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APA Tip of the Day: Passive voice “Verbs are vigorous, direct communicators. Use the active rather than the passive voice…. The passive voice is acceptable… when you want to focus on the object or recipient of the action rather than on the actor. For example, ‘The speakers were attached to either side of the chair’ emphasizes the placement of speakers, not who placed them – the more appropriate focus in the Method section” (APA, 2010, p. 77).
Other problems with passives: “Passive voice suggests individuals are acted on instead of being actors (‘the students completed the survey’ is preferable to ‘the students were given the survey’ or ‘the survey was administered to the students’)” (APA 2010, p. 73). It is important to accurately attribute action in technical writing – if you are the actor, you should acknowledge it directly with “I”.
Announcements Turn in your readings reviews now. The intervention presentations will have to be quick and we’ll have to start on time and transition between presentations quickly. You can bring your PowerPoint on a flash drive. You can also send it to me ahead of time, but please make sure you do so more than 24 hours in advance. Please make an appointment to see me as soon as possible – my office hours this semester have been filling up more than a week in advance, so I may not have any last minute appointments available.
Today’s Topic: Assessment overview
What is the assessment focus? • The student? • His/her abilities and disabilities? • Family? • Educational history • Learning context(s)
Pair Brainstorm! What are all of the reasons we might assess students?
Want to compare a student with his/her peers? Use a norm-referenced assessment.
Want to compare a student’s skills with a pre-determined developmental hierarchy? Use a developmentally-referenced assessment (i.e. milestones).
Want to specify a student’s current level of performance? (i.e. What the student knows, understands, or is able to do.) Use a criterion-referenced assessment.
Want to monitor a student’s progress within a curricular sequence? (i.e. math, spelling) Use a curriculum-based assessment or measurement (CBA or CBM).
Want to assess a student’s response to intervention or problem-solving skills, or the most effective means of facilitating that student’s learning? Use dynamic assessment.
Which assessment procedure is best? It all depends on what you want to know.
Caution! “Dynamic assessment is not intended as a substitute for existing approaches. Dynamic assessment is presented as a unique and important addition to the diagnostician’s repertory. Dynamic assessment responds to questions that are not addressed by other procedures” (Lidz, 1991, p. xi).
Dynamic Assessment: • Is based on a different concept of intelligence from traditional IQ tests – it is based on students’ “learning ability.” • Provides information on the student’s learning processes (why they might not be learning and what supports their learning). • Provides a direct connection with intervention.
Key Characteristics of Dynamic Assessment: • Test – teach – re-test format. • Focus on learner modifiability. • Goal of developing learner-specific and effective interventions – what helps this student learn best? (Lidz,1991)
DA Techniques From: http://www.education.com/reference/article/dynamic-assessment/ When a student is having difficulty, the examiner attempts to move the student from failure to success by: Modifying the format, Providing more trials, Providing information on successful strategies, or Offering increasingly more direct cues, hints, or prompts.
Variations of DA Testing-the-limits (modification, feedback, during testing) Clinical Interview (How did you know this? What would happen if…?) Graduated prompting Test-Teach-Retest
Quick Write As a special educator (not diagnostician), what sort of information should you gather that would provide relevant, meaningful, and informative assessment data? If you are not a special educator, what sort of information do you think teachers (general and special) should collect?
Analyzing the Communicative Environment “It is just as important to assess the social environment of the students as it is to assess the communicative skills of the student” (Downing, 1999, p. 51).
The Need for Inclusion “Experts in communication intervention stress the value of teaching communication skills in general education classrooms where students with severe disabilities have the support of their peer role models” (Downing, 1999, p. 51).
Observations can and should be an important part of your overall assessment strategy.
MISCONCEPTION ALERT! While you can and should assess students via observation and dialogue, you must have a focus and criteria for evaluation, and you MUST document your assessment.
Effective observations: • Have a clear purpose and focus, • Are documented, • Rely on objective reporting, not subjective impressions, and • Are systematic.
Looking ahead… Interventions galore! Starting next week, part 1, then part 2, and then YOUR presentations on intervention methods! (AAC and literacy follow this)
