Rules, Cautions, and Comments about Implementation

Realistically, you should choose your alternate assessment indicators as early as possible in the school year, even if the student's IEP isn't due until later. Selecting early means you have enough time to instruct on the skills before you need to take data. You cannot expect a student to perform well on an assessment if the tasks are new!

                      Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you will do best.   Marva Collins

You should also determine a general testing schedule: when are you going to assess what. According to the state, students taking the other levels of the assessment do not have much choice about when they take an assessment so the same should apply to students taking the alternate. This being said, bear in mind that the students who qualify for the alternate very often have significant behavioral and/or health challenges. In other words, some days are better than others for them and it's a good idea to try to use their good days to gather assessment data.

Make sure to keep an eye on the deadlines! Give yourself plenty of time to assess but make sure to leave enough time to evaluate (rate) the assessments as well.

The following is taken directly from the Implementation Guide available at CETE:

The guidelines for the evidence collection are:

·         When the student’s task response is scored as correct/incorrect, a minimum of 5 trials/probes is required to complete a   piece of evidence.

·         Any written transcription of student responses must be verbatim.

·         When using worksheets as data, 3 different worksheets may be used as 3 different pieces of evidence, but they may not be identical worksheets.  Each must have 5 questions probing for student’s level of performance.

·         When responding to 3 different individuals, tasks, or environments, each encounter may be considered a different piece of evidence.

·         The person collecting the evidence must not use the Alternate Assessment skill scoring rubric to make judgments about the student’s performance level. The evidence is to be presented describing the assessment process and the response of the student, but judgment of performance level is in the purview of the rater.

As regards support that may be provided:

·         The teacher should first ask the student to respond without support. 

·         If the teacher provides support, it should be documented on the Evidence Label. 

·         The support provided should not exceed the support provided during instruction. 

·         The teacher may use cues/prompts to direct the student’s attention to the task to elicit a response, unless the target skill in the indicator calls for student attention, e.g., responds to stimuli. The teacher is not to lead the student to an answer or response with skill related cues/prompts.

·         If the teacher is completing the task or leading the student to a correct response, that cannot be considered appropriate support for assessment. 

·NOTE: Hand over hand assistance is considered appropriate for IEP goals, but is not considered appropriate support for the Alternate Assessment. If hand over hand assistance is required for a student to complete the task correctly, the data can only receive a rating of  “1” on the skill rubric score scale.

Other notes about implementation (based on comments from the Audit report)

• Make sure you as the teacher are in control of the data collected. It is OK to allow a para to take data as long as he/she has been thoroughly trained in the procedures. DO NOT, however, send a data sheet home for a parent to fill out, have a peer take data (although including a peer in an assessment activity is acceptable), or expect an untrained para to take accurate data. In the case of a parent, you have no clue how the parent might be prompting the student, engineering the situation, or even if they really did the activity with the student. A student is not qualified to make these kinds of evaluations. And paras should always be trained in the expected data system so that data is consistent. It can also be good to have more than one person do the activity with the student so you can check for consistency and reliability
   
• Make sure you are choosing activities that are obviously relevant to the indicator being assessed and are as meaningful to the student as possible. As an example, a teacher chose "uses a map or globe" as an indicator. The activity involved the student reaching out to spin a globe. The student also required hand-over-hand assistance to complete the task. The auditor questioned the purpose of the activity and how it related to utilizing a globe. In addition, the data was discounted because the student required a level of support inappropriate for assessment.  Another activity under the same indicator for the same student was playing with a talking globe. This was a fantastic choice as it was meaningful both to the student and to the context of the indicator.
   
• Make sure you have all the needed data. This cannot be emphasized enough. Each piece of evidence is required to have 5 distinctly separate trials. An example of a set of data that was criticized: Indicator was to recognize the sun, moon, clouds, airplanes,... other objects in the sky. Activity was to fly a kite. Each piece of data occurred 1-2 minutes apart and indicated that the student flew a kite with 100% independence and 100% accuracy. What was not clear was how these pieces of data were unique and distinct from one another. The auditor did not feel that the time differential was enough of a distinction. Better examples for this situation might have been: pointed to kite in sky; counted kites in the sky; commented on how high the kite was; commented on how the kite moved like a bird; indicated the kite needed to go up in the air, not down on the ground; etc.
   
• On the evidence label include only the information needed to describe the activity and data. Additional information about the student is not needed. An example would be "he doesn't usually like to write his spelling words" or "the student was highly resistant to this activity." This kind of information can prejudice a scorer. Also, extraneous information and long narratives make it more difficult to score the piece of evidence. Remember, this is a label, not an IEP or progress report. It simply needs to adequately describe the activity.
   
• At the same time, make sure to include enough information: what materials were used? Was the student assisted in any way? If you are going to say something like "100% independence and 100% accuracy" make sure you define what that means. If you have a student read specific words, do math problems, or other activities on a work sheet or in a rote or discrete trial format, make sure to include either the worksheet or a list of the specific problems/questions.
   
• Make sure that if you use a scoring rubric of some sort that the key is included with the data and/or on the evidence label.

   

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• Do not use percentages on the work sheet/data sheet. Use the scoring key instead (see Evidence Label section).