response

guided Response: You are required to substantively respond to at least two of your colleagues by Day 7 (the following Monday).

As you review the posts submitted by your peers, provide constructive feedback in at least one paragraph on their explanation of the role that assessment plays in monitoring student progress. As special educators, why is this important? How will this inform your work? What additional recommendations might you offer?

In a second paragraph, provide your reflection on the three strategies offered in your peers’ initial posts. Why would these strategies be beneficial to students with mild to moderate disabilities? What additional ideas, sources, or websites might you provide to strengthen their suggestions?

Though two replies are the basic expectation, for deeper engagement and application of the material, you are encouraged to provide responses to any comments or questions others have given to you (including your instructor) before Day 7. This ongoing engagement in the discussion will deepen the conversation while providing opportunities to demonstrate your content expertise, critical thinking, and real-world experiences with this topic.

Discussion Responses

Response to Post 1

The role of assessment to monitor student progress not only academically but also attainment of social skills and positive behavior (Cohen & Speniener, 2009). Its purpose is to provide the educator with useful information about the student's current academic performance. The collected data can help the teacher see how the student is doing with mastery learning objectives, as well as the student’s strength and weakness in various academic areas. Data collected for assessments can also assess the teachers’ delivery method of content and strategies used. Generally if the majority of the students are not comprehending the key points of the lesson, re-evaluation is needed (Cotton, n.d). Assessments are also used to help create small groups for intervention, grouping the students according to the skill(s) that need to be retaught.

When it comes to assessments, I have administered various forms of assessments, both formal and informal. Currently, my students use Lexia and ST Math, I use the data from these platforms to create my small groups for responsive teaching. For math, my students have an exit slip at the end of the lesson. The scores can tell me who grasps the key points or if I need to reteach using a different strategy. I would like to learn how to assess my students with mild to moderate disabilities, meaning what does it look like for those students? Is there a difference from how I would assess those students in comparison to the rest of the class? 

My chosen video was the stoplight method. The teacher in this video provided her students with post-it notes towards the end of class, in which they would write something on it regarding the lesson. Red was for the student to put what was hard for them or stopped their learning; yellow was what did they still have questions about or need clarity on; green was what went great for the lesson or an idea they had. I think this would be a great strategy in allowing all students to self-reflect on educational learning. I also think that this will help students with disabilities learn self-advocacy by recognizing when they need help and to ask for it. Another strategy I could use is conferring with my students during independent reading. Conferring allows me to individually assess how a student is doing with the strategies that were taught while allowing the teacher to model for and assist the student as necessary (Reading Recovery, 2019). One other strategy that can be used in the classroom is thumbs up- thumbs down, I love this one for first graders, especially now that we are virtual. They can use this when I go to ask questions about the current lesson when they are doing independent practice. It allows for me to gauge how they are doing and what questions I need to ask.

Classroom-Assessment Techniques: A Video Collection - Education Week Teacher (Links to an external site.)

 (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)

. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/03/05/ndia_cm_videos.html

 

Clemson University. (2019). Conferring-Reading Recovery. Retrieved from  https://readingrecovery.clemson.edu/independent-reading/conferring/ (Links to an external site.)

 

Cohen, L. & Spenciner, L. (2009)  Teaching students with mild and moderate disabilities: Research-based practices  (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Publication

 

Cotton, K. (n.d). Monitoring Student Learning in the Classroom. Retrieved from  https://educationnorthwest.org/sites/default/files/monitoring-student-learning.pdf

Response to Post 2

One of the proactive strategies that you have mentioned is building relationships with students. I agree with you. Often, a proactive approach entails planning and thoughtfulness and are implemented before a problem occurs. It is not like a reactive one that responds to the problem when it has already happened or is happening. Building relationships with students is a proactive approach because it will enable Mr. Franklin to create an understanding with students, thus getting the chance to teach them good behaviors like timeliness, which will smoothen the transition process. It can be difficult for a teacher to convince students to behave in a particular desired manner when there no established good relationship with teachers.

Besides, this strategy is different from what I suggested in my post. I talked about establishing expectations, organizing a productive classroom, and instituting a reward system. For instance, Mr. Franklin needs to set classroom behavioral expectations which students can adhere to during learning. A good example can entail stating “students are expected to demonstrate timeliness and lateness is not tolerated.” The other approach that you have mentioned is having reminders and cues. I concur with you; however, the method is different from what I posted. Reminders and cues can prepare students mentally. Do you think building strong relationships with students without behavioral rules/expectations will make students behave appropriately?

Reference

Konrad, M., Criss, C. J., & Telesman, A. O. (2019). Fads or facts? Sifting through the evidence to find what really works. Intervention in School and Clinic, 54(5), 272-279.

Response 2

in no more than two paragraphs explain the role of assessment in monitoring student progress using evidence from at least two scholarly sources to support your explanation:

Knowing what students know is essential in regards their education, utilizing the many forms of assessments allows teachers to assess information about their students that may be recognized through monitoring and assessments, teachers need accurate  evaluations, and assessments to determine if their student has any academic challenges in areas that the student is struggling in. According to Cohen & Spenciner 2009), teachers use various assessment approaches to identify what students know and can do, they gather information about academic achievement, attainment of social skills, and positive behaviors. In many cases, students begin school with academic challenges and are not noticed until the student begins to have trouble in the academic areas and once the teacher begins progress monitoring, testing, and assessments, they are aware of what the student lacks in. The IDEA and  No Child Left Behind laws passed they were put in place to ensure that students are given the chance to achieve with their  educational needs. Teachers need a understanding of any challenges that a student may have so that the proper accommodations can be implemented into their lessons. "Assessments of changes in students' achievement across time provide a way of recognizing that schools serve students who start at different places and progress at different rates (Selzer, Choi, & Thum, 2003; Willms, 1992)."

Consider the Week One "Instructor Guidance" page elaboration about the assessment and monitoring student progress, the assessment methods described in Chapter 5 in the course textbook, and the conversation among peers and the Instructor thus far about contemporary practices for measuring and evaluating student progress in the "Post Your Introduction" discussion. In no more than two paragraphs, summarize what you know about assessment and monitoring student progress and what you would still like to learn (ie., anything about the topic of assessment and monitoring student progress that is unclear for you at this point).

Teachers want to ensure they have the proper tools, strategies, testing and assessments needed to give their students the accommodations they need for their academic achievements. Cohen & Spenciner, 2009) state that assessments and other evaluation materials used to assess a child must be provided and administered in the child's native language or other mode of communication, the assessment should be in form most likely to yield accurate information about what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible to do so. As the teacher monitors the students while using the assessments, they  can point out other ways they can assist the students with their learning needs because students learn on different levels. When teacher selects appropriate assessment approaches, the formative assessment can provide students and teachers with ongoing information about their work and progress, formative assessments provide information about what students can do and enable teachers to reflect on what methods and strategies are most effective in supporting student learning (Spenciner & Cohen, 2009), In the classroom it is vital that the teacher can utilize strategies that will accommodate all students even if they have different ways of learning because the goal is for the students to progress. Being able to utilize the students progress is vital to giving students various opportunities.

I would like to learn more about the different assessments that are used in the classroom, learn more about different strategies that can be used to support my future students, also, learning more about different tools that can be useful in my future classroom.

Citing the specific video from the link provided, as well any additional source(s), including your required course textbook, list at least three strategies for monitoring student progress that you could include as part of a lesson plan for students with mild to moderate disabilities:

The Video I watched was : "Communicating with Silent Signals"

1st Strategy:  

"Silent Signals build on metacognitive skills and engage students," in this video the teacher described how to use silent signals can be integrated the classroom whenever students needed to agree or disagree with, or if they were struggling with the lesson being taught, or for volume, or to assist with the students to continue to keep going, and for completing sentences, the teacher mentioned using clue words also. The Silent Signals is a productive way for teachers to use with their instructional lesson time. (Classroom-Assessment Techniques: A Collection-Education Week Teacher (Links to an externals). (n.d.).  

2nd Strategy:

Reading Interventions would be a strategy to use because most students have reading challenges that are never detected until they have gone through many grade levels, with reading interventions students can read aloud, use audio versions if needed, also progress monitoring  can determine a students reading challenges, it can determine what reading level the student is at, progress monitoring can be done quarterly so the student is tested in order for the teacher to determine if the student has progressed. Small groups can assist with students reading interventions.

3rd Strategy:

  "1, 2, 3,"  is a strategy similar to "Stoplight" which involves students by stop and ask students questions during a lesson to check for understanding the concept. Students will hold up three fingers if they understand, two if they kind of understand but are a little confused, and one if they have no idea what you are talking about(classcraft.com). Students need to be encouraged at all times because it allows them to progress and demonstrate an understanding of what they have learned.

 

References:

Assessing School Achievement Progress Comparing Alternative Approaches Educational Administration Quarterly, vol.42, 5:pp.667-699., First Published Dec.1.2006 DOI:10.1177/0013161x06293718 

Cohen, L. & Spenciner, L. (2009) Teaching students with mild and moderate disabilities: Research-based practices (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Publication.

Classroom-Assessment Techniques: A Video Collection-Education Week Teacher. (n.d.) Retrieved from  http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/03/05/ndia_cm_videos.html  (Links to an external site.)