Day 20 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

Today is the day we evaluate our program. It's time to review, reflect, and revise.  Take the time to honestly assess how you feel your class or group responded to your lesson.  What went well?  What didn't?  What would you do differently if you were to do this program again?  Were you able to communicate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes you wanted your students to learn? Were the curriculum, lesson, or activity as effective as you thought they would be?  Did your lesson reflect the competencies you had chosen for your students?  How were your pre/ post test surveys? Did the students understand the questions?  Did your questions reflect the content of your lesson well? Were there problems with wording you would change for next time or was your pre/post test just right?  What about the data?  Are you able to show improvement? An increase or decrease?  Did you measure what you thought you  measured? So much to think about in order to  evaluate our efforts to create the best possible school counseling program for our students.

A day late...
Today was the day I actually began the implementation of my action plan. It did not go as smoothly as I hoped, actually it almost didn't happen at all. It seemed as if every negative force in the universe was bearing down on my school today and conspiring to keep me from doing my group.  But, those boys. Those hard to handle, kind of prickly, sometimes annoying boys from my group were waiting for me on the steps of my portable when I finally arrived 15 minutes late.  They were not bothered by my lateness but were eager to get started.  They took right to the Zones of Regulation lesson and I feel that although we were late getting started they were hooked from the beginning.  They were familiar with the color coded behavior systems from their classrooms and immediately tried to equate the colors with good vs. bad behavior.  The seemed genuinely intrigued by the idea that different feelings went in different zones and loved the game where they matched the feelings to the zone.

I know I said 3 lessons, but I must have been out of my mind!   Zones of Regulations is such an awesome comprehensive program there is no way to do that.  Since we only have 2 1/2 weeks of school left I am going to see if their teachers will let them come more often and see just how far we can go.

DAY 21
Wow! It's almost here! I can't believe I have been living and breathing data for the last 20 days!  Day 21 is about sharing your outcome.  Trish Hatch talks about the flashlight approach and gives us a structure for creating a PowerPoint to share our results.  But she also reminds us to share it wherever and with whomever we can.  Sometimes we don't get to present to our faculty, we get 5 minutes with the Prinicpal during cafeteria duty.  Getting our results out there and showing how students are different because of what School Counselors do is our goal.  Results that show how valuable School Counselors can be when they are given the time and opportunity to do what School Counselors do best is what it's all about!

If want to know more about the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge, you can read about it HERE.  Please check out the Exploring School Counseling Facebook page and share your data experiences there.