Step 4: Who are the Students who take Alternate Assessments on Alternate Achievement Standards?

1. Step 4: Who are the Students who take Alternate Assessments on Alternate Achievement Standards? Articulating the population Articulating the theory of learning for this population The National Alternate Assessment Center is supported through a cooperative agreement through the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (Grant Number H324U04001). However, the contents of this presentation do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Office of Special Education or the US Department of Education, and participants should not assume endorsement by the federal government. Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

2. How Students with Disabilities Participate in Assessment Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

3. Cognition Effective Assessment Practice: Interconnected Assessment Elements Observation Interpretation Interpretation - a method for drawing inferences from the observation(s) Observation – tasks or situations designed to collect evidence about student performance Cognition - A theory of what students know and how they know it in a subject domain Pellegrino et. al (2001). Knowing what students know. National Research Council: National Academy Press. Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

4. Participants in Alternate Assessments on Alternate Achievement Standards The number of students participating in alternate assessments on alternate achievement standards as compared to the total population of student learners and students with disabilities… Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

5. More different than alike… The total student population receiving special education services broken down by disability category SOURCE: Education Week analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, Data Analysis System, 2002-03. Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

6. Issues in Teaching/Assessing Students in Alternate Assessments on Alternate Achievement Standards • Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities present challenges with learning in these areas: • Memory (Working or short term; long term) • Meta-cognition and Skill Synthesis (Self-Regulation) • Development and Learning (Attention to Stimuli) • Limited motor response repertoire • Sensory Deficits • Special Health Care Needs • Practice and Feedback • Power law of practice • Knowledge of results • Transfer of knowledge (Generalization) Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

7. Working or Short-term Memory • Experience difficulty remembering when to use skills or what skills to use; difficulty applying isolated skills in natural contexts. • Related to: • Inadequate learning opportunities • Insufficient opportunities to practice • Meaningful contexts (Westling and Fox, 2004) Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

8. Metacognition and Skill Synthesis • Experience difficulty in not only selecting a problem solving strategy, but in monitoring and evaluating one’s use of that strategy, and to self-correcting as necessary (Pellegrino et al.) • Metacognitive strategies can include • explicit steps in setting goals • developing action steps to reach that goal • evaluating one’s progress toward that goal (Agran, King-Sears, Wehmeyer, &Copeland, 2003) Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

9. Development and Learning For students with significant cognitive disabilities, we may not be able to make the distinction between development and learning Explicit instruction may be required due to • sensory deficits in the areas of: • Vision • Hearing • Both vision and hearing • Limited motor responses impacting • Oral language production (speaking) • Fine motor skills needed for writing and/or signing • Special Health Care Needs impacting • Attendance • alertness Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

10. Practice and Feedback • Power Law of Practice: Adequate instructional opportunities to practice a skill for acquisition and fluency • Refers to increasing the rate of learning trials within an instructional lesson, not simply slowing down the pace of the lesson • Knowledge of Results: positive and specific, corrective feedback • Refers to instructive feedback, not just simple feedback on the accuracy of a skill Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

11. Transfer of Knowledge • Experience difficulty applying what was learned in one situation to another different situation. • Must be demonstrated with different people, different materials, different settings, and at different times. (Haring, 1988; Fox, 1989) • Also experience difficulty in recognizing how and when to apply a skill • Should be taught and assessed in ways other than a simple listing of settings, but in a variety of authentic activities that exhibit an understanding of the underlying academic concept. Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

12. Participants in Alternate Assessments on Alternate Achievement Standards The following videos will share examples of students who participate in alternate assessments on alternate achievement standards. Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

13. Participation Guidelines • Have you identified who the kids are that participate in alternate assessments on alternate achievement standards? • Do you have guidelines for determining how a student will participate in large scale assessment that can be used during IEP meetings? Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities

14. Checkpoint • Let’s revisit our needs assessment to be sure we have addressed everyone’s questions. Assessing Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities