Saturday, February 25, 2012

Accommodations Surveys

Accommodations are meant to eliminate and/or reduce the effects of an individuals disability. Yet, they are often simply copied from the previous IEP and/or the same as all other student's IEPs in the district. I confess that I have been guilty of listing accommodations just in case a student might need them, but I now realize that it is best to limit accommodations to only those that significantly eliminate and/or reduce the effects of an individuals disability and that the need for accommodations should be reviewed frequently by all IEP team members. In order to have a productive dialogue, all members must have the same understanding of the various accommodations. The Nebraska Guidelines to Accommodations provides definitions of commonly used accommodations and a survey to determine accommodations. I have converted the Determining Appropriate Accommodations by Student Name from the guide verbatim. This assessment assists in specifying the disabilities of an individual. Data from the assessment can easily be shared with the IEP team through the Summary of Responses. This data can be used to determine the accommodations that should be on the student's IEP with the Accommodations Survey for Student Name.    The assessments do not limit the development of uniquely targeted accommodations but provide a shared understanding through graphs of the data from the IEP team and serve as a catalyst for efficient and effective accommodations.  To copy the spreadsheets for your own use, visit my website.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Career Connections Assessment Rubric

The Career Connections AssessmentRubric is an example of a five point rubric that has different descriptors for each criteria. Conversion to a Google Doc form allows the points to be assigned on a spreadsheet facilitating comparison among raters of the same student. In addition, the gain in efficiency makes the assessment more viable as a formative assessment for progress monitoring.  

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Indicator B14 Survey Correlated with Transition Curriculum

About three weeks ago I discovered an Indicator 14 Survey from Connecticut that I felt had great potential to collect data for Indicator B14.  I converted the survey without edit to share while I immediately realized that the survey could produce easy to read results and provide information on the student reported transition skills taught in high school with post high school outcomes.  The Survey of Graduates or Exiters of High Schools is an edited version that produces correlations among skills and outcomes.  To demonstrate how the assessment works I entered ten random entries.  The Summary of Responses provides a user friendly view of the results and the spreadsheet provides correlations among the responses.  This assessment can be used to find relationships between transition curriculum and post-secondary outcomes. Please note that formulas need to be copied on the coding spreadsheet and the ranges will need to be changed to reflect the proper data ranges.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Activities for Students Based on MAP Scores

I just received links to activities based on MAP scores developed by South Washington Schools in Minnesota.  The sites  provide links to activities based on RIT scores in Reading and Math.  This is a great resource for teachers and parents to develop student skills.