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Designing from the Ground Floor: Alternate Assessment on Alternate Achievement Standards

Step 1 – Identify or link to the appropriate standard

It is important to first identify the grade level content standard towards which instruction will be geared.  For schools and districts which have aligned their curricula to standards, this will already be in place.  Following the lesson plans of the same grade level general education class in such schools and districts will ensure that this connection is in place.  However, in initially learning how standards, curriculum, and instruction are linked, it is helpful to locate the standard that the lesson plan addresses.  Lessons planned specifically to address Individual Education Program (IEP) objectives or planned with the alternate assessment in mind typically do not first start with the grade level standard, but instead an instructional activity is developed and retro-linked or linked back to the standard which will lessen the impact on learning. The selection of the standard first is essential and leads to the authentic "standards-based" instruction.

Once the broad standard and the specific grade level content standard are identified, it is then helpful to determine what the grade level standard is all about - what is the most basic concept that the standard defines.  Familiar special education terms for this concept include "critical function", "essence", or "intent."  Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe use the phrase "enduring understanding" and state this "represents a big idea having enduring value beyond the classroom." (1998, pp. 10-11).  

While it may appear that the general education lesson plan precedes the selection of standards, in actuality the general education teacher has almost always chosen the activity to meet a grade level content standard.  While keeping up with the pace of a general education curriculum may appear difficult for students who traditionally require more time to process information, there are numerous advantages for following these lesson plans for the students with the most significant cognitive disabilities:

• Setting high expectations for the students in terms of content acquisition
• Ensuring access to the general curriculum
• Providing direct instruction on the same content standards as all students of the same age and grade are learning
• Providing ongoing opportunities to learn each standard throughout the school year, since standards are often taught across multiple units of instruction within and across content areas throughout the school year
• Addressing a variety of standards throughout the school year
• Working in a variety of settings
• Embedding IEP skills in instructional activities
• Working on functional skills that occur in the routines that these activities require
• Providing learning of a shared culture

Having students with significant cognitive disabilities work on content standards in the general education class produces the following additional advantages:

• Allowing meaningful, active participation in general education classes
• Working with peers
• Offering opportunities to build friendships/relationships

Experts in the field of moderate to severe disabilities emphasize that academic instructional goals should be selected from the general curriculum and activities.  Of course, students with disabilities may have other more "functional" needs as well; IDEA 2004 reinforces that these other functional needs of students must be addressed.  However, functional skills should not be taught in an "alternative curriculum" (Jackson, Ryndak, & Billingsley. 2000), but rather in the context of the general education curriculum whenever possible.

To develop and instruct curricula outside of the general curriculum and activities would not only be incongruous with IDEA 2004, but also cumbersome.  Selecting a standard that would address an IEP skill and then creating individualized lesson plans to meet the standard requires a different lesson plan for each student and often misses critical instructional elements.  With such an approach, the special education teacher has to create lesson plans, as well as develop supports, for each student, thus making this method more time consuming while still not providing learning opportunities within the "hidden curriculum", nor maybe even the "explicit curriculum" which all other students receive.

Likewise, selecting a standard that will meet the requirements of an alternate assessment and developing corresponding lessons makes the assessment a separate event from ongoing instruction, and makes that assessment an artificial rather than authentic task.  On the other hand, having the student work within the general curriculum throughout the year on a variety of standards affords the student a wide range of opportunities to learn and generalize the key concepts of the grade level content standards.

Activity 1 (after Step 1 introduction)

1. Spend 2 minutes discussing in small groups benefits and challenges in moving to standards based instruction for this group of students.  (3 minutes)
2. Spend 5 minutes discussing in small groups benefits and challenges in moving to standards based instruction for this group of students. Identify 1 major hope and 1 major fear from the table and report these out to the large group. Chart these and post. (10 minutes)
3. Have participants write with marker on large index cards their personal hopes and fears.  Round robin these and post on chart paper, grouping similar points together.  Come to a consensus on how the groupings look and find a blanket statement that addresses the topic of each grouping.  (20 minutes)

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