Managing your

Progress Monitoring Data

with EXCEL

Presented by:

Training and Consultation Staf

Capital Area Intermediate Unit

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
A Review

PROGRESS MONITORING- Systematic, regularly scheduled assessment of progress toward a goal over time. Our PM
template shows 40 weeks this accounts for all the actual calendar weeks of the school year, and reminds us that
monitoring is done over the life of the IEP.
BASELINE- The baseline is not really a line- its a point. While the teacher/therapist is developing a goal for the IEP, data should
be obtained to determine the students present level of functioning, so that a reasonable goal can be determined. Preferably, the
data from 3 assessments is collected, and the average becomes the baseline. The baseline is the students starting point.
AIM LINE- This is what were aiming for- the goal to be achieved by the end of the IEP. The aim line is a straight (usually
red) line from the baseline at the beginning to the goal at the end of the chart.
TREND LINE- This is a changing line that shows the students actual progress. After every six data points, the trend line
is checked against the aim line to assess whether the student is making adequate progress toward the goal. For example,
the decision could be 4 points on or above the aim line= adequate progress.
PHASE LINE- The phase line is a vertical line that denotes a change or break in programming, such as summer break, or
when a new intervention is being tried. In this case, it is usually used if the analysis of the trend line show inadequate
progress, and a decision is made to try a different technique. A description of the intervention or break is written to the
right of the phase line in a text box.
WORKBOOK A Microsoft Excel workbook is a file that contains one or more worksheets and charts which is used to
organize various kinds of related information- for our purposes- progress monitoring data and charts.
WORKSHEET A page within a workbook in which you can enter and edit data and create charts. You can move from
one worksheet or chart to another by clicking on the sheet tabs at the bottom of the workbook window.
TOOLBAR The toolbar is located at the top of the screen. It contains menus with drop down commands (such as filenew-open) and icons associated with commands (such as the printer icon).
TEXT BOX- A text box is a container for text that can be positioned and resized on a page.

MANAGING PROGRESS MONITORING FILES

Create a Progress Monitoring Folder in My Documents
1. From the desktop, double click on the My Documents icon
Or
Click Start then click My Documents.
2. At the top of the screen, click File New Folder.
3. A new folder will appear with name box highlighted in blue.
4. Type Progress Monitoring or whatever you choose to call your folder.
When you create new Excel workbooks for each of your students, you will
save them in this folder.

Progress Monitoring

Create a shortcut on the desktop

1. In My Documents, right click on the Progress Monitoring folder.
2. A box opens select Send To:
3. A new box opens; click Desktop (Create Shortcut).
By creating a shortcut, you can access your Progress Monitoring folder
by double clicking on the new icon on the desktop.

Opening the Spreadsheet as an email attachment

1. Open the email.
2. Right click on the attachment.
3. Select save as.
4. Choose a location for the spreadsheet
Examples: Progress monitoring folder
On your Desktop (in a folder)
In a folder in My Documents
5. Name the file. Example: Blank Progress Monitoring Graph
6. Select save.

Working in Excel with Progress Monitoring Template

1. Open Excel: Do one of the following
Go to the little icon on top right of your screen, click the Excel icon.

OR Click Start/Programs/Microsoft Excel

2. Saving the workbook as a template
Select Choose Workbook

From this window, Locate Progress monitoring Template 7-05 whereever you have saved it.
Highlight that file. Then create a new file by double clicking or clicking Create New.

From this window select File/Save As/

From this window Change Save as type: by clicking down arrow and selecting Template

It will change when you select Template to look like this:

Edit name to remove the 1 at the end
Click Save

Now close Excel by clicking X in upper right corner. You have saved the Progress Monitoring
workbook as a template. A Template is like a blank form that you can open over and over, like pulling
a form out of your file drawer.
3. Creating a new workbook for a child:
Open Excel.
Select General Templates

From this window select Progress Monitoring Template 7-05 (double click the icon or highlight and
click OK)

If you have used this template recently, you may see its name right above general templates and you
can click on that to open the template.

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4. Saving the new workbook per student:

You now have a new workbook opened to begin for a student. You need to save this workbook in the
students name. To do that, click File/Save As and this window opens.
1. Click the down arrow and navigate to the folder where you want to keep the childs file.
2. Type the childs name here
3. Click Save

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4. Entering information onto the spread sheet. The spreadsheet is protected so that you can
enter information in certain blocks only. This will protect the formulas within the
spreadsheet. If you are skilled at the use of Excel and want to unprotect the work sheet, follow
these steps:
At the top of the screen select Tools-Protection-Unprotect Sheet. Enter the password
progress to unprotect the worksheet. You will need to unprotect each sheet in the
workbook.
Since it is saved as a template, if you do mess up the formulas, you can always close the workbook that
is open and open a new one. You would then have to reenter all the data. But we will keep it protected
as we work now.
Click on the green blocks and enter information in Student name, IEP date, Skill Area and Annual goal.
Enter a number in the green blocks below baseline and below target. These numbers will automatically
calculate the change and the change per week and enter the value into the Target column.
There are additional columns where you can enter information.
Number: the number or quantity of the data monitored on this day
Prompts: the number or type of prompts used
Initials: the initials of the person who recorded data
Comments: whatever you may want to note, i.e., had a bad cold, fire drill just completed, great
attention, new TSS, etc.

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6. To print this form: click on the printer icon or click file/print, and print as usual.
If you want to see the page before printing, click on print preview icon or file/print preview.
7. Toolbar: Roll over each icon to see what it does.
Important ones to locate: New, open, save, print, print preview, spell check, cut, copy, paste, undo, redo.

8. Menus:
To see all of the options, click on a heading and let your cursor rest on the menu and it will expand.
9. Navigation bar at bottom of worksheet

first work sheet

one worksheet previous

one work sheet ahead

Scroll across the current page by clicking on the arrows

Tabs for each sheet,

Right click to rename

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last worksheet

Customizing your chart

Customizing the Title:

1.
2.

3.

Changing the labels for

the x or y axis:

1.
2.

3.

Adding a Trendline

1.
2.
3.

Adding a Phaseline

1.

2.

3.

4.

Click on the current title Student Name and Skill Area

Type the new title
Example: John Doe Task Completion
(Note the new title will appear in the text box above the graph until you press the
Enter key on the keyboard)
To change the font, size or other font options, double click on the title and use the
dialog box that appears. (You can also highlight the text and change the font as you
normally would by using the toolbars at the top of the screen).
Click on the current label Number or Date
Type the new label Example: Words Correct per Minute
(Note- the new label will appear in the text box above the graph until you press the
Enter key on the keyboard)
To change the font, size or other font options, double click on the title and use the
dialog box that appears. (You can also highlight the text and change the font as you
normally would by using the toolbars at the top of the screen).
Select the data you wish to trend by left-clicking on the line of data
Once the data is selected, and keeping the cursor pointing to the data line, right-click
one time to reveal a menu of options.
From the menu, select add trendline by left-clicking on it with your mouse.
At the bottom of your screen, select the line tool by clicking on it once. (If the draw
toolbar is not showing, view it by clicking on the view dropdown menu at the top
of the screen, select toolbars and select draw to reveal the toolbar).
Move your cursor (which now looks like a small cross) to the top of the line you wish
to draw. While holding the left-click button on your mouse down, drag the line to
create a phase line. (Tip: to keep your line straight, hold the shift key down while
you draw the line.)
Once the line is drawn, left-click on the line to select it (a solid square will appear at
each end of the line). On the draw toolbar at the bottom of the screen, click on the
icon with the paintbrush and a color bar under it. The line will change to the color
in the color bar. To select a different color, click on the arrow to the right of this icon
and select one of the colors shown.
Again, select the line by clicking on it (look for the solid squares to be sure you have
selected it). On the draw toolbar, select the icon showing three different line weights.
This will reveal a menu of choices of line thickness. Select the thickness you desire to
make the line stand out.

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Adding a
Comment Box

1.
2.

3.
4.

5.

6.

Changing the Legend

1.
2.

3.

Changing the Scale

1.

On the draw toolbar, click on the icon for a textbox (a box with the letter A and some
lines in it)
Move your cursor (which now looks like an elongated cross) to the place you wish to
place a comment box. While holding the left-click button on your mouse down, drag
the box to create a comment box the size you need.
Click inside the text box and begin typing your comment (such as an instructional
adjustment).
When you have typed your comment, click on the outside border of the text box to
select the box. On the draw toolbar, click on the line weight icon. From the choices
given, select the line width of the border you would like to add.
With the border of the box still selected, click on the paint can icon to change the fill
color of the box to the color shown. To change the fill color, click on the down arrow to
the right of the paint can and select the color you like. (suggestion select white to
make the text box the same color as the rest of your graph but hide the gridlines)
To resize the box, click on the border to select the text box (circles will appear on each
side and corner). Click and drag one of the circles to resize the box to fit your text.
To change the font, size, or color of the text in the legend, double click on the legend
box and use the dialog box that appears to make your changes.
To add a label for the trendline, first add a trendline (see above) and then double-click
on the trendline. In the dialog box that appears, click on the options tab. Where it
says Trendline Name select Custom and type in the name of the line (Trendline)
To change the labels for the other lines (example, to change Number to WCPM or
Words Correct per Minute), go back to the data entry page in your spreadsheet (Weekly
1, for example) and change the headings on the columns with that data in them. The
labels in the legend will change automatically to match these new labels.
Left-click on the numbers in the scale to select that axis. Without moving the cursor,
right-click to reveal a dialog box. Click on the Scale tab. Change any of the following
options: minimum, maximum or major unit. (Example: to change to a range of 25 to
150 and count by 5s, Change minimum to 25, Maximum to 150 and Major unit to 5.)
Then click on OK and the changes will appear.

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