Harness the Power of Data in Your Daily Instruction

n2y Staff

As a special educator, you no doubt collect and have access to an abundance of student data—formal and informal, measurable and observational. More important than the quantity are what types of data you are collecting, how you analyze and share the information and how you use it to improve student outcomes. Insights from data benefit every team member throughout the education process:

  • Teachers can see where their students are succeeding or struggling and make instructional decisions to foster student growth.
  • Administrators can see at the school and district level where added resources and support might be needed.
  • Specialists and therapists access up-to-date information to provide necessary supports.
  • Students can see their own strengths and growth, gaining the confidence to continue on a positive trajectory.
  • Parents and families can see what their children are learning so they can stay involved and support learning outside the classroom.

Read on to learn how the data tools in n2y’s Total Solution can simplify your day, keep you in compliance, and improve student outcomes.

Enhancing Outcomes and Simplifying Compliance Reporting


Teachers and administrators who use Unique Learning System have access to a wide range of data in the system’s Goals, Preferences and Skills (GPS) assessment hub—from present levels of performance and monthly checkpoints to benchmarks and more—providing them with an accurate picture of what students are learning and enabling them to demonstrate each student’s growth cumulatively.

With Student Daily Performance tracking available in Unique Learning System teachers can monitor student progress with more frequency and regularity, empowering them to:

  • Make just-in-time adjustments to support learning, boost student outcomes and improve performance on assessments
  • Ensure students are completing lessons
  • Document daily work completed and progress toward mastery of state standards, making it easy to report and demonstrate compliance with IEP goals
  • Add observational data for a more complete picture of each student
  • Document accommodations being used, such as symbol support or text to speech
  • Track responsiveness for Level 1 students and compare online attempts with offline attempts

Other added bonuses of enhanced online data and performance tracking? Significant time savings and valuable communication with families and other caregivers to support the school-to-home connection. With access to the right reports, it’s easy to answer the common question from parents, “What has my child been doing in class?”

Driving Positive Behavior with Evidence-Based Strategies Backed by Data


Educators using Positivity, n2y’s behavior and classroom management solution, approach each day with confidence, knowing they have access to a full menu of customizable, research-based strategies to proactively replace disruptive behaviors with desired ones. They know that when their students have emotional control, they can focus on learning. But how do they know Positivity is working? They have the data to prove it!

Positivity automates data collection, so teachers no longer have to carry a clipboard and break from instruction to hand tally behavior incidents. And it converts that data into more than 30 available reports in the areas of Planned Strategy Assignments, Strategy Usage, Achievement Reporting, and Incident Reporting. It’s easy to track success using the highly visual graphs and charts for a clear daily snapshot of the strategies implemented—by type, time of day, day of week, academic period, individual student, and more. Teachers and service providers can use the insights gathered to analyze and hone their strategy selection, develop IEP goals, fulfill compliance reporting and share student progress with parents. They can even document and share observations on student achievements and behavior incidents.

When districts take steps to enhance student self-regulation and minimize behavior incidents, the added benefits are keeping students in their least restrictive environment, avoiding the need for behavior plans, minimizing office referrals and ultimately saving costs!

Gathering Both Objective and Subjective Insights

While it’s the objective, real-time data that is most widely referenced by teachers and education teams to make instructional decisions, there is also value in data that provides a window into student abilities, interests, preferences and strengths. Activity Play Reports available in n2y’s skill-building solution, L3 Skills, provide opportunities to gather both objective results and additional insights.

For classrooms using these educational games and activities, the L3 Skills data reporting makes it simple to demonstrate student progress toward mastery of targeted skills by reporting accuracy, responsiveness and practice time. Within the reports, teachers and captains (other facilitators in the platform) also can enter notes and observations to paint a more detailed picture of each student’s engagement with the solution. What types of activities do they enjoy and excel at? Which ones bring them the pride of accomplishment? Where do they need added support? Did they problem solve and seek help independently using the guidance in the program? How did they respond to new content, concepts and multisensory experiences? Which hardware works best for this learner—a tablet, whiteboard or desktop?

The answers to these questions can help inform a teacher’s instructional choices and approaches for individual students. By simply looking at the Activity Play Reports, teachers may find that players have strong skills in one area but require practice in others. And by combining this data with input from other solutions, they can find patterns in players’ successes or in their missteps within activities and provide the necessary remediation. Moreover, collecting data across settings provides an understanding of how well students are generalizing the skills and concepts they’re learning.

As students continue to build mastery with the lessons in Unique Learning System, the behavior strategies in Positivity and the educational activities in L3 Skills, the types of data gathered will follow them across the years to help their education teams demonstrate retention and growth, build lifelong social-emotional skills, improve self-regulation, drive successful outcomes and simplify compliance reporting.

About the Author

n2y’s staff works closely with educators, in‑house experts, and program developers to share the latest topics and timely thought leadership from the field. It’s our goal to help keep you informed and ready to serve your students!

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