NYSAA Common Core Alignment

Interested in what changes will come to NYSAA with the Common Core Standards?

Check out these sample documents for NYSAA and take a quick survey – Measured Progress is looking for inout from teachers who are experienced in NYSAA:

 

The Office of State Assessment at the State Education Department is seeking teacher comment regarding draft documents that will align the NYSAA to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics for Grades 3-8 and high school beginning with the 2013-14 school year.  These documents include tasks for each extension.   

 

Teachers of students with severe disabilities are invited to review the draft ELA and Mathematics Extensions Aligning the NYSAA to the CCSS at: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/nysaa

 

Use the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8BZDQ5Q  to submit feedback to the State Education Department regarding these draft documents.

 

Posting

I’m writing to explain the lack of posts recently – some of you are aware that last month I became the Unit Coordinator for 352X and am no longer Alternate Assessment Coach. Because of this change in my position, I’ll be posting less often but will still post important news, resources, and information as often as I can.

 

Enjoy your vacation! Happy Holidays!

Previous Years’ SANDI Scores

If you’re having trouble tracking down your students’ SANDI scores from last year, here’s a guide to help you:

First, on your SANDI home page, click on “Student Reports”

That will bring you to the 2012-2013 scores. To see last year’s scores, click on the 2011-2012 tab

To switch from one student to another, click on the student’s name on the top of the screen

Sensory Overload

This video gives an idea of what daily life might be like for a child with autism (or any sensory processing disorder)

TEACCH Work Tasks

We’ve been talking a lot about work station tasks and I’ve been doing research on examples of TEACCH tasks and here’s a collection of some things that I’ve found…. Keep in mind that many of these would be for students who are working on academic readiness skills. Get your laminators and Velcro ready!

 

Unique Extras

Did you know that Unique Learning gives us access to a huge library of picture symbols, without the inconvenience of tracking down the Boardmaker CD?

Just click on symbolstix tab on the top left corner of the Unique website:

Once you’re in the symbolstix portion of the website, you can search their huge library of images – just click on the disk icon to the bottom right of the image you want. Your computer will save it to your documents and then you can insert it into MS Word and ta-da!

Symbols for your specific lesson-planning needs!

SANDI updates

Some updates in SANDI, from the Office of Alternate Assessment

• Student Profile (new link on the Main Menu): Gives you the ability to view all past SANDI’s, record notes and the ability to print individual student summary pages which include: notes, SANDI scores & IEP targets.
• SANDI Checklist Status: On the class view, we now display whether or not all of the SANDI’s are completed. If a score is bold, every item has been scored.  If a score is grey, there are items that have not been scored.
• Print IEP Items: In the print options, you can now select to only print IEP flagged items.
• IEP Section: While editing/viewing a particular SANDI Checklist for a student, there is a new section tab labeled “IEP”.  Click this new tab to view all IEP’s across all sections.
• Set Basal/Ceiling: You now have the ability to mark an item as the Basal or the Ceiling when you first start a new section.  When an item is marked as the Basal, every question number less than this will be marked as 4.  When an item is marked as the Ceiling, every question number greater than this will be marked as 0.  This new feature can be accessed by clicking the button that is located at the far right side of each item, besides the Ratings. 

SANDI Assessment

Attention Alternate Assessment Teachers and Speech Therapists!

The SANDI assessment period is now open – log in using your DoE email address at http://www.sandi.forallschools.com

All SANDI rosters are updated to reflect the students in each class, if there are any issues please talk to one of the coaches or APs.

Also, please keep in mind that there have been changes to the assessment – now the possible scores for each item number are 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4.

PD on SANDI is coming soon in the Brown Bag Lunch PD series!

Unique Learning Reminders

By now all teachers have access to the Unique Learning System; if you haven’t already added your students and completed the K-12 Learning Profile please do so ASAP!

Also, everyone should be using the Monthly Checkpoints section to generate Pre- and Post-Tests for ELA! Let’s all get going using all of what the Unique program has to offer!

Adapting the Common Core Learning Standards for Alternate Assessment Students

Knowing how difficult it can be to find ways for our students to access the Common Core Standards, I wanted to share these two documents.

These are the Common Core “Essential Elements” – a simplified version of the ELA and Math CCLS that help us design lessons and units that address the essence of the standard, while providing our students with an accessible goal.

The files are large (ELA is 1000 pages) but we’re working on printing them out and making sure there’s at least one copy in each site, for teachers to reference and make copies of relevant sections.

Happy planning!

Math CCLS

ELA CCLS