So you need to do a Professional Portfolio....

While I will admit that I could have spent hours pouring over ASHA's PACE guidelines and the NC Evaluation Tool for SLPs to develop my own system, I decided that it would simply be too much stress on me this year with all that I already have on my plate. So I decided to purchase the Editable Danielson Portfolio by Natalie Snyders. It was $20 well spent in my books.

Why?

1) Natalie has already done the hardest part of the work for you. She spent hours doing the research of what does and doesn't belong in a professional portfolio using the Danielson model.

2) The templates are very clean and professional. You don't have to do much of anything to the formatting asides from adding your name and pictures.

3) Natalie includes a well-written description on most of the pages that you can simply tweak. She also gives you a PDF copy of her binder as an example. I found this really helpful on the few open-ended pages where you describe your own style.

4) She also gives you ideas for evidence. This is probably the most time consuming part of the process. You will need to collect samples of paperwork (evaluations, SOAP notes, rating scales/rubrics, therapy artifacts, CEU certificates, etc). I, for one, am really bad about saving our speech meeting agendas even though I often share about materials or new therapy ideas that I've run across. This binder forces me to be a little bit better about keeping those to show how I collaborate and share.

Things that I have learned:

1) You should keep documentation of the things that you are doing regardless of whether or not it is a requirement. I had saved some samples over the years that I could use, but there are many activities that I don't have any samples from that would have demonstrated even more skills. I can recreate some of it, but I may not have any students working on those goals now.

2) It is good to keep a running record of contacts with teachers beyond looking back in emails.

3) It is sometimes better to spend money than time. I am not a huge fan of buying materials from Teachers Pay Teachers (although I like freebies) since they still require a little tweaking. It's easier to make my own that are tailored to my students. It is helpful to have the resources for things that are not necessarily used for therapy, like letters to parents or the summer calendars. I can only imagine how long it would take to make this binder from scratch. There is definitely a balance.

Adventures in language sampling

Language samples. It must be THAT time of the year again! Yes, folks, I have just started wading in the waters of evaluation season.

We all know that standardized assessments are only one piece of the puzzle. Information has to be gathered in other ways through interviews with parents, teacher rating scales, work samples, academic grades, etc......Even at the school-aged level, one of the best informal measures of a student's language and articulation skills is a language sample. I thought I would share some free resources that I use for language samples today.

1. Language Sample Record Sheet for 100 Utterances. 
2. Language Sample Checklist Part 1 (This targets preschool, but I use it for lower elementary too)
3. Language Sample Checklist Part 2
4. Language Sample Checklist for 20 Utterances
5. Free Language Sample Prompts  (Prompts for students who don't need pictures)
6. No-Words Freebie: Build A Snowman. (You can also use wordless picture books from the library.)
7. Free Internet Coloring Pages - just make sure you get one that contains a scene. I decided to print out some options from Frozen, but you could also use popular cartoon shows.

I have to say that using the Frozen pictures for language sampling has made my life so much easier.

I'm a data-driven girl

I think September is quickly becoming my month for creating forms. Perhaps it's something in the air or maybe just nerves about forgetting something important.....At any rate, I like to have a hard copy of important information by my desk rather than on my computer. (I don't have the best luck with school computers.)

In my district, we are expected to have students participate in their IEP meetings in some capacity if able. This usually means that I have them introduce me to their parents and vice versa. We have to turn this data in at the end of the year. I figured having a cute form to keep this data would be more of an incentive than just entering it into a plain old spreadsheet document. 

The second log is just another way of cementing important due dates in my mind. I wanted a reference sheet that I can just check off as I tackle important tasks. Typically, I rely on a) planner; b) sticky note on desk; c) sticky note beside therapy table; c) wall calendar; and d) email calendar. It gets really confusing to figure out which note has been checked off and which ones haven't. This saves me some time and energy. 

Here is the link for the Student Led IEP log.

Here is the link for the Important Dates log.

Also, don't forget about my Parent Contact log freebie too.

Hope these freebies will help all of you out as well!

Getting the year started off right with more data keeping

As the school year gets off to a running start with a week and a half of hearing screenings, I am trying to take steps to insure I do a better job of documenting of the non-SLP specific variety. Graduate school sort of spoils you in a bubble of ignorance when it comes to the importance of documenting all forms of contact with clients/caregivers. It's just not something that we tend to think about being as a crucial aspect of our job. We have IEPs to write, Medicaid to bill, and therapy sessions to plan. If I see X's mom in the hallway and say "Hi! How are you?", it doesn't always register to my brain that I might want to take note of that conversation since it doesn't relate to the student.

Documentation of all parent/guardian contact; however, is an important aspect of our job in the school system. So I will be trying out a new handy dandy log form this year to keep track of everything in one place. If you'd like a copy to try out, you can grab it here.

I plan on making a little binder with several of these sheets for each school year. I can stick the binder in my file cabinet with my speech records.

P.S. If you like using logs to keep track of data, you should check out this freebie screening/evaluation log on TeachersPayTeachers. I absolutely love it. She also has her own contact form which goes into more detail than mine.

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork....the challenge of keeping data.

I think a common concern of many school-based SLPs is having an efficient data system. We ask each other at conferences, small workshops, district meetings, and online. How do you keep data? Do you like the way you keep data? More importantly, will you please share the forms that you use? That's why I wanted to join up with Crazy Speech World's data linky this week. 

My district started the process of creating uniform data sheets during my CFY. I think that this is really beneficial to the district and to our therapists. We have different writing styles, but we know where to find the things that we need should students switch from school to school. The district has a set form for our service notes, evaluation reports (which we give out in addition to what's on the IEP paperwork for evals. & re-evals.), and plan of cares. 

The form I love the most is our service note. It includes all the information I need to bill Medicaid electronically. I print double-sided sheets out for every student that last for 6 week periods. I like to arrange my notes into two binders. I have a binder for Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. The binders contain tabs of 30 minute time slots. I stick the service notes into their time slot so it's easy to find the group/student that I need at the drop of a hat. 

My coworkers did an awesome job on the creation of these forms.

Here is a copy of our form with a blank for the name of your district. I've also created a new sheet similar to this one for my inclusion groups. One page has space for 3 students with abbreviated goals. I can print out these sheets and transfer the data to their normal service note after each session. It's a much needed solution after I discovered how hard it was to keep 6 sticky notes from falling off of my clipboard. The copy of that file can be found here.