Iowa: NEW Creating and Editing a Progress Monitoring Plan

With the new process, you can set up the same PM plan (and intervention, if desired) for one or more students at the same time. No ‘group’ is created as a result. The PM and intervention details are applied to the individual students selected during the setup. This is a great change because it means there’s no reason to ‘release’ or ‘add’ students because of teacher or intervention changes. The PM is only tied to the student.

Important note for Iowa users (K-6): You must continue to set up interventions in Iowa’s Student Success data system because it’s used for state reporting. Only scores (PM and screening) will transfer from FastBridge to Student Success, not interventions. Setting up interventions in FastBridge is optional. 

Jump to:

• Create a New PM Plan
• Update any 0 start scores (Fall PM setup)
• Setting Up Off-Level PM
  • Read THIS article first
  • Then follow THESE instructions
• Edit an Existing PM Plan

Create a New Progress Monitoring Plan

Note: If you are re-creating a PM plan that was previously released or prematurely end dated, we suggest setting the start date as the current week and selecting the next consecutive start form number to pick up where the previous PM plan left off. It's a drop down field titled Starting Form on the Monitoring Schedule setup page. This will allow the new plan to continue where the previous ended and the previous data to smoothly integrate on the PM Report.

 

To add interventions select New in the upper right corner of the PM page. 

 

A menu opens to make student selections. The School year defaults to the current year. 

 

1. Users assigned to more than one school are able to access the School dropdown menu. If not, you won’t have to make a selection in this field.

2. Type in student names into the search bar. As students are selected, they appear below the search menu with their name and grade level. The list is arranged alphabetically. Select the X next to a student's name to remove them from the list. 

3. Select Next to continue after all students have been chosen.

 

Add intervention details (Optional):

Tip: If you elect not to enter interventions in FastBridge, or are doing progress monitoring only with a student, there is a ‘SKIP’ button at the bottom of the Intervention Details page of the setup process. If you want to skip adding interventions, do not click anything on that screen EXCEPT the SKIP button. If you click on a field, the entire intervention page becomes mandatory entry.

4. Select an Interventionist from the menu of available users. If you don’t see the interventionist listed, that means that individual doesn’t have a FastBridge account

5. Select a Subject Area. Reading and Math are available at this time. 

6. Choose a Strategy for the intervention. This list is populated based on the interventions the District Manager or School Manager has enabled for use in your setting.  See: Managing Available Interventions

7. A name populates automatically based on the interventionist and strategy. Edit the name, as desired.

8. Click Next to continue.

 

Add an intervention schedule: 

9. Select a Start Date and End Date for the intervention. Your Start Date will be when you started – or plan to start – implementing the intervention with the learner or learners.  The End Date is when you anticipate that you’ll be able to end the intervention for the learner or learners.  In many cases, educators will simply use the end of the school year as their End Date.

10. Select a Start Time and End time for the intervention.

11. Choose a Schedule Type, which can be Weekly, Block, or As Needed. Choose one or more a Day of the Week as it fits the schedule. 

12. Click Next to continue.

 

Set a monitoring schedule for the intervention: 

13. Select a Monitoring User from the available list. If you don’t see the Monitoring User listed, that means that individual doesn’t have a FastBridge account.  In many cases, the Monitoring User will be the same as the Interventionist.

14. Choose a Monitoring Assessment. If there is a FastBridge assessment you’d like to use for progress monitoring, but you don’t see it in the drop-down list, please contact FastBridge support using the Support link in the upper left corner.

15. Select a Starting Form Number. The system will default to Progress Monitoring Form 1, but you may select a different form number if needed.  You might select a different form number if you’re adding a new student to the group later in the year, and you want them to be on the same form number as the rest of the students in the group.

16. Select a Start Date and End Date for the monitoring schedule. By default, the Start Date will appear as the Sunday prior to the current date.  For scheduling purposes, you must select a Sunday on which to start progress monitoring.

Note: Best practice is setting up PM to the end of the year and then releasing the student from PM, if a change needed. See Iowa: Is the Intervention Working? Setting Quality Goals and Using PM Data for Decision-Making. If you utilize the Panorama Student Success system for entering interventions for all students, not just those that are required to be entered into Student Success for ELI or Healthy Indicator reporting, you can evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions in increments using the Intervention graph without negatively impacting the progress monitoring data views. https://iowa-mtss.helpscoutdocs.com/article/245-evaluating-the-effectiveness-of-interventions

17. Select a Start Time and End Time for the monitoring schedule. The times are available in 15-minute increments.

18. Select the Frequency at which students will be monitored, including Day(s) of the Week. While the default is 1 time per week, you may progress monitor as frequently as daily and as infrequently as once every 4 weeks.

Note: selecting a day of the week for monitoring is for informational purposes only. The system will not restrict you from monitoring a different day. Generally, planning for monitoring early in the week allows the best flexibility if there are scheduling conflicts or the student is out sick. Obviously, some consistency in the timing of monitoring is optimal to ensure roughly the same amount of instructional time between probes but you're not required to do it on the day selected on the schedule.

19. Click Next to continue.

 

Set a Review Schedule if needed. This step is optional. If a user wishes, they may select the gray Skip button. To set a schedule:

20. Choose a Start and End Date as well as a Frequency.

21. Click Next to continue. 

 

Update Any Zero Start Scores After Setup (generally in the Fall)

The start score defaults to zero if the progress monitoring was started prior to screening or if the student was screened with an assessment that didn’t include the measure being set up for progress monitoring. These zero start scores will need to be updated manually to use either the first PM score or the most recent screening score (when collected) as the start score.

If the start score defaulted to zero in a progress monitoring plan, here's how to change it:

1. Select the checkbox next to the student's name
2. Click Edit Setup on the blue action menu at the top
3. Click the Edit button next to Monitoring Schedule
4. Under Students, look for the Start Score column and click the 0 start score. Enter the first PM score or the screening score (when completed)
5. Click Next on that end the following screens until you see the SAVE button
6. Click SAVE.

 

Editing Progress Monitoring Setup

IMPORTANT ALERT! Not all editing functions are working. FastBridge is investigating. See the Iowa Known Issues with PM Interface article

There isn’t an interface to edit the PM/intervention details for multiple students at once (even if their PM was set up together). Instead you edit the details for each individual student. This allows greater flexibility to serve the needs of the individual students.

In the visual below, you can see how to edit by clicking the checkbox to the left of the student’s name and selecting Edit Setup on the blue action bar. Then select the area of the plan you want to edit and save when you’re finished.

Some things can't be edited after PM data has been collected in the group. Those fields will be gray and include: Subject, PM Assessment and the Assessment Level.

Beware of zero start scores in FastBridge

In FastBridge, the start score defaults to zero if the progress monitoring was started prior to screening or if the student was screened with an assessment that didn’t include the measure being set up for progress monitoring. If the start score defaulted to zero, here's how to change it:

1. Select the checkbox next to the student's name
2. Click Edit Setup on the blue action menu at the top
3. Click the Edit button next to Monitoring Schedule
4. Under Students, click the 0 start score and enter the first PM score (recommended) or the screening score (if completed)
5. Click Next on that end the following screens until you see the SAVE button
6. Click SAVE.

Note about Other Changes:

• There isn’t an option to remove weeks from individual progress monitoring schedules, as with the previous process. You just skip the probe for the week. There is no “ding” for this (other than the loss of frequent PM data to decide if the intervention is working)