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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Do you Drive?

One thing I love finding are new ways to use technology in my school counseling program.  I have tried more ways than I can count to try and find the best way to document student notes.  My biggest focus this year has also been on collecting data.  I started out by stealing an idea from JYJ counselor's blog about creating a form in google drive to document students i've seen, what for, and which ones need to be followed up with.  I love that I can easily click through the form to document, AND it puts it all into a handy spreadsheet for me to sort and graph to my hearts desire!  (here's the link so you can love it too...plus this awesome counselor blog has so many other useful tips..and she's from North Carolina like me!) This will be so helpful when presenting "what I do" to others in my school as well as stakeholders.  Since I don't know much about creating formulas in spreadsheets from this type of data, I googled how to create a pie chart, and now I have a visual of what types of issues i'm seeing students for--this will help me to decide what I need to focus more time on in classroom guidance and target potential small groups.



 Once I realized how much I LOVED using this form, I thought...why not use a form to document the other things I do? Thus my student rating scale was born.  I had already used a rating scale for some of my "frequent flyers" so that I could track their progress as we meet. This also gives me a starting point for dicussions.  However, I was slaughtering helpless trees to create these beauties.  I created tech-savvy scale and put a link on my iPad and BAM!  Success!  Students love being able to use the iPad...little do they know, they're giving me the data I need. Sneaky, Sneaky!  



I will also be using Google Drive to document how I spend my time, which students I'm seeing in small groups, and will send one out to teachers to find out what times they want me to visit their classes.  Lastly, I made out a list of how I'm going to track data in each aspect of my school counseling program:

Classroom Guidance
·        Teachers sign up for time using Google form, responses recorded in spreadsheet
·        K-2 students will create a class book after each lesson
·        3-5 students will complete a pre and post survey on topics to be covered for the year

Small Groups
·        Students in groups will be documented on spreadsheet to prevent unnecessary repetition
·        Teachers will complete a pre-group assessment on each student entering the group prior to the first meeting
·        Students will complete a pre-group assessment on the first day of group
·        Students will check in each day of group to monitor progress
·        Students and teachers will complete post-group assessments

Individual Counseling
·        Each student who is seen by the school counselor will be recorded on a Google form, responses will be recorded on a spreadsheet.
·        School counselor will use this data to look for trends to be addressed in small group and large group classroom guidance
·        Students who are seen regularly will check-in using a Google form rating scale to track their progress through the counseling process.

School-Wide Programming
·        School Counselor will create a parent survey at the beginning of the year
·        School Counselor will continue to host Coffee with the Counselor, if this time continues to be best for parents.
·        Parents attending Coffee with the Counselor will complete an evaluation
·        Behavior referrals will be tracked monthly using the ORATS notebook in the front office.  This data will be graphed.
·        School counselor will track time spent in a spreadsheet
·        An End-Of-Year report will be provided to all staff members

This made my nerdy organized self feel a little more prepared for next year so that I can really focus on sharpening my saw this summer! :)

How do you use Google Drive in your school counseling program?

16 comments:

  1. Awesome use of Google Drive for counselor use, thanks for the mention!

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  2. Sure thing! I enjoy all of your tech savvy tips!

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  3. LOVE the uses for Google Drive & Google Docs! I used them as well when I was an elementary counselor...would you be willing to share examples of updated Google docs you used for counseling? I am creating a page on my blog that demonstrates short recorded tutorials of how to create them from scratch using google drive...I get a lot of questions on how I created them...I do just "generic" versions so the viewers can personalize them to meet their needs. If you are interested, email me! Thank you! Love your blog!

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  4. http://stuckinthemiddlecounselor.blogspot.com/ here's my blog...I would love to have you follow me!

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  5. Hi there! I am a children's book author and would like to include you in an email invitation to be a part of my next book release. You would get some freebies which is always a perk. Please email me so that I can have your address in order to get the information out to you. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you! Maria Dismondy
    maria@mariadismondy.com

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  6. Hi Traci,

    I absolutely loved your information on Google Docs and just created several forms. I love the idea of keeping data and tracking students. Do you think it might be possible to send me information/pictures such as the forms you posted above about any additional forms you have created? For instance, I am really interested to hear more about your small group documentation, teacher & student pre+post-group assessments, as well as individual forms. I would truly appreciate your help! My e mail is kate.harrington5@gmail.com :)

    Thank you!
    Kate

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  7. Thanks Kate...I am still working on some of these documents, as we have not started school yet. I will be sure to post more forms here on the blog :)

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  8. I'm working on google docs today trying to find a way to stay more organized with my students! thanks for the ideas!!!

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  9. I'm a school psychologist in training and just flipped my lid when I found this! I've been collecting data from teachers on little half-sheets of paper returned to my supervisor's mailbox. More than once someone has lost these little sheets. I've already created my first form and am excited to see if the teacher who will be completing it is as excited about it as I am!!

    Thanks for such a great tip!

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  10. Love your blog-thank you! I use google drive for everything. The only problem I have is how to look up a particular student in the responses from my individual notes form. So, I keep all my individual session notes by using a google form and then when I look back through my responses to find a student's notes I don't know how to sort and see just one student's notes. Do you know anything on this? I have been searching and searching! :) Thanks for all the great info you share.

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  11. I do actually know how to do that. If you go to the filter button (it's next to the function button) in your spreadsheet. A drop down arrow will appear next to all of your column headings. Select the one next to student name (this is what mine is called anyhow). Then, hit clear so that all of the check marks disappear next to the student names. You can scroll down and find the student's name you are looking for and just select that one. Only your notes from that student should be in your spreadsheet. Then, to have all of your notes again, simply select all. :) Hope this helps!

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  12. Traci-THANK YOU!! I can't believe I couldn't figure that out-that is so simple. That will be such a huge help in finding the info I need.
    I so appreciate your help. Have a great rest of the year.

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  13. Hi, Traci! I'm a middle school counselor and I loved your "Student Rating Scale" Google Form (above) so much that I created a similar one. Thank you! Can you help me understand how to create a data chart in the Response spreadsheet? What do you highlight? Can you list the steps you do? Please :-) I'm gathering data, but not able to analyze it because I can't figure this out and Youtube tutorials only confuse me!

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  14. This is fabulous!!!! Thank you for sharing!

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  15. I love this idea but I am afraid people can hack into my account and I'd lose all the confidentiality information I typed. I looked up to see if google docs or sheets has password protect like Microsoft Excel and Word but they do not. How so you make sure what information you put on your google drive is safe?

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