How This K-5th Grade SPED Resource Teacher in North Dakota Addresses Student Behavior and IEP Goals with Boddle

Emily Rositas is a Special Education Resource teacher in North Dakota who services Kindergarten through 5th grade students with a wide range of learning needs. She supports students with IEPs in ELA, math, and Social Emotional Learning. Emily faces the challenge of increasing scholarly behavior amongst her students while providing them with support to meet their specific academic needs. As such, she has found Boddle to be helpful in providing differentiated assignments that meet the specific needs of her students while allowing her to focus on one-on-one instruction.

Key Outcomes:

• Standards-Aligned Targeting of Specific Skills:  To assign practice that will help her students meet their IEP goals, Emily can add standards from any grade level to help scaffold and meet her students where they are.
• A Multitude of Data to Inform Instruction: To best align the assignments she creates to her students’ needs, Emily utilizes Boddle’s reports to identify learning gaps and guide her students towards mastery.
• Engaging Gameplay that Builds Students’ Confidence With Boddle, Emily’s students feel successful while completing their IEP-aligned assignments through fun games and an interactive environment.

Challenge: Finding a resource that allows for differentiated assignments to meet IEP goals while simultaneously addressing student behaviors.

It is common for students to exhibit behaviors that disrupt learning when they are presented with material that is too challenging or too easy for their current skill level. When students are faced with material that is too difficult, they may become frustrated, lose confidence, and give up on the task. On the other hand, when material is too easy, students may become bored or disengaged and may not see the value in completing the task. With such a wide range of grade levels and skill levels, Emily found it challenging to engage her students in meaningful practice as behaviors began presenting themselves in response to students not being challenged enough, or challenged beyond their skill level.

Solution: Emily utilizes Boddle’s assignment features to quickly and easily create standards-specific assignments for each of her students that align with their specific IEP goals.

Since Boddle is fully aligned to state standards for grades Kindergarten through 6th, Emily is able to easily create assignments that align with each student’s specific IEP goals. She’s found that this dramatically improves positive behavior because students are practicing what they need rather than working in a one-size-fits-all group. Further, because Boddle provides engaging gameplay, Emily is able to work one-on-one with students who require her undivided attention, which alleviates the worry that her students’ behaviors are causing them to become off-track.

Result: Emily is able to successfully work on-on-one with her students while feeling confident that other students are independently focused on specific skills.

By using Boddle’s assignment feature, Emily can assign exactly which skills her students need to practice in order to make progress towards their IEP goals. She can even reassign the assignment if students need more practice. With a wide range of data available, including a learning gaps report and progress report, Emily can easily see if her students are ready to move on to the next skill in their IEP, or if they would benefit from more targeted, one-on-one instruction. All the while, her students are engaged in learning and Emily can give each student exactly what is needed.

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“Boddle helps [me address my students’ diverse learning needs] by allowing me to assign my students what they need to work [on] individual[ly]. That way I can work one-on-one with another student and know that the students are working on skills they need to learn also.”

-Emily Rositas

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Devices

Boddle currently runs on desktops, laptops, and Chromebooks using Safari, Firefox, or Chrome browsers. The Boddle app for iPad, tablets, and mobile users is also available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

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