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?