Exploring School Counseling: Track Your Time with Google Forms: The Counselor Activity Log

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Track Your Time with Google Forms: The Counselor Activity Log

Part of getting ready for back to school means updating my Google forms. If you don't know Google forms, they are an amazing tool! I have used Google forms for years for a variety of purposes like minute meetings, documenting group attendance and session content, surveys, needs assessments, and pre/post tests. However, my favorite is for tracking my time each day. I liked the Counselor Activity form I used for several years, but felt now that I was at a new school, it was in need of a little makeover.

NEW this year, sections!
Even though my original form contained everything I thought I wanted to document, it was long and cumbersome and a little confusing even to me at times. So this summer I learned how to add sections to my forms. By using the Google form feature "sections" and including branch or skip logic, I was able to create a neater, more concise form. Skip logic changes what question a respondent sees next based on how they have answered the previous question. Basically, it allows you to create a customized path through your form based on how a question is answered.

When you first open the Counselor Activity Log form, you will see a place for the date and four categories: Direct Services, Indirect Services, Non-Counseling Related Duties and a new, much needed category After Hours Services. Because honestly, what school counselor is NOT volunteering mega hours after school and from home? This should be part of your data collection as well. There is too much to do in the course of a school day and it is important for stakeholders to see how much the school counselor is doing long after the school day is over.

Depending on what you want to record, choose your category and follow the questions until you get to the submit button. The items in each category can easily be deleted/revised or new tasks added to fit your school situation.

Each of the 4 major categories contains a drop-down menu of tasks or services specific to that section. If you choose Direct Services, you will get a screen with a drop-down menu that allows you to choose from 8 different direct services. From there, depending on the service you choose, the form allows you to log specific details for that service such as grade, gender, referred by, and referral type. For example if you choose individual or crisis counseling, the form takes you to a screen where you can choose the reason for the counseling and document essential information about the student seen.

If Indirect Services is chosen an alphabetized drop down menu of more than 30 indirect services provided by school counselors appears. If a phone call is chosen, the form takes you to a screen to document your phone call, including the name and number of the caller. When Non-Counseling Related Duties is chosen, you will see a drop-down menu of more than 50 activities or duties considered non-counseling related. It also has a place for you to notate what services were lost as a result of the non-counseling duty. Great for making your case about loss of time with students. For After Hours Services, a drop down menu of 8 items including work beyond the contract day and work from home is shown. This allows you to log the number of hours outside the school day you spend preparing for your job.

The beauty of Google forms is your ability to customize them to fit your needs. I have included as many different direct, indirect, non-counseling duties, and after hours services as I could think of in the drop down menus. However, I am sure there are other duties and services of which I am not aware or are unique to other schools. No worries, you can add or delete duties relevant to your school, add teacher names or grade levels, whatever makes this form work for your data collection needs.

You will notice I made the questions on this form required (except for notes and follow-up) so I never forget or skip over any questions which are important for data collection. Although Google forms time stamps when you record your entry, it will not reflect the day and amount of time you actually provided the services unless you are recording responses in real time. I seldom have time to do that and often do my logging at the end of the day. Collecting data to reflect the day services are provided is important when giving others a preview of the fullness of your day or of specific times of day or days of the week. If all your entries are only time stamped when you recorded the activity, you may be missing valuable data to show your busiest days or times.

Why Track Your Time?
There are always questions about what school counselors do with their time. Because much of what we do is confidential, it is safe to say, the majority of people in our schools and communities have no idea what a school counselor does all day. This Counselor Activity Log provides a record of your responses to school needs, gives administrators an overview how your time is spent without violating confidentiality, and allows you to track your time for personal reflection. All this plus providing colorful graphs provide a clear visual representation to share with administration, faculty, parents, and the community. Data can be shared monthly, quarterly, by semester, or as an overview of the year. You decide what best meets your needs.

Documenting your activities is a powerful advocacy tool for telling the story of how your position as a school counselor is being utilized. By using the data and graphs from this form, you will be able to tell your story of success or of the changes needing to be made in order for you to provide services to ALL students.

Available on TPT
If you are interested in downloading my new and improved, editable Google form "Counselor Activity Log" with sections, designed specifically for elementary school counselors, middle school counselors and high school counselors, click on the photo of your level.