Assign 1
WEEK ONE INSTRUCTOR GUIDANCE
Welcome to ESE610, Assessment and Evaluation of Students with Mild to Moderate Disabilities! As you are aware by now, the program has been designed around key elements in the field of special education to prepare you for your role in the education of students with disabilities.
Each week before beginning your assignments and initial discussion board post, it is necessary that you review the Instructor Guidance. The Instructor Guidance is an integral part of the course and both supplements the required and recommended readings, videos and multimedia webpages for each week of material, and provides important and required resources for your success. In this course the practical applications are found within the scenarios and introduction to each week of the course. Information in the Instructor Guidance should be used to support your discussion posts, responses, and other required assignments.
The entire Master of Arts, Special Education (MASE) program, is focused on the following assumptions (a) all children can learn, (b) children have diverse learning styles, and (c) the teacher’s belief in each child’s abilities supports the child’s success. As with all your courses, it is imperative that you embrace the premise that, regardless of ability level, cultural background, or learning differences, in physically and emotionally safe environments, all children can learn. This includes creating a safe experience around the process of assessment and evaluation.
In this course you will learn about the vital role of assessment and evaluation in the identification of students with special needs. You will also learn how the assessment and evaluation process contributes to the creation of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) for students who are eligible for special education and related services under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA). As we begin the course we focus on the historical context of the process of assessment and evaluation and some key legal decisions that currently impact the processes by which students are assessed and evaluated to determine their right to a free and appropriate public education. As you learned from your resources this week, we have come a long way since the times when children with disabilities were routinely excluded from participation in public school and when the existing assessment and evaluation processes did not take cultural or social differences into account.
As you learned from your resources this week, we have come a long way since the times when children with disabilities were routinely excluded from participation in public school and when the existing assessment and evaluation processes did not take cultural or social differences into account.
Week One Assignment Guidance
Historical Perspective and Landmark Cases. As you have learned in the previous three courses, there is a rich history of landmark court cases that have transformed special education from a privilege to a right. Three cases in particular have impacted the processes of assessment and evaluation for students with mild to moderate disabilities. They involve the practice of tracking students based on only one assessment early in their educational career and the use of assessment instruments that are not valid for the population being tested because of cultural or linguistic diversity.
An example of an assessment that would not be culturally valid would be one that based all children's abilities on language and concepts commonly found in parts of the United States that experience snow and other seasonal changes. Children who grow up in regions where it does not snow or where the seasonal variations are subtle may not be familiar with terms such as "mittens" or "sleet" because they have not been exposed to these concepts. If they are asked to define these terms on an assessment of their receptive vocabulary (often used as a proxy for intelligence) they may appear to be less capable than if they had been assessed using vocabulary and concepts more familiar to their region.
As our country becomes more and more culturally and linguistically diverse it becomes imperative that you, as a special educator, must be willing and able to become culturally competent in your use of assessment instruments and in your evaluation of the results of student assessments. Click on the link below to view a short You Tube video defining the components of cultural intelligence.
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For your first assignment, you will write a paper analyzing these three key cases and the effect they have had on the field. These cases are Hobson v. Hansen (Links to an external site.); Dina v. State Board of Education (Links to an external site.); and Larry P v. Wilson Riles (Links to an external site.). As you write this paper ask yourself, "How am I culturally intelligent?" Consider how the landmark cases that relate to fairness in assessment and evaluation have helped special educators as a group to become more culturally intelligent. Consider the role these cases have played in raising our awareness of the need for cultural intelligence in the assessment and evaluation of students with mild to moderate disabilities.
Make sure to use the Grading Rubric as a self-checklist before submitting the final copy of your assignment to confirm you have met or exceeded each required expectation. The highest level of achievement on the rubric is “distinguished”, which is only earned through exceeding posted expectations at the proficiency level. Please remember you are in a masters-level program. Therefore, your writing, research, and content are held to graduate-level expectations.
Recommendation
The MASE program provides the opportunity for you to create an online portfolio that can be used in your career development and professional practice. Throughout the program you will have various assessments that can be included in this e-portfolio and these will be finalized in the last course of the MASE program, Capstone coure, ESE699. You may select this assignment and subsequent coursework to include as artifacts. Therefore, it is strongly encouraged you save your coursework on a flash-drive (e.g., a USB removable drive) or store in a cloud-based option such as Dropbox, GoogleDrive, or other similar applications.
REFERENCES
CQ Wheel [Livinginstitute] (2013, September 13). What is cultural competence? (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ_LclEJU8k (Links to an external site.) C-Span Disabilities Education Improvement Bill Signing. [Anonymous User]. (2004, December 3). 2004 IDEA improvement act: the signing of the Disability Education Improvement Bills Dec 3, 2004 (Links to an external site.). [Video file] Retrieved from http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4169140/2004-idea-improvement-act. Bradley, M. (2015). IDEA/IDEIA: Individuals with disabilities education act (Links to an external site.). Frostburg State University Center for Children and Families. Retrieved from http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/disabilities/IDEA.html McKinney, M. (spring, 2011) Know thyself! But why? (Links to an external site.) [BlogPost]. Retrieved from http://www.parentcenterhub.org/wp-content/uploads/repo_items/fs7.pdf http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/personal-development/self-knowledge/44343.aspx NICHCY (2011, January). Learning disabilities (Links to an external site.). [NICHCY Disability Fact Sheet #7]. Retrieved from http://www.parentcenterhub.org/wp-content/uploads/repo_items/fs7.pdf Pierangelo, R., & Giuliani, G. A. (2012). Assessment in special education: A practical approach. Boston: Pearson.
Source for Visual
Elementary School in Kentucky, 1946 (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from Google Docs [Creative Commons Image] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_school_%28United_States%29