Please check, just in case…
APA Tip of the Day: Passive voice
“Verbs are vigorous, direct communicators.
Use the active rather than the passive
voice…. The passive voice is acceptable…
when you want to focus on the object or
recipient of the action rather than on the actor.
For example, ‘The speakers were attached to
either side of the chair’ emphasizes the
placement of speakers, not who placed them
– the more appropriate focus in the Method
section” (APA, 2010, p. 77).
Other problems with passives:
“Passive voice suggests individuals are
acted on instead of being actors (‘the
students completed the survey’ is preferable
to ‘the students were given the survey’ or
‘the survey was administered to the
students’)” (APA 2010, p. 73).
It is important to accurately attribute action
in technical writing – if you are the actor, you
should acknowledge it directly with “I”.
Announcements
1. Upload your presentations and all other
materials you will use or pass out to UNM
Learn before the start of class the night you
present.
2. Please make an appointment to see me as
soon as possible – my office hours this
semester have been filling up more than a
week in advance, so I may not have any last
minute appointments available.
Quick
questions or
quandaries?
Today’s Topic:
Assessment
overview
What is the assessment focus?
 The student?
 His/her abilities and disabilities?
 Family?
 Educational history
 Learning context(s)
Pair Brainstorm!
What are all of the
reasons we might assess
students?
Want to compare a student
with his/her peers?
Use a norm-referenced
assessment.
Want to compare a student’s skills
with a pre-determined
developmental hierarchy?
Use a developmentallyreferenced assessment
(i.e. milestones).
Want to specify a student’s current
level of performance? (i.e. What the
student knows, understands, or is
able to do.)
Use a criterionreferenced
assessment.
Want to monitor a student’s
progress within a curricular
sequence? (i.e. math, spelling)
Use a curriculum-based
assessment or
measurement (CBA or
CBM).
Want to assess a student’s
response to intervention or
problem-solving skills, or the most
effective means of facilitating that
student’s learning?
Use dynamic
assessment.
Which assessment
procedure is best?
It all depends on
what you want to
know.
Caution!
“Dynamic assessment is not intended
as a substitute for existing approaches.
Dynamic assessment is presented as a
unique and important addition to the
diagnostician’s repertory. Dynamic
assessment responds to questions that
are not addressed by other procedures”
(Lidz, 1991, p. xi).
Dynamic Assessment:
 Is based on a different concept of
intelligence from traditional IQ tests – it
is based on students’ “learning ability.”
 Provides information on the student’s
learning processes (why they might not
be learning and what supports their
learning).
 Provides a direct connection with
intervention.
Key Characteristics of Dynamic Assessment:
1. Test – teach – re-test format.
2. Focus on learner modifiability.
3. Goal of developing learnerspecific and effective
interventions – what helps this
student learn best?
(Lidz,1991)
DA Techniques
When a student is having difficulty, the
examiner attempts to move the student from
failure to success by:
• Modifying the format,
• Providing more trials,
• Providing information on successful
strategies, or
• Offering increasingly more direct cues,
hints, or prompts.
From: http://www.education.com/reference/article/dynamic-assessment/
Variations of DA
• Testing-the-limits (modification,
feedback, during testing)
• Clinical Interview (How did you know
this? What would happen if…?)
• Graduated prompting
• Test-Teach-Retest
Quick Write
As a special educator (not
diagnostician), what sort of information
should you gather that would provide
relevant, meaningful, and informative
assessment data? If you are not a
special educator, what sort of
information do you think teachers
(general and special) should collect?
Analyzing the Communicative
Environment
“It is just as important to assess
the social environment of the
students as it is to assess the
communicative skills of the
student” (Downing, 1999, p. 51).
Why?
The Need for Inclusion
“Experts in communication intervention
stress the value of teaching
communication skills in general
education classrooms where students
with severe disabilities have the support
of their peer role models” (Downing,
1999, p. 51).
Why?
Ecological perspectives place the child
at the center of ever-widening
concentric circles
school
community
family
classroom
Bronfenbrenner, 1979
Observations can and should
be an important part of your
overall assessment strategy.
“observation”
While you can and should
assess students via
observation and dialogue, you
must have a focus and criteria
for evaluation, and you
MUST
document your assessment.
Effective observations:
 Have a clear purpose and focus,
 Are documented,
 Rely on objective reporting, not
subjective impressions, and
 Are systematic.
Looking ahead…
Interventions galore!
Please take a
minute for the
minute paper.
And don’t forget to turn
your phone back on.