I first started using planbookedu.com in 2010. This is my 13th year using the site to organize my schedule, therapy plans, goals, DATA, and even my IEP dates in one convenient space. My usage of the program has evolved over the years because I did not always use it for data notes for example. At first, I just used it for my schedule and therapy plans and over time it evolved into what I use it for today.
Keeping track of my data has been a constant struggle in my career. Balancing a usually a 100 to sometimes over 100 caseload and keeping enough data to drive my therapy and having the data easily accessible has been tricky. At first, I had binders with hard copies of all my goals and I hand-wrote data on the bottom of each goal sheet. I organized them in multiple ways, alphabetically, by grade level, and by groups. While I was data tracking, organization by groups was easiest, but then using it to make therapy plans and to write upcoming goals was easier alphabetically. Nothing ever seemed like the perfect organization system for actual hands-on quick use for a super busy SLP so then I was not utilizing data to drive therapy as much and as often as I wanted.
I currently have a caseload of 140 that I split with an SLPA and I keep both mine and my SLPA's schedule, plans, goals, and data in planbooks using https://www.planbookedu.com/. This is my 23rd year as an SLP and it is my 13th year using planbookedu. I love the program for many reasons. First, the price. It is $25 for an entire calendar year. A few years ago (after having used planbookedu for almost 10 years), I did a trial of SLP Toolkit. While it does have features that are above and beyond caseload management such as quick quizzes for data collection, at $18 dollars a month billed annually for $216 dollars it was not a cost-effective choice for me when compared to my $25 dollars aYEAR current system. Also, as a clinician of over 20 years, I already have tons of my own data collection materials that I have made and/or acquired over the years.
Let's make a sample planbook to show you how I use this program and tailor it to what I do as a speech-language pathologist. When setting up your planbook, take however many 30-minute blocks you have in your daily schedule and multiply that by two, this is your periods per day. For me, that is 22.
Then you put your daily schedule with times and student names into one of the first weeks of the year, skipping a box after every group for data collection. The schedule/planning boxes you are going to save WEEKLY for the first time that you set up your schedule. When you do this, you will put the schedule on every day for the entire year with one click. So when you go to the next week, your schedule is all there and ready for you to plan. I leave these schedule boxes white. When you use these boxes throughout the year, you will save them as "This entry should appear ONCE" so that it is only the therapy plan you used on that one day and it does not go forward to your whole year.
The FIRST time you save your schedule boxes will look like this:
The rest of the year, when you save your schedule boxes it will look like this, "This entry should appear ONCE" with your daily therapy plan for that particular day. When you go to the next week, the only thing that will be there is your schedule and it will be ready for your next therapy plan.
One of the reasons that I love planbookedu is that I am a very digital therapist. I put my digital links, Boom card deck links, and also attach files (such as pdfs and powerpoints) directly to the schedule box so that when I am doing my very busy therapy day, I can easily find the resources I want to use with that particular group and can just click on them to bring them up. This saves me so much time throughout my day and inevitably leads to my students getting more speech goal practice/trials done! I have written separate blog posts about digital materials that I have created such as
wordwall,
memory games,
quizlet, and
Boom. MANY of my online resources are totally free. I also have resources you can buy in my
Teacher pay Teacher and
BOOM stores, both titled "Coyle's Communication". For example, the 1000 challenge is a motivational bulletin board set that I created that starts off all my articulation therapy and my students LOVE it and are so motivated to "race," that is available in my TPT store.
Then the next box is going to be your IEP date, Goals, and DATA box. I color code my boxes and make my data boxes blue. You will ALWAYS save these boxes as weekly so that from week to week your data compiles and builds and is all in one easy place right next to your therapy plan boxes, sitting there ready to be used to drive your therapy plans. Below is what it looks like the first time you save your Goal/ Data box. The dates after the student names are when their annual IEP plans are due. This is all sample, hypothetical students, and hypothetical goals that I wrote quickly as an example to make this blog post. All student confidentiality of my actual caseload is strictly kept according to FERPA and ASHA ethical standards.
So now our base planbook looks like this below. This is also on every Monday for the rest of the school year. I have only filled in one SAMPLE therapy group, but imagine this extrapolated to your entire schedule and all the boxes filled with your daily schedule and data.
Now let's go look at this therapy group in a few months after we have taken some pretend, sample data on Student A's #1 goal.
Now imagine each goal with some data, that has compiled and grown over time. As you go forward in the school year you will keep saving these blue data boxes weekly so that the entire data set for the goal is in one convenient place that happens to be right next to your plan box which makes planning therapy much easier and most importantly: data-driven!
When you finish your therapy group on November 12th, saving this goal/data box looks like this, Pull down WEEKLY in the top and click SAVE on the bottom left. Then this data just went onto every week in your planbook. I personally highlight my data so that it is easily visibly distinguishable from my goals.
I hope you have found this useful. If you have any questions, please leave a comment on this post and/or email me at coyleslp77@gmail.com
Happy Therapy Planning and Data Collection!
Ms. Coyle MS CCC/SLP
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