EDSS 541 RR30

The best practices for conducting an IEP Meeting:

1. Develop a common understanding of the student's strengths, interest and needs
2. Share information and observation of the student's behavior and learning in a variety of settings.
3. Understand academic and non-academic priorities for the individual student.
4. Plan measurable long term goals and benchmarks of short term objectives specific to the educational benefit of the individual student.
5. Develop a multi-factored evaluation including formal test results, current levels of academic and nonacademic functioning (social, emotional, and behavioral), written observations from teachers and test administrators and anecdotal records of parent perspectivies.
6. A statement of measurable goals and benchmarks of short term objectives related to meeting the student's academic and nonacademic needs that results from the student's disabilities.
7. Statement of program modification or support for school personnel that will be provided.
8. Explanation to which the student will not participate with non disabled students in regular classroom, extracurricular activities, and other nonacademic activities of the general curriculum.
9. Statement of individual modifications in the administration of state or district wide assessments of student achievement so that the student can participate on these assessments or explain on why the student cannot participate in any state or district-wide assessment or any part of that assessment.
10. A statement that indicates the anticipated frequency, location, and duration of any services and when program modifications will begin.

EDSS 541 RR29

The best practices for preparing for an IEP Meeting are:

1. Review student's past evalutaion and arrange meetings at appropriate times for all team members.
2. Provide sufficient advance notice of meeting date and time to students' parents.
3. Arrange interpreters for parents/grandparents if have a language, sight, hearing limitations.
4. Provide reliable data about the student's achievement, socialization, and behavior in classroom.
5. Provide input from the perspective of a knowledgeable, skillful general education teacher.
6. Be aware that some of the components of the IEP's implementation may be a part of your responsibility.
7. Know that the IEP binds a school district, not an individual,to the provision of services, to which the parties have agreed.
8. Don't worry that the student needs annual goals for all general education academic and performance areas.
9. Consider the IEP a confidential document available on a need to know basis.
10. Make sure each goal statement reflects measurable behavior meaningfully drawn from present performance levels and contains an appropriate time frame.  Don't depend on curriculum guides.

EDSS 541 RR28

The differentiation strategies that I would use to support Mwajabu in my Life Science class are:

Content:
Her strengths are in visual and experimental subjects, thus she will most likely enjoy demonstrations and the option to draw and present visual representations of the content processes versus writing and reading.

Process:
Activities involving visual stimuli (drawing, mapping and technology use) will be encouraged and allowed during cooperative learning groups to increase social and adaptive skills with peers.


Product: 
Pair Mwajabu with hearing partner during experiments to encourage improving her social skills.

EDSS 541 RR27

 Key information for Mwajabu that will inform educational goals and supports for her IEP include:

• Mwajabu lived her first 10 yrs in Tanzania, attended ungraded school
• speaks Swahili and tribal language, Second language English learner, deaf
• drawing outstanding, understands concepts through cartoon strips and communicates better through illustrations
• Peabody Picture vocabulary test-3 (PPVT-3) scored 11 years 5 months
• Photo Articulation Test-Revised (PAT-R) articulation errors in production of sounds /s/, /z/, /s/ blends, /r/, /r/ blends, and /l/; omits consonant sounds
• Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Upper Extension (EOWPVT-UE) scored at 10 yrs and 3 months, significant delay in expressive vocabulary ability
• Test of Language Development-Intermediate (TOLD-I) scored significant delays in all subjects, exception in Grammatical completion
• math is her best academic subject
• likes to read picture books and rather draw

EDSS 541 RR26

The differentiation strategies that I  would use to support Leanna in my Biology1 class are:

Content:
Provide one-on-one tutoring by a qualified instructor (myself or other science teacher) before, during lunch and after school. Needs repetition of new vocabulary words and vocab memorization strategies. Provide hands-on learning, manipulatives and demonstrations of science concepts as much as possible.


Process: 
Information and instructions for laboratory experiments presented visually and kinesthetically in small, sequential steps. Leanna would come to the demonstration/set up table and model each step from the experimental procedure before she would be allowed to work on the experiment.
Product: 
Allow Leanna extra time to complete assignments and provide her with my instructor lecture notes, encourage her to talk to her peers, provide modified rubrics and instructions if necessary for her.

EDSS 541 RR25

 Key information for Leanna that will inform educational goals and supports for her IEP include:

•  shy, hard worker, lacks social skills and close peer friendships
• WISC-IV, Full-Scale score of 64, consistent across domains indicate mild level of cognitive impairment: "Leanna demonstrates considerable difficulties dealing with tasks involving verbal comprehension and expression and those requiring the manipulation of concrete materials and visual-motor skills.
• PPVT-III, obtained age equivalent of 10 years and 9 months (lower average range for speech-language abilities)
• WIAT scores fall below 6th percentile
• unable to answer math problems involving more than one operation, contain extraneous information, or require money skills.
• adaptive skills below average
• difficulty with decoding strategies, does not make generalizations and inferences accurately, reading vocabulary at 3-4th grade levels
• spontaneous writing unorganized, simple sentences
• what she likes: walks, swimming, volleyball, basketball, computer, family, badminton
• what she dislikes: household chores, bike riding, reading, camping
• what she wishes she could do: puzzles, lose weight, draw, decorate, vacations, experiments, more time with family

EDSS 541 RR 21

I can use these assessment strategies during my TPA tasks, by submitting my example of the rubric used to evaluate the interactive laboratory notebooks.

EDSS 541 RR20

Some of the examples of the assessments I am using in my ITU unit are

• Pre when students respond in their interactive laboratory notebooks to the daily warmup
• Formative check for understanding during laboratory activities as I MSBW
• Summative during mini quizzes and end of unit test

EDSS 541 RR19

Some strategies to differentiate assessment are:

Give the students a choice of for any of the  pre, formative and summative assessments. They can have the choice of doing a presentation, drawing, video, music, paper, experiment, test. Etc.
Give the students the option to work independently or as pair, or group. Teacher can also have different assessments that are independent or as a group to address the same content and language objective. 

Examples of different assessments to differentiate based upon individual learning styles include:

•  Written Reflections, daily journals
•  Completed Graphic Organizers
•  Posters
•  Creative Projects-Travel Brochures, Games, Maps, Songs, Poems
•  Role playing
• Book, newspaper, current events reports