SLO’s Made Easy With TAH Curriculum

Fall means two things: Back to School and SLOs. In my district, SLO’s are just one measurement of teacher evaluation, but it is something we take seriously. SLO’s, or Student Learning Objectives, are a great way to measure the progress and growth of students throughout the year. Finding ways to measure student growth isn’t new for special education teachers. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I decided to use the pre and post-tests from TAH leveled daily curriculums to share student growth with my administration and parents. Here’s how we did it.

Determining SLO goals

First, I decided to measure ELA goals, but I just as easily could have used math. Using the curriculum matrix, I decided what level I wanted my students to use. From there, I wrote a general student learning objective for ELA, then gave each student a specific goal for measuring learning based on where they were at that aligned with the curriculum I had chosen. 

My district decides on growth points/percentages, testing windows, and rating scores.

Keeping Track of Data

From here, once my SLO was approved by my evaluator, I moved forward and gave the pre-test for three consecutive units to my students and recorded their percentage correct as my pre-test SLO score. 

Then, I lesson planned, I taught, and I did some informal assessment, then taught so more! (For information on how I lesson plan using TAH Leveled Daily Curriculums, check out this blog post) When I was done with each unit, I gave the post-test, then evaluated if there were areas I needed to re-teach. I didn’t record these post-test scores, rather I used them for my own reflection and data-driven instructional decisions.

Finally, when I was done teaching all three units, I gave the post test for each unit. From here, I added the points, turned it into a percentage, then recorded my score. 

This process made my SLO so simple, obtainable for my students and I loved that the data recording was already a part of the curriculum. I didn’t have to make anything, I didn’t have to assign goals that aren’t appropriate. Everyone was learning and I have the data to prove how big student growth was! Not to mention, EVERY SINGLE STUDENT MET THEIR GROWTH TARGET!!!! And that’s the goal of student learning objectives – to show student growth. My evaluators loved it, and so did my parents! They found that the pre/post tests were easy to understand and showed them exactly how students grew! It was a win for me, a win for my students, and a win for my parents! I’ll never tackle an SLO any other way!