Allison Vice
The Unique Learning System’s Goals, Preferences and Skills (GPS) provides the data and tracking tools to monitor the goals you’ve set for each of your students, and also determines their growth and current level of performance. The GPS stores students’ data over time so you can see how far they’ve come during the period they’ve spent in your classroom, and, if they’re moving on to a new classroom next year, their next teacher can see where they currently stand and develop new goals for them.
Here are four tasks you need to complete in the GPS to successfully wrap up the school year:
1. Post-Monthly Checkpoint
The GPS provides pre- and post-assessment measurements of monthly unit content, and it’s good practice to review both the pre- and post-assessment data to see how your students have progressed during the month. It’s especially important to review the May post-monthly Checkpoints and review the data you’ve collected over the course of the entire school year to see how your students have progressed throughout the year. This also is a good time to reflect on, and record, the strategies that worked for each student.
2. Benchmark Assessments
Make sure you complete any benchmark assessments collected at the beginning of the year so you can show each student’s growth achieved in the areas of reading, writing, math, transition and emerging skills. The results of these assessments will appear in the Student Summary Report and—if the student is moving on to another class—the new teacher will be able to quickly see where he or she currently functions. This data will help the new teacher get students started in the right place so they can continue making progress. Remember, benchmark assessments should be completed 2–4 times a year to establish a baseline and verify growth.
3. Core Rubrics
GPS data includes Core Rubrics that address students’ transition readiness skills in the areas of employability, communication, self-advocacy, daily living and social strategies. Now is the time to update your Core Rubrics to demonstrate the current functioning levels in these areas for students who are preparing to transition out of the classroom.
4. Transferring Students
If you have students who will transition to another classroom or even to another district or state, you should create a new profile in the GPS so the existing profile, outlining their current level of performance in grade-level academic subjects, gets archived. It’s best for the most recent teacher to complete the profile so there’s an accurate picture of how the student is doing. This will allow the new teacher to have the most precise and up-to-date information to design a new educational program for the student.
Check out our video walkthrough on closing out the school year with Unique Learning System.
Finally, if you know a student is leaving your class, don’t forget to drop them from your class list so they can be picked up by their new teacher for the next school year.
Check these tasks off your end-of-year to-do list before you head off for summer break, and remember that the n2y Summer Unit is available for all teachers during June, July and August. Everyone has access to our summer unit, and it’s the perfect solution for summer school or extended school year programs.
Now you’re ready to sail into summer break!
