High-Leverage Practice 5: Assessment

I am going to discuss High-Leverage Practices as mentioned on the CEC website organized around four aspects of practice. I hope you will join in the conversation!

“HLP5 - Interpret and communicate assessment information with stakeholders to collaboratively design and implement educational programs.”

As much as many people like to assess student’s strengths, weaknesses, and progress, it means nothing if we don’t use this information to design a program that will help the student be successful.

It is also very important to include all the stakeholders in designing this program.

Many people think of the stakeholders as just school personnel but we need to include everyone that is a stakeholder, even outside of the school.

The parents will have input that is very valuable to the program. They may have some goals that they would include in the program and by using the assessment information, it may be helpful to see if these goals are realistic or not. They may be goals that are realistic and the school personnel never thought about including. Parents will be able to discuss what has been done at home to address some issues and what strategies have worked or not worked at home.

The student is the most important stakeholder. I think it is important for a student to know as much as possible (depending on the student’s developmental age) about the assessment results. Asking the student what goals are important to him/her can help the student feel included in the process. This empowers the student and can help give motivation towards success. This collaboration might also help see whether the student has realistic goals or not and the team can help the student work out the steps that might be needed in order to reach this goal.

If there are any outside agencies that will be affected by the student’s educational program or if the program will be affected by these outside agencies, they need to be in on this collaboration. They have some other resources that are available to help the student succeed in the program.

I think it is also important for everyone to realize that the program is not written in stone and all stakeholders may have to meet many times to look at new assessments, modify some things in the program or even change the direction the student is going in. New assessments may show that the student is progressing slower or faster than expected.

Having this collaborative team including the student shows the student that he/she is not all alone in this process. There is a team hoping and encouraging the student’s success. This team will not give up on the student.

What other stakeholders should be included in this collaboration? Why? Please share.

Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash