Odom,+Sherie+-+Assessment+Strategies

**Welcome to my Inclusion Assessment Strategy Wiki Page.**

Hello, my name is Sherie Odom and I moved to Central Point, Oregon just shortly after meeting my husband Alan 18 years ago. I was born and raised in a small community located not far from Red Bluff and Chico, California named Corning. Corning is known for their olive industry, but my family grew almonds. I am a 4th generation almond farmer and the last Mayes to hold the original title to the land since 1841. Farming is not as profitable, as some would think, unless you have large acreages of land; therefore my father told me to go to college and get a good paying job.

From this advice I graduated high school and promptly enrolled at Shasta Community College and received my associates’ degree in accounting. One of my first jobs was at a Montessori preschool and I fell in love with working with the students, rather than the bookkeeping. I worked for 15 years in various corporations doing taxes and accounting, but it never really fulfilled me. After my daughter Katie started school I became more involved in the classroom and eventually worked for two years as an Educational Assistant in reading, before deciding after 20 years to return to college for my teaching license.

My Goal was to obtain my license within 3 years: two years for my Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education and one year for the MAT. Well my one year for the MAT turned into two, but other than that I’m still on the right track. My family questioned if I was having a midlife crisis to up and quit a fairly good job to pursue one that is considered less money. For me, money does not make me get out of bed every morning and love what I do; it’s the kids that make me love what I do. I have never regretted for a second that this is what I was meant to do.

Besides teaching I love to read in my spare moments, play wordsmith, garden, cook, hike, and travel. I am a freak for old cemeteries, ghost towns and historical places; there is something about the past that is very intriguing. From all my school experiences and within the workplace I hope to bring fun back into the classroom through diversified lessons that incorporate cooperation, community, engagement, technology, and above all curiosity.

School was not like this for me growing up. I was called “the dumb kid in the resource room.” It wasn’t that I was dumb it’s just that I needed a little more time to process things. I was the constant student that said, “I don’t get it!” “Yet,” my teachers would say. I spent many hours on my own trying to master phonics, so that when I read aloud others would not laugh at me. I had many great teachers that were patient and spent a little extra time so that I would understand. Those are the teachers I remember, and I think the ones I learned the most from. I take this with me into the classroom to remind me that my students may not master the content as quickly as I would hope, but with a little patience they will learn it later, then not at all.

Through this course I have learned to identify some of the different characteristics of disabilities and to implement modifications within my classroom to meet their needs. Inclusion is not just for students with an IEP, they were designed to meet the needs of any child. They are normally referred to as, "Good Teaching Practices." These tools will help me to teach and assess every student and provide them an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge, skill and understanding of varies concepts to me.

**Assessment Strategies**

 I chose assessment strategies because of the overwhelming emphasis that is placed on it. In the future, assessments will provide me relevant information to guide placements and instruction. I began researching assessments and the mountain of information is great; so I narrowed my topic to how I, as a general education teacher, would use assessment within my classroom to accommodate all my students under a universal design of inclusion. I first looked at the types of assessments that could be used with students with and without learning disabilities. Then I looked at the different accommodations that are recommended for students with a learning disability. Lastly, I looked at ways that I could provide strategies for test taking to alleviate anxiety. I believe with these three steps students with a learning disability will get the opportunity to truly show their strengths and knowledge.

**The Top 5 Things I learned about Assessment Strategies:**


 * Assessment are an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge, skill and understanding of a task or concept for student with or without a learning disability.
 * Assessment strategies that most recommended for a student with a learning disability are: presentations, conferences, interview, observations, role play, taped interview, or audio recordings. Least of all a pencil and paper task.
 * If teachers are differentiating instruction to include all learning abilities, then we would naturally differentiate our assessments the same way.
 * Assessment Stategies are equally as important as the teaching strategies. You can modify the test to accomadate the student, but if they do not have the prior knowledge of a taught strategy it may not help.
 * To truely assess a student you must play to their strengths. If they are bad writing give them the test orally, practice writing in writing class not during an assessment.

Top Resource

<span style="color: #008000; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">If you only have time for one resource I would recommend this one. I would also print it out and have on your desk. It is calledTest-Taking: Tips for Students with Learning Disabilities. This is helpful list for accommodating the student and then how to modify any test that you might give to meet their needs. ( Click on the student and you will go to that page). Rated 5 out of 5.



**<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 160%;">Other Resourses **

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">1. From The Inclusive Classroom Book, Chapter 12, pages 273 - 294, is all on Assessment. I found this an enormous help for strategies, and designing assessments for students with learning disabilities. Rated 5 out of 5.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">2. Teaching & Assessment Strategies for Students with Learning Disabilitiesis a document that explains how learning disabilities impact testing and gives a range of teaching and assessment strategies that are useful for your whole classroom. Rated 5 out of 5.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">3. Alternatives to exams is a list of alternative assessments that work well for students with a learning disability. Some examples are presentations, role playing, but the suggestion list is pretty short. Rated 4 out of 5.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">4. Supporting students with learning difficulties through universal design assessment practices is a video that talks about how students with a learning disability has trouble accessing their long and short term memories in an assessment situation. Rated 5 out of 5. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> media type="youtube" key="CCmMWkmyrs4" height="315" width="420" <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">5. Assessment for Learning is a video by Teacher Pro that shows how feedback during everyday work is more benifical then a quiz or test at the end of a lesson. The reason is the mistakes are caught at the time of there making and do not have time to go into long term memory. Rated 5 out of 5

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">6. Making Videos for Assessment is a video by Teacher Pro that shows how students make videos to show what they have learned. Students are paired together and are able to create a video that is simple, but effective to know exactly where their knowledge base is. Rated 5 out of 5.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">7. Inclusion: Grouping Strategies for inclusive classrooms by Education Video Cases is a video that shows what a potential inclusive classroom would look like. I found this very helpful to see how teaching strategies, learning, and assessments come together for an entire class with some students with a disability. Rated 5 out of 5.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">8.Instructional Strategy Video - Learning Disability is a video of a general education teachers view on how to track students with an IEP's progress throughout the year and what strategies for assessments are used. Rated 5 out of 5. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">media type="youtube" key="t7NsqAUfoo8" height="315" width="420"

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 190%;">Community Based Project:

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> For my community based project I observed an IEP meeting. Below is my link to the entire document.
====<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|For my Community Based learning Project I observed an IEP meeting.pdf] ====

<span style="color: #a43fa4; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">Thank you for Reading my Wiki.