Frequently students with Individual Education Programs IEP receive instruction in groups in which students are all working towards similar established long-term goals and shorter term instructional objectives.  In these situations, it can be useful to define "Group Goals" which allow data for the entire group to be taken on one data collection form.

Group goals allow the definition of two different types of data:

• Gradebook assignments: These are assignments, quizzes and exams that the special education student completes as a part of their learning process.  They are given once and are not designed to measure the students Response to Intervention (RTI).
• Progress monitoring probes: These are given weekly or bi-weekly to the group.  The probes are designed to measure the students' RTI.
  

A teacher or user with edit privilege for the group may add and edit group instructional goals and objectives in several different ways:

• Create New Group Goals: Add a new group goal in one of three modes
  
• Group Goal Wizard
  
• Group Goal Edit View
  
• Import Goal from Sample Goals
  
• Edit Existing Group Goals: modify an existing goal, and associated objectives, probes & assignments
  
• Advanced Group Goal Edit: Allows users to copy goals and objectives either to the current group or to any other  they have edit permission for.  It also allows the user to delete goals, objectives, assignments, and probes or merge individual probes or assignments.
  
• Copy-Delete Group Goal
• Merge-Delete Probes
  
• Merge-Delete Assignments
  
• Gradebook Assignments
  
• Progress Monitoring Probes
  

Detailed Description of Group Goals:

Below is a sample Group Goal with a single Objective, one progress monitoring probe, and two assignments:



Each section of a group goal is described below:

Goal:

• Goal name: Name you want to call this goal.
• Subject area: Whatever grouping you wish to place this under.
• Active: By default the goal will be made active, but you can make it inactive at a later time.
• Long-term annual goals: Describe what this goal accomplishes. This detail may come directly from the student's IEP.

Objective:

• Objective: What is the specific objective for this goal?
• Date Introduced: When the group began working on the objective.
• Active: Is this objective active or inactive? If active, you will be able to collect data for it.
• Notes: Any notes describing the objective, how it will be taught, differential requirements for students etc.
  
• Files: Files are attached files that can be images, PDF files, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, etc. which are used either to provide additional information about an objective or to document student work.
  

Progress monitoring probes:

• Probe name: Each objective has one or more probes that you collect data for. Each probe has a:
• Data collection type: Specifies how data will be collected for the probe (score, time, likert scale...)
  
• Proficiency Criteria: The scores that the students in the group must achieve to be considered proficient with this objective.
  
• Optional Description: This should describe what the probe is and how it will be administered.
  
• Active or inactive.

Gradebook Assignments

• Assignment name: Each objective has one or more assignments that you collect data for. Each assignment has a:
• Assignment type: Specifies what the gradebook item is (e.g. assignment, quiz, exam)
  
• Optional Due Date: The date the assignment will be completed by.
• Points Possible: The number of points a student can receive on the assignment.
  
• Active or inactive.

Important Note: Please see Data Collection Type for additional information to help you better understand this important topic and how they impact your data collection with DDtrac.