to simply enter a new intervention, that is also an option, of course. Either way, the new or edited intervention will be plotted on the Individual student progress monitoring graphs once it has been applied.
Adjusting the date an intervention was applied
Interventions have the ability to adjust the date they were applied to a student.
When you view an Intervention that has been applied to a student, go to the Interventions tab and then the list of students. Click on the arrow to the right of the student name (and the number of interventions) and a scroll down section will appear with the list of intervention information. Scroll to the bottom of the intervention description and edit the start date at the bottom.
Deactivating Interventions
To end an intervention, simply select “Deactivate” from the intervention drop-down menu. The date on which the intervention was deactivated is automatically logged into the system as an “end date” on the intervention log.
Deleting an Intervention
Note : The intervention information appears on the students' individual reports once there is data there to create a report (but not until then). So. in order for the you to see the intervention lines you first have to administer some tests. (and for the lines to show up on the graph, the first assessment has to take place within two weeks of the intervention being applied, otherwise, the intervention line will be "off the chart" to the left of the graph being displayed in the report. If more than 2 weeks has elapsed, you can go in and adjust the date for when the intervention was applied so it doesn't "fall off" the side of the graph.
The intervention lines, which will always display on the Individual graphs, are an important part of interpreting the information those graphs display. The way the interpretation works is that you look for an improvement (high scores, and/or steeper rate of improvement) after an intervention than before an intervention, and that improvement helps you decide the degree to which the intervention is working. In other words, you look for a ‘response’ to the ‘intervention’, with the ‘response' graphically displayed by the line showing student progress over time, and the ‘intervention’ graphically displayed by the vertical intervention lines on the graph.