Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Evaluating Student Progress and the Effectiveness of Your Inclusion Program

Resources:

1) Myedlab

2) http://www.studygs.net/tstprp8.htm

a. How to reduce test anxiety in your students.

3) https://www.ed2go.com/Classroom/FAQ.aspx?classroom=zmPXGUZGG8xK22w7II7wAJzPwnBnzoQ8xLL5B0K9sIQ%3D

a. This is a great resource to find out how to make your inclusive classroom successful.

Summary:

· It is so important for you to evaluate the effectiveness of your inclusion classroom by examining its impact on ALL STUDENTS, on yourself and other professionals, and on student’s families.

· Evaluating the Academic Performance of Students:

o Enhance the performance of ALL STUDENTS in inclusive classrooms

o Effective and reflective teachers engage in formative assessments to monitor and support teaching and learning and examine and inform their instruction and summative assessments to document student learning and the outcomes associated with their teaching.

· Standardized and High Stakes Testing

o High stakes testing- standardized tests that all students must take regardless of their disabilities . important decisions are made about students’ education based on the results of these tests, including grade level promotion and graduation. Results can also be used so that you can measure how effective your inclusive classroom is.

§ Concerns about high-stakes testing: concerns have been raised about the reliance on one exam as the measure of student learning. Some students don’t test well on standardized tests, so are they really a fair measure?

§ Determining Valid, Appropriate, and Individualized Testing Accommodations for Diverse learners:

· IDEA requires that student’s IEPS’s contain statements related to testing accommodations. Valid testing accommodations- are variations in testing administration, environment, equipment, tech, and procedures that allow students to access tests and accurately demonstrate their competence, knowledge, and abilities without altering the integrity of the tests.

§ Consider a range of testing accommodations: students may benefit from more than one type of testing accommodation and may therefore need packages of different types of testing accommodations.

§ Presentation mode testing accommodations: changes in the way questions and directions are presented to students.

§ Response mode testing accommodations: making changes to the way students respond to test items or determine their answers.

· Timing, scheduling, and setting testing accommodations.

§ Linguistically based testing accommodations: typically used with ELLs, are designed to minimize the extent to which student’s language proficiency affects their test performance.p.459

§ Match testing accommodations with effective teaching accommodations

§ Be consistent w/ state and district wide policies, and differentiate b/t classroom- based and high stakes assessments.p.461

§ Consider the perspectives of students and teachers: with respect to your students, it is essential to make sure that testing accommodations are fair and do not have a negative impact on your students who receive them or their classmates. Testing accommodations should have a differential boost which means that the testing accommodations selected for your students with disabilities should boost their performance and, if used by their classmates, should have a minimal effect on their classmates’ test performance. If it doesn’t undermine the integrity of your test, consider if it is a good testing practice that you should make available to all of your students. You and you colleagues also need to reflect on whether the accommodations are valid, effective, and appropriate by determining if they impact the integrity of the tests and their administration.

§ Teaching Study Skills and Test-taking skills you can use a variety of assessment strategies to identify which study and test taking skills and strategies your students need to develop. Pp463-467. These can be enhance by involving your student’s families

§ Addressing Test anxiety- in addition to using scheduling, timing and setting testing accommodations, instruction in the use of effective study and test-taking skills and strategies can help reduce some of the anxiety about testing. Look at more strategies pg. 467-469

§ Create valid and accessible teacher-made tests You should design your tests with ALL STUDENTS in mind and incorporate the principles of UDL so that they are accessible to ALL STUDENTS and that you minimize the need for specialized testing accommodations.

§ Test Content: to foster the validity of the test, the number of items should be sufficient and the content of the items ion your test should be directly related to the objectives of your curriculum and assess the most important topics, concepts, and skills you have taught. Tests should not only reflect what but also how content has been taught

§ Make sure tests are formatted in an organized , easily readable way.

§ Make sure test directions are clear.

§ Include within tests words of encouragement and accompanying visuals that will help to motivate, and enhance students engagement on the test.

§ Test items: align the content and format of the tests you make with that that students will see on high-stakes tests. Avoid hinging which is the use of test items whose correct answers requires students to answer preceding questions correctly.

§ Multiple choice questions p.472

§ Matching items p.473

§ True/False p.474

§ Sentence Completion p.475

§ Essay Questions p. 476

o Alternatives to Working Independently:

§ Cooperative group testing- students work collaboratively on open ended tasks that have non routine solutions

· Two-tiered testing system-students work in collaborative groups to take a test, and each student receives the group grade. After the first test, students work individually on a second test that covers similar material.

o Student Involvement- your tests can be made fairer by involving students in the testing process. Incorporate students’ suggestions in writing and scoring tests. Ask them to submit possible test questions. Students can choose the type of test they take. P. 477

· Alternatives to Standardized and Teacher made testing: Some of your students may have severe disabilities that it may not be practical for them to take part in statewide assessments.

o Progress Monitoring: conducting ongoing assessments to examine your students’ learning and the effectiveness of your teaching practices and instructional program.p.479-480

o Curriculum – Based Measurement- CBM provides individualized, direct, and repeated measures of student’s proficiency and progress across the curriculum. Its an integral part of the RTI ( response to intervention) process.

§ Guidelines for conducting a CBM:p.480

· 1) Identify the content areas to be assessed.

· 2) Define the school related tasks that will constitute the assessment probe and the sample duration

· 3) Determine whether performance or progress measurement will be used

· 4) prepare and organize the necessary materials

· 5) administer the CBM

· 6) Establish an aimline

· 7) teach and administer the assessment probe

· 8) Record and graph the students performance over time

· 9)Analyze the results to determine students’ progress

· 10) Examine and compare the efficacy of different instructional strategies

o Dynamic Assessment- examining how students react to and benefit from instruction by using a test-teach-retest model.p481

o Learning journal/logs- periodically, you can ask students to write in their journals comments on what they learned, how they learned it, what they do not understand, why they are confused, and what help they would like to receive.

o Think-Aloud techniques- students state the processes they are using and describe their thoughts while working on a task

o Self-Evaluation Questionnaires/ Interviews/ Checklists- can provide info on students’ perceptions of their educational challenges, progress in new learned material, and strategies for completing a task.

o Observations

o Active Responding Systems- teachers use these during instruction to check students’ understanding of the content and skills they have just learned. Teachers can use this info to continue their lesson as planned or modify it to help students learn.

o Educational Games

o Error analysis- this method is used to examine students’ responses to identify areas of difficulty and patterns in the ways students approach a task. P. 483

o Authentic/ Performance Assessment- used to monitor student learning progress and measure the impact of your instructional programs on your student’s academic performance. P. 483

o Portfolio Assessment- involves teachers, students, and family members working together to create a continuous and purposeful collection of various authentic student products across a range of content areas throughout the school year that show the process and products associated with student learning.p.483-488

o Instructional rubrics

o IEP”S

o Promotion and Graduation Rates

· Grading Students

o Report Card Grading p494-499

§ Consider and address the legal guidelines for grading p.493

§ Identify the Purpose of Report Card Grading

§ Agree on the nature and impact of differentiating instruction techniques

§ Select grading systems that support differentiated instruction and communication

§ Norm-Referenced Grading Systems- involve giving numerical or letter grades to compare students using the same academic standards.

· Multiple grading- can be used to adjust numerical/letter grades by grading students on multiple factors: achievement, effort, and level of curriculum difficulty

§ Level grading

§ Criterion- Referenced Grading Systems- rather than comparing your students based on their letter or numerical grades , use this system to allow you to report on your student’s mastery within the curriculum.496

· Mastery level grading- involves you and your students dividing course content into a hierarchy of skills and determining appropriate learning activities and differentiation techniques based on a initial assessment of your students’ individual needs

· Contract grading- you and your students develop a contract outlining the goals/ objectives, the amount and nature of learning activities and differentiation techniques, and the products your students must complete as well as the procedures for evaluating learning products and assigning grades.

§ Self-Referenced Grading Systems- all students are graded based on their progress in comparison with their past performance, ability levels, effort and special needs. ( can use descriptive grading or progressive improvement grading) p.497

· Evaluating Social and Behavioral Performance:

o Use Observational and Sociometric Teachniques p.499

o Use Self-Concept and Attitudinal Measures p. 499

· Measuring Perceptions of Inclusive Classrooms

o Look at student perceptions p.500

o Look at teachers perceptions: use Questionnaires and interviews. Discuss Cooperative teaching experiences

o Use of UDL ( Universal Design for Learning)

o Family members perceptions

· Improving the Effectiveness of Inclusive Classrooms and Programs

o Examine the Impact on Student Performance p.505

o Determine Program Strengths, Concerns, and Possible Solutions LOOK AT CHARTS ON PAGES 508-509