Overview
An intervention group holds all the students who are being instructed in one particular intervention and monitored on a particular skill (s). This Tips Video provides an overview of tips to consider during Intervention group build outs.
New Group Builder
In the Fall of 2025, ion created a new drag/drop group builder that allows users to save drafts! If you are still using the old group builder, click here to go to the Old Group Builder directions.
Create a Draft Group
Groups stay in DRAFT status until the "Edit Group Settings" has been successfully completed - See Create an Active Group.
(1) Click the "+" Icon to access the "Quick Menu"
(2) Click "Intervention Group"
(3) Click "Try New Group Builder"
(4) Type the name of the group and click the Save icon. The Group will say "Successfully Saved!" Click OK. The draft group has now been saved.
(5) The Group is now named "*DRAFT*"
(5) To retrieve or to view drafts, Click on MTSS>Interventions>Active Groups.
Create an Active Group from a Draft
(1) To retrieve the draft group, click MTSS>Interventions>Active Groups
(2) Click Draft Tab
(3) Click the hyperlinked name of the draft group to work on
(4) The Intervention "Group Detail Page" will populate
(5) Click to "Edit" the Group
(6) Click "Try New Group Builder"
(7) The New Group Builder page will populate with the DRAFT Intervention Group.
See Create an Active Group for next steps
Create an Active Group
Until all of the required fields are entered, the group will remain in "DRAFT" Form. Once the required fields are added, the group is then "Active."
(1) Follow steps 1-4 in "Create a Draft Group"
(Choose Group Builder from the Quick Menu, Click "Try New Group Builder," Type the name of the group and click Save icon. Click OK.)
(2) Click "Edit Group Settings" to expand the fields to enter intervention group information
(3) In order to create an active group, the following fields must be completed: Intervention, Interventionist, Start Date, Measure.
(4) Optional items: Group Description, Tier, Minutes, Schedule, Progress Monitoring, Weeks.
To learn more about fields in "Edit Group Settings", see Intervention Group Builder
(5) Click the green icon to add AND to save the measure. When the Measure/Skill boxes have a drop down, they are not saved.
(6) When the Measure/Skill boxes do not have a drop down, they are saved.
(7) Add additional Measures as needed.
(8) Measures can be edited and deleted. Pop up warnings will encourage users to make certain their choices are correct. Also, see permission settings that can disallow some users from editing or deleting these measures.
(9) When all the required fields have been completed, the group will then become ACTIVE. Notice the "DRAFT" designation that preceded the group has now been dropped. The group is now found in the "Active" tab.
The same skill cannot be monitored more than once in an intervention group. When setting up the Skill Dictionary, users are cautioned to use unique skill names. For example, instead of "fluency", create skills specific fluency skills: oral reading fluency, letter naming fluency, passage reading fluency, etc. If there are any concerns about your Skill Dictionary, send in a support ticket. The tech department at ion will assist you in setting up all dictionaries. See Skill Dictionary for more information.
Adding students to New Group Builder
Another new feature of the New Group Builder is the use of filters.
Students can be added to the New Group Builder in the following ways:
(1) Data Walls - click the link to learn how
(2) Dashboards - click the link to learn how
(3) Drag/Drop - Users can drag/drop students into the new group that has been created - see below.
(1) When using the New Group Builder, all the students that the user has access to will populate in the box below the Group Settings, and users can drag/drop students into the group.
(2) Users can limit the scope of how many students populate in the field below the group by using filters.
(3) Filters that are available include Name, Last Name, Grade, Flags. To learn more about Flags, go to Filtering with Intervention Flags
(4) To drag a number of students into the group, use Ctrl+Click to highlight several students and then drag them into the group.
Users will have to set up flag filters on data walls in order to use them on the group builder.
Filtering with Intervention Flags
(1) On a data wall, select students by clicking on the box to the left of their name
(2) Click the "+" Icon on the data wall
(3) Choose "Flag For Intervention Student"
(4) The flags will autopopulate from the MTSS dictionary.
(5) Select the flag, Click to Add, and then Click OK.
(6) If there is an intervention Flag column on the data wall, these flags will populate
(7) Follow the steps to either Create a Draft or Active Group or to retrieve a Draft Group and type the name of the skill in the Search bar and choose Flag as a filter option.
(8) When the student names filter to that skill, use the Click+Ctrl function to highlight them all. They are now ready to drag / drop into the group.
(9) Once students have been dragged into the group, the intervention flags will disappear from the data wall.
(10) Users can now work with the group start date and skill grade levels. Group Date is changed in "Edit Group Settings"
Important Functions for Changing Date and Grade Levels
(1) Use Ctrl+Click to highlight the students that need a skill or date change
(2) Click the + button to add OR the - button to delete
(3) Click Start Date if the function desired is to change the date
(4) Click the individual skill (it will become highlighted) to change.
Skill Dates and Grade Levels
See Important Functions to learn more
Skill Dates
The group date can be different than a skill start date when students move in and out of intervention groups throughout the year.
(1) Highlight students that require a change of date for a skill by using Ctrl + Click.
(2) Click the + icon to add a new date.
(3) Click Start Date to add a new start date for the skill. Note - this will not change the group start date, only the skill start date.
(4) A dialogue box will populate to select the new date. Clicking OK will adjust that date.
Skill Grade Levels
Students can be monitored both on and off grade level.
(1) Highlight students that require a grade level change for a skill by using Ctrl + Click.
(2) Click the + icon to add another grade level OR Click the - icon to delete a grade level
(4) Highlight the skill that requires the change.
(4) A dialogue box will populate to add/delete. Clicking OK will complete the action.
(5) The selected skills now display monitoring on both grade levels
To delete a grade level, use the same process above but choose the - icon to delete the grade level from the selected progress monitors.
Creating New Intervention Groups
There are several ways to create intervention groups. The flexibility of the system allows districts to choose the option that works best for their MTSS system.
Click on "New Group" on the MTSS>Interventions drop down menu on the far left. The intervention group builder will populate. Continue to intervention group builder section for information on completing this process.
(1) Click on the "+" icon
(2) Click on "Intervention Group" on the drop down menu
The intervention group builder will populate. Continue to the Intervention Group Builder for information on completing this process.
Access a data wall
(1) Click on the box to the left of student names
(2) Click the "+" Icon
(3) Choose to create a new intervention group
or
(4) Choose to add students to an existing intervention group
The intervention group builder will populate. Continue to intervention group builder section for information on completing this process.
Access a Dashboard
(1) Click on a color band and the student names will populate.
(2) Click on the box to the left of student names
(3) Click the "Create Intervention" Icon
(4) Give the group a name
(5) Decide to go to the intervention group builder now or later.
- Now - continue to intervention group builder section for information on completing this process.
- Later - access the intervention group on the home page
