Collect data on your classroom community based instruction activities using an outing specific community based instruction rubric. When you know your students, you know whether or not they are progressing. You watch, listen, and just have an overall sense of where they are at with their goals. But, giving your “general feeling” about how they are doing simply (and unfortunately) does not cut it at IEP meetings. 

Capturing a general feeling or an “overall disposition when in the community” and making it measurable is difficult. You need a rubric. Yes, I said the dreaded word. I know, it is tedious, but it is necessary and once you make yours, you can reuse it time and again.

A Community Based Instruction Rubric will:

• Make your observations measurable
• Highlight success and areas of opportunity
• Allow you to pre-teach expectations
• Involve students in their own learning.

Before our Community Outing:

I created community based instruction curriculum for the places we visit most often on our community outings. Each item aims to teach five skills necessary to be successful in a specific outing location. For my group this includes: restaurants, libraries, public transportation, stores, workplaces, and community centers. I try to pre-teach as many community based instruction ideas as possible before we ever leave the school with community based instruction curriculum. I use YouTube videos, workbooks and writing journals that help students understand what community based instruction is and how they can be successful during trips! (You can read more about how I use workbooks to teach life skills here!)

I like to show my students the rubric ahead of time so that they think about their goals and ask questions about my expectations. Also, I give students a brainstorming form that helps them create a personal and specific goal around the outing.

My students share their goals during our social group. This allows students to hold each other accountable during the outing. In general, it keeps us more on track as a group. The students take our outings more seriously when we take the time to set our intentions.

Rubrics for Data Collection

During the outing, I bring a clip board with a community based instruction rubric for each student. I float between students and watch them intently in each category listed. I assign a preliminary score and complete one rubric for each student.

Then, immediately following our outing, I pass out the student self reflection rubrics. Each student completes the rubric assigning a score to their own behavior on the outing. Meanwhile, I complete my teacher assessment rubric. I fill in details and make any adjustments or notes required.

How I use Data from my CBI Rubrics

I keep my teacher assessment rubric and the student self reflection rubric in my student’s data files. Students track their growth from month to month and participate in goal setting conversations. I use the data to progress monitor community based IEP goals, independent living goals and life skills goals. Also, I compare the student’s rubric to my own. This allows me to see areas of misunderstanding and address them in upcoming social lessons or community based instruction curriculum.

Community Based Instruction Data Collection Rubrics

FREE Community Based Instruction Rubrics

FREE community based instruction lesson plans: Restaurant Outings, Vocational Problem Solving, Recreation and Leisure, Job Interactive Notebook

Where does your class go on your community outings? How do you collect data for CBI? Share your community based instruction trip ideas with me on instagram @checkinwithmrs_g