EDUC 613

Introduction to Individual Education Assessment

Description of Artifact
This course was a waived course from UW-Eau Claire: SPED 401: Assessment for Students with
Disabilities. The artifact from that class that I have chosen to submit is titled: Analysis of Risk in
IEP Process. When this assignment was given my classmates and I thoroughly discussed
Eligibility status for special education services. This was done for No Determined Disability
resulting in no special education services, and Disability Determined resulting in special
education services for the student in question. In groups of three we were assigned to research
False Determination and True Determination for both areas. This was a unique discussion topic
that sparked the interest of all of us. After group discussion, we were assigned a project
individually to be prepared to present our final product to the class.
Professional Growth
This course was intense. Several different assessment tools were introduced during this course,
and we were able to get hands on experience with them. Some of the assessment tools that
we were introduced to were: WJ III Test of Academic Achievement, WIAT-II, KeyMath, BES,
and BASC. There was much discussion on legal, ethical, and practical issues in assessment.
Another area of professional growth for me was getting a better understanding of the reliability
and validity in assessment. The area that I found the most professional growth in was
communication of assessment findings to parents and other professionals. Test results can
sometimes seem overwhelming, especially to individuals that are not familiar with these type of
assessments. An important part of the special education teachers job is to familiarize
themselves with the assessments that they are giving their students. By becoming familiar with
the assessments, teachers will feel more comfortable going over the results with parents and
other educated professionals.
Impact on Student Learning
What can be done to increase the reliability and validity of behavioral assessment, and
furthermore, why do we need to assess behavior? If educators can find out how significant a
behavioral problem is, they can understand them better and act upon them. Classroom
behavior has a major impact on student learning. A special education teacher should assess
behavior to determine their effectiveness in managing behavioral issues in his or her classroom.
It is a procedural requirement for the benefit of that particular student and other students that
are directly impacted by this students behavior. As educators we can employ multiple
measures, take behavioral observations in multiple settings, take observations over an
appropriate length of time, adhere to systematic procedures, and finally, triangulate between
the child, teachers, and parents.
Understanding and Application of Standards
Foundations of education were evident in this course. Special educators should be consistently
striving to understand the ever important relationships between organizations, school systems,
as well as state and local agencies that may be of assistance to the education of their students.
It is possibly a safe assumption to assume that all of our students have Individual Learning
Differences. Educators need to be made aware of family backgrounds, specific cultures, and
each students specific disability in order to provide a high quality of individualized instruction.
Part of this process may be getting to know your students parent or parents, and being
available for them when they need to get in contact with you.
Assessment of our students is another very important part of our job. As we take time to get to
know each of our students, we will get a good idea of their Development and Characteristics of
each Learners particular styles. Some of our students may need specific testing conditions to
be able to be assessed. It is our responsibility to find out how our students will successfully be
assessed.