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Chapter 12 Summary: Evaluating Student Progress and the Effectiveness of…
Chapter 12 Summary:
Evaluating Student Progress and the Effectiveness of Your Inclusive Program
Evaluation of Academic Performance
Common Assessments & High Stakes Testing
Federal requirements mandate that all students participate in summative assessments
Student concerns: raise anxiety, limits motivation to learn, increases academic and social pressures, minimizes learning effort
Teacher concerns: quality and validity are low, usage of results not aligned with curriculum
Family concerns: unsure of testing stakes, testing measures, understanding results, and difference between assessment scores and report card grades
Federal guidelines allow states to establish alternative assessments and testing accommodations for students with disabilities, as outlined in IEP
Results in students taking alternate assessment based on modified grade level content aligned with academic achievement standards
Analyzing summative assessment data - visually present data, establish criteria for mastery, color code highlight data, analyze data, reflect on effectiveness of instructional practices, reflect on improvements in instructional practices, enhance and evaluate impact on new practices
Instruct students in study and test-taking skills to provide them with strategies they need to prepare and succeed on tests
Involves how to study for the test, how to take the test, how to complete multiple-choice items/matching items/true-or-false items/sentence-completion items and essay questions
Can help lessen testing anxiety
Individualized Testing Accommodations
- variations in testing administration, environment, equipment, technology, and procedures to allow students to access test and demonstrate their understanding without altering integrity of test
Designed to remove disability-related barriers not relevant to the validity of the test without changing results or giving advantage
Must be appropriate and valid to enhance test-related self-efficacy and motivation
Must be individually determined based on student needs, learning style, and subject area
Students can have a variety of accommodations as they may benefit
Testing accommodations - presentation and response formats, timing, scheduling, and setting alternatives, technology and equipment based changes (calculators, number lines, manipulatives, headphones), and linguistically based factors
Presentation mode:
reading directions, large-print, embedding cues, format layout
Response mode:
answer fewer items, scribe, oral response accepted over writing
Timing, scheduling and setting:
where, when, whom, how long and how often students take tests and if extended time is needed
Can also include specialized testing equipment, take medications that are effective for limited time period, have trouble with on task behaviors, have testing anxiety
Linguistically-based:
adjust language and readability to appropriate cultural, language, and reading level backgrounds, use of translation/dictionaries/glossaries, respond in native language
Make sure that testing accommodations are utilized throughout instruction so students are familiar with practice and helpful
Make sure accommodations are positive and are respectful to student and classmates
Accommodations provide a differential boost to student performance; if used by a classmate, would have minimal impact on their classmate's test performance
Creating Valid & Accessible Student-Friendly Assessments
Purpose: assess student mastery of curriculum, remind students of concepts taught, guide teaching and planning, provide feedback to students on learning
Always design tests with all students in mind and incorporate principles of UDL so it is valid and accessible to all students (and minimize testing accommodations)
When creating the test, think about the content, format, readability, legibility, test directions, motivation, engagement, strategy usage, question types
Tests should reflect what and how content has been taught
Possibly align classroom assessments to high-stakes testing conditions without "teaching to the test"
Presentation of questions should be predictable and similar to what was taught in the classroom
Implement test questions that are related to student lives/interests/experiences and appropriate for their academic abilities
Multiple Choice Items should use student-friendly language without double negatives and key words
Modify multiple choice problems by highlighting key words, reducing choices, and eliminating difficult choices
Questions should be focused, appropriate, and understandable in terms of readability and level of difficulty
Assessment Alternatives
Scoring alternatives - avoid "x", red pens, or slashes for incorrect, place check marks next to correct answers, write positive comments about performance
Might want to use different versions of assessments to continue providing students opportunities to demonstrate mastery
Cooperative group testing and two-tiered testing allows students to collaborate on their assessment
Use progress monitoring, curriculum-based assessment and error analysis to effectively assess student mastery
Formative - collect data to support learning and Summative - collect data to document student learning
Progress-Monitoring
Curriculum-based assessment: provides individualized, brief, and repeated measures of student proficiency and progress
Curriculum-based measurement - valid and reliable assessment probes that address multiple skills across the curriculum
Mastery measurement - created by teachers and administrated informally across curriculum to monitor single skill
Error Analysis: examine student responses to identify area of difficulty and patterns in ways student approach a task (pick out misconceptions, incomplete understanding, etc.) helpful for providing feedback!
Classroom-based assessment
Before lesson - identifies existing knowledge and student conceptions about the content being instructed, helps obtain a baseline measure
Can be in the form of entrance tickets, bell ringers, KWL charts, graphic organizers, anticipation guides
During lessons - real-time assessments to monitor student understanding and modify instruction in the moment and provide immediate feedback
Can be in the form of observations, active responding systems, think-alouds, and dynamic assessment
After lesson - offer students opportunities to apply/reflect on what they learned (determine mastery and areas of concern)
Can be in the form of exit tickets, learning journals, self-evaluation questionnaires
Authentic/Performance assessment: students work on meaningful, complex, relevant open-ended learning activities that are incorporated into assessment process and linked to curriculum/standards
Students' ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings
Portfolio assessment: all stakeholders working together to create a continuous and purposeful collection of various, authentic student products across a range of content areas throughout the school year
Student sets goals and has control over their learning, putting products associated with learning/goals within their portfolio
Instructional rubrics: statements specifying the criteria associated with different levels of proficiency for evaluating student performance
Holistic rubrics - teacher selects one level of performance/rating that best represents the quality of the learning product
Analytic rubrics - several categories of indicators with separate ratings to differentiate levels of performance within categories - specific feedback
Make sure students know the instructional rubric before completing the learning product and teach them to use it to self-assess
Essential for response to intervention (RTI) - conducting ongoing assessments to examine/document impact of instructional practices on student learning
When looking at progress monitoring assessments, think about: impact on student learning, gaps in student learning, effective instructional practices, ineffective instructional practices, acceptability, enhancements, and next steps
Grading
Report Cards
Legal Guidelines under Section 504 and Title II of Americans with Disabilities Act:
All students treated similarly when grading, class ranking, honors, and awards
Modified grading system available to all students
All students can have grading procedures different from rest of class if taking for no credit
Guidelines and criteria for ranking all students cannot exclude the grades of students with disabilities
Weighting of grades and awards are allowable if based on objective criteria and courses that are open to all students
Report card designations, symbols, and terminology that indicate participation in special education or that a student received accommodations/modifications in general education classroom are not permissible unless grades of all students are treated in same manner
Grades should focus on student learning and academic mastery
Other items (homework completion, behavior, participation, effort, attendance) should be graded separately and not part of academic proficiency grade
Grading systems that reflect instruction
Communicate instructional and testing differentiation strategies that were provided and associated with student grades for all students
3 levels of differentiation techniques: access, low-impact differentiation, high-impact differentiation
Highlights: purpose and format of grading, impact of differentiation techniques, grade inflation, roles of co-teachers, following legal mandates, fostering equity and fairness, communication with families
Norm-referenced grading systems:
giving numerical/letter grades to compare students using same academic standards
Can be tailored to inclusive classrooms to foster communication and differentiation
Multiple grading - grading students on multiple factors, like achievement, effort, level of curriculum difficulty then are all averaged to produce final grade
Level grading - individualize grading by using numerical/letter subscript to indicate use of differentiated instruction to help student achieve specific level of mastery
Criterion-referenced grading systems (standards-based grading)
: report students mastery within the curriculum on a range of assessments measuring learning objectives aligned to content standards
Given multiple options and opportunities to demonstrate their proficiency
Use normative data, curricular expectations, rating scales, benchmarks and checklists to communicate grading and differentiation techniques
Self-referenced grading systems
: communicate student progress over a period of time; all students are graded based on their progress in comparison with their past performance
Descriptive grading - writing comments that address student academic progress, learning preferences, effort, attitudes, behavior, socialization, strengths, and challenges (as well as accommodations and other supports)
Progressive improvement grading - providing students feedback and differentiation techniques as they work on a range of individualized assessment and learning activities throughout grading period
Effective practices for grading include:
Must - Communicating expectations and grading progress with stakeholders regularly, reviewing models of work, use range of assessments, provide feedback, involve students in grading process, design valid tests, provide appropriate testing accommodations
If possible - use extra credit, establish do-over policy, use median scores to compute grades
IEP grading system:
individualized goals, differentiation techniques, and performance criteria on IEP serve as the reference point for judging student progress and assigning grades
Evaluation of Social and Behavioral Performance
Observational and sociometric techniques
Supplemented by stakeholder interviews in all areas of student life (in and out of school)
Documentation can include discipline reports, behavioral incidents, behaviors, suspensions, referrals, attendance patterns
Use questionnaires, checklists, rating scales, observations, interviews, etc.
Students should reflect on their academic and social concepts, attitudes, perceptions and skills