Action needed: confirm the accuracy of the start score and end goal in FastBridge
Progress monitoring data, including the start score and goal, transfer from FastBridge to Student Success nightly to populate both the progress monitoring and intervention graphs. Incorrect start or goal data in FastBridge will result in poor data populating into the year-long progress monitoring and resulting intervention graph in Student Success.
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:
In FastBridge, on the PM tab, select the checkbox next to the student's name and click Edit Setup on the blue action menu at the top
Under Student Goals, look for the Start Score column and click the 0 start score. Enter the first PM score or the screening score (when completed)
Click Save.
The updated start score will transfer from FastBridge into Student Success during the nightly refresh
Goals matter: for students at risk and those who are not
FastBridge automatically projects an end of year goal for progress monitoring based on the start score and the default weekly gain value. Students who are at risk or persistently at risk: we suggest editing the end of year goal to match the end of year benchmark, which will automatically revise the weekly gain. The adjustment will generally result in a weekly gain needed that is greater than typical. To close the gap, a student must make very strong gains; That’s the whole point of the intervention process. Students performing closer to benchmark: it may be better to use the start score and weekly gain to set a reasonable end of year goal, which will likely be higher than the end of year benchmark.
Students who already have strong skills but are being monitored for other reasons: The end of year goal may be set above the Spring benchmark. In the illustration above, if a student had a start score of 100, the end of year goal would probably be closer to 160 based on the 1.4 words per week growth set as the default weekly gain. This would make sense because you’d like to have a strong student continue to make good growth over time. The goal should ALWAYS be higher than the start score.
Read more in: Is the Intervention Working? Setting Quality Goals and Using PM Data for Decision-Making
How the FastBridge data is used to populate the intervention plan base and target scores in Student Success:
- The FastBridge start score and goal is transmitted to the Student Success system automatically during the nightly data updates.
- Those numbers are then used on the year-long progress monitoring graph, with the start score anchored to the first PM data point available, and the end of year goal anchored to May 31st.
- When the intervention plan is created, Student Success interpolates a base and target to populate the plan graph using both the start and end date of the intervention and the values for those weeks on the aim line of the year-long PM graph in Student Success. This is why the start score and target in the intervention may not be the same as in FastBridge . They have been adjusted to the start and end dates of the intervention plan.
- The system then extracts a section from that year-long PM graph that correlates with the time span set for the intervention plan and displays it in the intervention plan. Tip: the base and target in the intervention plan graph will not be an exact match for either the start score and goal in FastBridge or the base and target on year-long PM graph in Student Success.