07.750 Graduate Summative Seminar
Brandon University
June 2018
ASSESSMENT IN SPECIAL EDUCATION
04.761
SUMMARY
This course is designed to familiarize students with the assessment practices and procedures utilized with children with exceptionalities. It will deal with individualized assessment, multidisciplinary approaches to assessment and the connection between assessment and programming.
WHAT TO EXPECT
This course provides students with the opportunity to learn about different types of assessment used with students with various forms additional needs and exceptionalities. Considerations for appropriate adaptations are investigated. Expect a lot of chapter quizzes but also assignments that are relevant to your area of interest.
REFLECTION
This course afforded me the chance to critically examine assessment and how students are sometimes assessed in situations that are unfair to the individual. Factors influencing assessment were brought to my attention. Methods of more fairly assessing student with appropriate adaptations were considered.
SIGNIFICANT READINGS
Good, R. I., Kaminski, R. A. (2011). Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills: DIBELS Next Assessment Manual. https://dibels.org/next/downloads/DIBELSNext_AssessmentManual.pdf
Good, R. I., Kaminski, R. A., Moats, L. C., Laimon, D., Smith, S., & Dill, S. (2002). DIBELS: Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, Sixth Edition.
Salvia, J., Ysseldyke, J. E., &Witmer, S. (2016). Assessment in Special and Inclusive Education (13th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Weishaar, M. K., & Scott, V. G. (2005). Cases in Special Education Assessment. Toronto: Pearson.
Woodcock, R. W., McGrew, K. S., Mather, N., & Schrank, F. A. (1977). Woodcock-Johnson® III.
ARTIFACTS
Carrying on with the theme of literacy, I chose to write responses for a case study on the topic of reading and a case study on the topic of writing. The case studies represent just a handful of the many ways students present with literacy learning challenges. This course provided me with the opportunity to reflect on how to accurately assess students with a variety of literacy learning needs.
The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Next (DIBELS Next) is an assessment tool that has surfaced in several scholarly articles that I have read in the last few years. I was interested to investigate DIBELS Next to determine if it a worthwhile assessment system. The conclusion I made from analysing the test is that DIBELS Next lives up to the hype and would be an effective criterion-based test.
