The Action Reflection Process: Supporting All Students in Inquiry-based Science

Alternate Assessment

The students who required the greatest amount of modification were students in fourth and fifth grade with severe physical and developmental disabilities. For students with severe disabilities, teachers began to integrate IEP goals into the science content. The following exchange illustrates how a teacher, knowledgeable about a student's individual goals, integrates a science and math goal:

Special Educator:
You did some adapting with Student A, because you took the tree ring, and he obviously counted the rings, because he said it has 11 rings.

Teacher:
He made this connection, because I had a tree slice that was 50 years old. And he doesn't know much about the number 50, but he said that he is 11 years old. So we thought, let's turn it into a math lesson. And he wound up adapting it. He drew 11 rings with some support.

Special Educator:
And he can definitely relate to trees, they are common objects, and counting the rings is concrete.

Teacher:
So the second time, we just concentrated on the tree rings as one of the dating techniques. So it was a powerful, very sophisticated connection.

These students participated in the science lessons, yet the focus of their instruction was to meet IEP goals. To build language skills, students cut out pictures of items representing science topics and placed them into science categories. For example, a fifth grade class was studying changes in the state of water. A student with multiple disabilities, including cerebral palsy, developmental delays, and low verbal communication skills, cut out magazine pictures of water in each of the three states the students were studying: vapor, liquid, and solid. Evidence of this student's success through a combination of science and IEP goals can be seen in the science excerpt of a report presented to the student's parents:

The science units we studied this year were The Microscopic World, Changes of State, and Variables. Jay has participated in all areas. The classroom teachers, the inclusion specialist, the occupational therapist, and the speech and language pathologist worked together to adapt the curriculum to meet Jay's needs and learning style. In The Microscopic World, Jay learned what a microscope was and how to use it properly. Meaningful objects were used (i.e., Cheerios, yogurt, and water) for him to view under the microscope.

In the second unit, Changes of State, Jay was introduced to words such as gas, liquid, and solid. Jay searched through magazines to find pictures that depicted all the states of water. From this activity, Jay was able to identify all states of matter. Jay participated in all the experiments in a small, cooperative group. From both units, Jay gained knowledge in vocabulary, scientific experimentation, cooperative group work, and basic scientific information.

An alternate assessment was conducted with three students with severe disabilities who were in classrooms where the teacher had participated in the Action Reflection Process for three years. This alternate assessment revealed that two of the three students retained information learned in second grade on the habitats of woodland and pond creatures and on the descriptive qualities of rocks and minerals. Moreover, these students demonstrated scientific "habits of mind" when interacting with the rocks and minerals. When asked to describe the rocks and minerals, these two students looked at the items, touched them, smelled them, and performed the "scratch test." These were techniques they had been taught one or two years previously. One student, who did not respond to the most of the alternate assessment prompts, responded excitedly to one question. He was given one wooden and one metal spoon and was then asked, "Which spoon would you use to stir hot soup?" This student, who had been distracted throughout the testing session, sat up and took the wooden spoon. He excitedly began stirring and talking about how he cooked at home. For this student, and the teachers conducting the alternate assessment, this was an example of how science content relates to a life skills curriculum (i.e., the safety of using the wooden spoon with hot soup vs. heat conduction). Further, it gave the teachers information about how to continue to connect life skills and content. Albeit a small sample, the performance of these students provides evidence to support meeting IEP goals and teaching related science content to students with severe disabilities.

These teachers requested that the researchers show this assessment to the man responsible for alternate assessments at the state level, which they did. He was impressed by how students with severe disabilities were included in the curriculum. One of the Cambridge schools was ultimately selected to pilot the alternate assessment.

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			The students who required the greatest amount of modification were students in fourth and fifth grade with severe physical and developmental disabilities. For students with severe disabilities, teachers began to integrate IEP goals into the science content. The following exchange illustrates how a teacher, knowledgeable about a student's individual goals, integrates a science and math goal: Special Educator: You did some adapting with Student A, because you took the tree ring, and he obviously counted the rings, because he said it has 11 rings. Teacher: He made this connection, because I had a tree slice that was 50 years old. And he doesn't know much about the number 50, but he said that he is 11 years old. So we thought, let's turn it into a math lesson. And he wound up adapting it. He drew 11 rings with some support. Special Educator: And he can definitely relate to trees, they are common objects, and counting the rings is concrete. Teacher: So the second time, we just concentrated on the tree rings as one of the dating techniques. So it was a powerful, very sophisticated connection. These students participated in the science lessons, yet the focus of their instruction was to meet IEP goals. To build language skills, students cut out pictures of items representing science topics and placed them into science categories. For example, a fifth grade class was studying changes in the state of water. A student with multiple disabilities, including cerebral palsy, developmental delays, and low verbal communication skills, cut out magazine pictures of water in each of the three states the students were studying: vapor, liquid, and solid. Evidence of this student's success through a combination of science and IEP goals can be seen in the science excerpt of a report presented to the student's parents: The science units we studied this year were The Microscopic World, Changes of State, and Variables. Jay has participated in all areas. The classroom teachers, the inclusion specialist, the occupational therapist, and the speech and language pathologist worked together to adapt the curriculum to meet Jay's needs and learning style. In The Microscopic World, Jay learned what a microscope was and how to use it properly. Meaningful objects were used (i.e., Cheerios, yogurt, and water) for him to view under the microscope. In the second unit, Changes of State, Jay was introduced to words such as gas, liquid, and solid. Jay searched through magazines to find pictures that depicted all the states of water. From this activity, Jay was able to identify all states of matter. Jay participated in all the experiments in a small, cooperative group. From both units, Jay gained knowledge in vocabulary, scientific experimentation, cooperative group work, and basic scientific information. An alternate assessment was conducted with three students with severe disabilities who were in classrooms where the teacher had participated in the Action Reflection Process for three years. This alternate assessment revealed that two of the three students retained information learned in second grade on the habitats of woodland and pond creatures and on the descriptive qualities of rocks and minerals. Moreover, these students demonstrated scientific "habits of mind" when interacting with the rocks and minerals. When asked to describe the rocks and minerals, these two students looked at the items, touched them, smelled them, and performed the "scratch test." These were techniques they had been taught one or two years previously. One student, who did not respond to the most of the alternate assessment prompts, responded excitedly to one question. He was given one wooden and one metal spoon and was then asked, "Which spoon would you use to stir hot soup?" This student, who had been distracted throughout the testing session, sat up and took the wooden spoon. He excitedly began stirring and talking about how he cooked at home. For this student, and the teachers conducting the alternate assessment, this was an example of how science content relates to a life skills curriculum (i.e., the safety of using the wooden spoon with hot soup vs. heat conduction). Further, it gave the teachers information about how to continue to connect life skills and content. Albeit a small sample, the performance of these students provides evidence to support meeting IEP goals and teaching related science content to students with severe disabilities. These teachers requested that the researchers show this assessment to the man responsible for alternate assessments at the state level, which they did. He was impressed by how students with severe disabilities were included in the curriculum. One of the Cambridge schools was ultimately selected to pilot the alternate assessment.

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