Current research suggests schools face many barriers in effectively monitoring student's response to behavioral interventions in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the FastBridge - Direct Behavior Rating (FastBridge-DBR), a brief, novel progress monitoring measure, designed to assess student behavioral change in response to a classroom behavioral intervention. Twenty-four elementary teacher-student dyads implemented a daily progress report intervention to promote positive student behavior during pre-specified classroom activities. FastBridge-DBR data were then collected for three target behaviors (i.e., Academic Engagement, Disruptive Behavior, Withdrawal) and compared to Systematic Direct Observation (SDO) data. Five change metrics (i.e., absolute change, percent of change from baseline, improvement rate difference, Tau-U, effect size; Gresham, 2005) were used to examine sensitivity to change. The Usage Rating Profile - Assessment (URP-A) was used to evaluate teacher acceptability of FastBridge-DBR. FastBridge-DBR scores were highly correlated with SDO data, demonstrating evidence of concurrent validity. FastBridge-DBR change metrics were significantly correlated with SDO change metrics. Additionally, while teachers provided high acceptability ratings for FastBridge-DBR, there was a lack of association between teachers' ratings of acceptability and student behavioral change. Implications for practice, study limitations, and areas of future research are discussed.

The aim of the Reading First grant program was to (a) increase quality and consistency of instruction in K-3 classrooms; (b) conduct timely and valid assessments of student reading growth in order to identify students experiencing reading difficulties; and (c) provide high quality, intensive interventions to help struggling readers catch up with their peers (Torgesen, 2002). In the State of Florida, school districts must incorporate the use of an assessment tool called the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) to qualify for Reading First grant funding. Though DIBELS has been found to be a valid and reliable assessment for screening, monitoring, and evaluating student outcomes in early literacy skills, very little discussion or research has been conducted concerning teacher use and attitudes about DIBELS within a Reading First program. The present study involved a qualitative analysis of teachers' perceptions and use of the DIBELS within a Reading First context. Fourteen teachers (seven kindergarten and seven first grade teachers), Reading Coaches, non-teaching Specialists, and DIBELS experts participated in the present study. Results were aggregated for comparisons across multiple data sources. Results suggest teacher's perceptions may not be easily classified on a simple dichotomous range; rather their reported benefits and concerns on the use of the DIBELS were found to be varied and highly situational. Results were further interpreted in the context of research literature on data utilization and analysis in schools.

Effective practices in student data collection and implementation of data-based instructional decisions are needed for all educators, but are especially important when students have severe intellectual and develop- mental disabilities. Although research in the area of data-based instructional decisions for students with severe disabilities shows benefits for using data, there is limited research to demonstrate teachers in applied settings can acquire the decision-making skills required. The purpose of this research was to demonstrate how teachers from five states acquired a set of data-based decisions implementation guidelines through online professional development. Recommendations for practice and future research are included.

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-06-04T15:11:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RANILSON OSCAR ARAÚJO PAIVA - TESE (PPGCC) 2017.pdf: 11842712 bytes, checksum: ac3058f290c36c90ab21ce1a9820b601 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-04T15:11:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RANILSON OSCAR ARAÚJO PAIVA - TESE (PPGCC) 2017.pdf: 11842712 bytes, checksum: ac3058f290c36c90ab21ce1a9820b601 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / Vivemos uma mudança no paradigma educacional onde se busca prover educação de qualquer lugar, a qualquer momento e para qualquer pessoa, utilizando tecnologias digitais da informação e comunicação. Há um interesse global no ensino à distância, mas não há um aumento equivalente de suporte aos professores e tutores responsáveis por manter tais cursos. Essa deficiência acentua os problemas e desafios existentes na gestão de cursos a distância, pois com o tempo mais estudantes aderem ao ensino a distância, requerendo a criação de novos cursos e turmas, incrementando a quantidade de estudantes sendo sub-servidos em termos de apoio pedagógico. Isso é evidenciado pelo grande número de desistências e falhas em tais cursos, particularmente, nos MOOCs (Cursos Online Massivos e Abertos), que os estudantes justificam como falta de suporte. Esta tese propõe uma solução de autoria para guiar a tomada de decisões pedagógicas em ambientes online de aprendizagem, tendo sido aplicada em um MOOC. A proposta visa auxiliar professores e tutores (1) a descobrir situações de interesse pedagógico ocorrendo em seus cursos; (2) compreender essas situações; (3) tomar decisões para aborda-las e; (4) monitorar e avaliar o impacto da decisão tomada. As interações em tais cursos geram grande quantidade e diversidade de dados, sendo possível extrair informações pedagogicamente relevantes. Entretanto, professores e tutores não dominam a tecnologia necessária para utilizar esses dados, nem é prático ou apropriado solicitar que sejam treinados para tanto. A proposta se fundamenta na tomada de decisões informada por dados educacionais, na visualização de dados e nos sistemas de autoria para promover a cooperação entre a inteligência artificial e a inteligência humana. Realizamos dois experimentos para: (1) avaliar se o processo auxilia professores e tutores a tomar decisões pedagógicas úteis e em tempo de curso; (2) avaliar se a solução de autoria guia a tomada de decisões pedagógicas de professores e tutores. Os resultados sugerem que o processo trouxe benefícios à tomada de decisões pedagógicas e que a solução de autoria foi capaz de guiar a tomada de decisões pedagógicas em tempo de curso e que sua utilidade e facilidade foram percebidas positivamente por professores e tutores. / We are experiencing changes in the educational paradigm. There is a quest to provide education from anywhere, at any time and for anyone, using digital information and communication technologies. There is a global interest in distance learning, but there is no equivalent increase in support for teachers and tutors responsible for maintaining such courses. This difference accentuates the problems and challenges in managing distance courses once that, over time, more students join distance learning, requiring the creation of new courses and classes, increasing the number of distance students being sub-served in terms of pedagogical support. This is evidenced by the large number of dropouts and faiilures in such courses, particularly in MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), that students justify as lack of support. This thesis proposes an authoring solution to guide the pedagogical decision making in online learning environments, which was applied in a MOOC. The proposal aims to help teachers and tutors (1) to discover situations of pedagogical interest occurring in their courses; (2) understand these situations; (3) make decisions to address them; (4) monitor and evaluate the impact of the decision made. The interactions in such courses generate considerable quantity and diversity of data,allowing the extraction of pedagogically relevant information. However, teachers and tutors do not master the technology needed to use this data, nor is it practical or appropriate to ask them to be trained to do so. Our proposal is based on informed decision making by educational data, data visualization and authoring systems to promote cooperation between artificial intelligence and human intelligence. We conducted two experiments to: (1) evaluate whether the process helps teachers and tutors to make useful and time-course pedagogical decisions; (2) to evaluate if the authoring solution guides the pedagogical decision making of teachers and tutors. The results suggest that the process brought benefits to pedagogical decision making and that the authoring solution was able to guide the pedagogical decision making in course time and that its usefulness and ease of use were positively perceived by teachers and tutors.