Online College Courses for Credit

2 Tutorials that teach Monitoring Progress
Take your pick:
Monitoring Progress

Monitoring Progress

Author: Trisha Fyfe

In this lesson, learners will explore how progress is monitored in an instructional development plan.

See More

Like what you're learning?

Instructional Coaching

Take the whole course from Capella University FOR FREE


Source: Image light, Public Domain,

Video Transcription

Download PDF

Welcome. I'm Tricia Fyfe and in today's video lesson, we'll dive into the lesson titled "Implementation and Monitoring Progress." As we learn about this topic, we will work toward several learning objectives. Together we'll use the following three questions to guide our learning-- what are the do and study stages of the PDSA, what are progress monitoring tools, and how is progress monitored in an instructional development plan?

In today's lesson, we'll be examining several stages in the PDSA cycle. Let's start with do. This stage comes after the development of the plan, which is the P stage, plan, and it's here that the teacher begins to bring the changes that were decided upon in the planning stage into their teaching. Strategies are outlined and an important piece to this planning is these strategies.

This is where the plan and process for actual implementation are summarized. Each situation is different and so each teacher's strategies for how they will be implementing changes will be varied. There are many factors to consider here-- factors such as instructional approach of the teacher and the goals that are put into place.

Let's look at the S stage, or study. It's here that the teacher and coach should be carefully observing what is happening. What is the impact of the changes? What does progress look like? Monitoring goals is crucial and this is a very important part of developing professionally for teachers. Strategies can be used like reflection on the experiences, observing and evaluating outcomes, and examining data and feedback from students.

Student achievement data is also very important to use once goals have been established. This is yet another method for studying and monitoring progress toward the goals. It's important for the teacher and coach to see instructional progress toward goals, and if this is not happening new goals must be set. This is the nature of the PDSA cycle. It's a cycle for continuous improvement and it allows for adaptations along the way.

When things are not progressing as planned, we can move to the act stage and alter the goals. The cycle does not stop here, however. The teacher continues to implement strategies. Some may be the same if they're working and so may be new or altered. The coach continues to track and monitor progress that is being made. It's essential to continue monitoring to gain as much information as possible.

Let's look at some tools that can help us monitor progress. These tools may be used by a teacher or by the instructional coach. First, we'll look at student data. We can collect student data to assist in monitoring progress. Data can be gathered from assessments, assignments, group projects, and by observing the types of questions that students are asking.

Let's take the students are scoring well in assessments. This would indicate something is working and this teacher might continue using methods more often that they're already using. On the other hand, if students did not score well on assessments it would be evident that some kind of change was needed. This is where the teacher and coach can work together to determine the next step.

Student feedback is another tool to monitor progress. Students can be a great resource for getting answers. They can give us, as teachers, feedback on new strategies. Maybe we'll use a student survey after we try a technique. They can also provide us with answers to questions about what they learned and what they would like to know. They can tell us how they felt about the lesson itself.

Teacher and coach can spend time analyzing the feedback from students for any commonalities or trends and this data will help in altering the next steps in the PDSA cycle. Recorded lessons can be a great tool for both teachers and coaches. If the lessons are recorded at various points over time, trends and differences as far as instructional practices can be observed. We can look at the students' levels of engagement with the instructional methods that were presented using these recordings.

We can also use recordings to monitor how students reacted to this lesson or techniques and how the teacher engaged with the students throughout the lesson. We can use plus/minus/deltas. This is where we use a plus, what worked well; minus, what did not go so well; and delta, what changes should be made. It's a very straightforward strategy where teachers would continue with what was working and take note of and change what was not working.

Reflection is also an excellent tool. Reflection is critical for so many different processes. The act of reflecting came in so many benefits to the table in the process of implementing and monitoring progress for teachers. It brings new insights and ideas which can be used to determine changes needed throughout the approach. Reflection can also help the teacher understand at a different level that there might be better methods in teaching a particular concept or they might see that they need to change the focus of the lesson itself in order to elaborate on concepts.

Reflection occurs in so many different areas and by so many various individuals in this process. The teacher must reflect, the coach also reflects, and reflection can occur in support of groups like critical friends groups. Reflective journals is the last tool that we'll discuss today. This is essentially a way for both teachers and students to review and elaborate on thoughts about lessons and share feedback on ideas they may have.

It's helpful to have a place to go back to where these thoughts are recorded. Teachers can gain great ideas about which methods were, in fact, successful and which areas need improvement and revision. Let's apply these ideas by looking at a scenario where the PDSA cycle is being used in an instructional coaching relationship to look at a specific goal. Let's say students have had very low levels of engagement in this classroom and the teacher has developed a plan that includes increasing levels of engagement in the classroom.

The plan includes for the do section inquiry-based group work and questioning techniques that this teacher will use. So this is what the teacher is going to be implementing and monitoring, which is the S stage. In the monitoring, or the study, section of the PDSA, this teacher will use student feedback and reflection and observations, as well as assessment data, to determine if engagement levels were higher. The final stage would be the act stage, and this is where the teacher and coach would sit down and use the data to make decisions. Do new goals need to be set? Do things need to be changed?

In this situation, the coach and teacher decided to use a few different tools to monitor and track progress here. They decided to use recorded lessons to see if students' engagement levels were higher, and this was done in the do section while the teacher was teaching with inquiry-based group settings, as well as using questioning techniques. The teacher and coach recorded the lessons and then they were able to look back at them during the study section.

They also decided to use a reflective journal in which the teacher and the students both kept a journal of different lessons and had some guided questions to help them along the way. This way the teacher could review the students' data and observations in the reflection journals and the coach and teacher could sit down and study this data together, as well. A plus/minus/delta was also used during the study section when the goals were being monitored and progress was being monitored.

Another tool that this coach and teacher decided to use was student data. And the coach and teacher began to take note of which lessons and topics and teaching strategies encouraged more questions from the students. These tools were all used in the study section. The teacher and coach in this relationship, in particular, noticed that because of the inquiry-based group work that the students were doing, as well as the teacher modeling and using different questioning techniques throughout the lessons, that the students were, in fact, beginning to ask more questions during the study section when they were monitoring the lessons and their feedback became more positive in their reflective journals. This showed to the teacher that their changes were actually making improvements as far as the students' levels of engagement in the classroom.

Let's talk about what we learned today. We looked at the questions what are the do and study stages of the PDSA, what are progress monitoring tools, and how is progress monitored in an instructional development plan? In this lesson we talked about the PDSA, specifically the D or do, where the teacher begins to bring changes that were decided upon during planning into teaching and we talked about the S, the study stage, where teacher and coach should carefully observe what is happening. What is the impact of the changes what does progress look like?

We also discussed some tools that will help us monitor progress, tools like student data and feedback, recording lessons, plus/minus/deltas and reflection. Now that you're more familiar with these concepts, let's reflect. Consider a time you had to implement and monitor progress in your teaching. Di you use the PDSA cycle in this process? If so, what were the benefits? If not, what benefits might you have seen if you used this method?

Thanks for joining me today in discussing the lesson "Implementation and Monitoring Progress." I hope you found value in this video lesson and are able to apply these ideas and concepts to your own teaching. To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.

Notes on “Implementation and Monitoring Progress”


(00:00- 00:25) Introduction/Objectives

(00:26- 01:09) PDSA: D stage

(01:10- 02:27) PDSA: S Stage

(02:28- 05:33) Tools for Monitoring Progress

(05:34- 08:05) Example Scenario/Tools Used

(08:06- 08:46) Recap

(08:47- 09:29) Reflection 

Additional Resources

Launching CCI and PDSA

This presentation prepared by a Texas school system overviews their experience in the first year of implementing CCI programs.

Continuous Improvement at the Campus Level

This report by Texas Center for District and School Support provides explanations of how to use PDSA for progress monitoring and promoting student achievement.