Transcript UD/UDL Review Activity

Middle School Math Instruction and
Assessment for Students with LD,
Students with MMR, & ELL Students:
A Review of the Literature
CCSSO Large-Scale Assessment Conference
Nashville, June 19, 2007
Bob Dolan, Boo Murray & Nicole Strangman
Purpose

Comprehensive literature review of research-based
practices during instruction and assessment of students
with learning disabilities (LD), students with mild mental
retardation (MMR), and students who are English language
learners (ELL).





Instructional techniques include instructional approaches as
well as scaffolds and supports used in the classroom.
Assessment techniques consider test design and delivery,
with emphasis on testing accommodations.
Focus on identifying common approaches, despite large
heterogeneity within each group.
Goal to support states in understanding how these students
may be represented within a definition of “students in the
gap.”
Only considering students who would take general
assessment (i.e. not considering students who would qualify
for AA-AAS).
Methodology
 Focused on articles, reports, and conference
presentations published between 1995 and 2006,
including but not limited to peer-reviewed material.
 Relevant articles were identified by browsing personal
literature databases and organizational databases
(e.g. NCEO), and by performing combined keyword
searches of the online PsychInfo and Eric databases.
 Search terms: “math” AND (“cognitive disabilities”
OR “mild mental retardation” OR “English Language
Learners” OR “limited English proficiency” OR
“learning disability”
 Searches expanded to automatically include related
words.
 Only articles reporting research that included middle
school students (grades 6-8) or otherwise addressing
topics of relevance to this population were included.
Included Student Populations

Mild Mental Retardation (MMR)


Learning Disabilities (LD)




Students identified as having MMR, being “educable mentally
retarded,” or described as having mental retardation and an IQ
within the range of 50-55 to approximately 70 (DSM-IV).
Students identified as having LD, a specific LD, or a reading
disability as determined by the study author(s).
Students not diagnosed with a specific LD but having had low
performance in math calculations that would presumably meet
the IDEA definition for LD.
No attempt was made to evaluate the methodology used to
diagnose LD (e.g. discrepancy model, response to intervention
model); assumed that authors followed the standard IDEA
definition of LD.
English Language Learners (ELL)

ELL students, English as a second language (ESL) students,
and limited English proficient (LEP) students.
Students with MMR:
Instruction





Shallow base of literature.

4 articles


Use of manipulatives to model word problems.
Strategy instruction combined with a concrete-representationalabstract teaching sequence.
Shift from interventions focused on basic skills instruction toward
interventions focused on computation and problem solving.
Example practices
Despite methodological issues (small sample, nonhomogenous age
groups, lack of appropriate controls), studies suggest students
with MMR to be active and strategic learners, able to learn to apply
strategies in the context of math problem solving, and that this
learning can result in improved mathematics computation and
problem solving.
Findings also suggest that students with MMR may not transfer
such learning to other problem-solving contexts or more difficult
forms of problem solving, and that outside of explicit strategy
instruction providing students with plentiful practice opportunities
may help them to develop transferable strategies.
Students with MMR:
Assessment
 Research extremely limited.
 Little information available regarding the effectiveness of
assessment accommodations for students with MMR and
their impact on the validity of inferences drawn from test
results.
 Helwig and Tindal (2003) addressed effectiveness of a
video read-aloud accommodation for middle school
students in various disability groups (MMR, n=12; LD,
n=95; language impairments, n=5; emotional
disturbance, n=10; other, n=8) and their peers without
disabilities taking a mathematics achievement test.
Because differences in the impact of the accommodation
by disability category were not investigated, it is unclear
whether students with MMR benefited from the
accommodation.
Students with LD:
Instruction
 Research has addressed two general areas
of mathematics instruction: basic skills and
problem-solving.
 Both areas have a sizeable research base;
computation and related instruction and
problem solving were identified as two
major areas of research in Miller, Butler, &
Lee’s (1998) review of the research on
mathematics instruction for students with
LD.
Students with LD:
Instruction – Basic Skills

Two basic approaches:

Supporting students’ developing understanding of the number
concepts underlying the skill, such as:



Focus on fluency through practice and memory aids, such as:




Teaching of underlying concepts as an integral part of learning
basic facts and computational algorithms, such as concrete
manipulatives.
Development of students’ ability to monitor and reflect on their
work, through what may be referred to as self-regulation, selfinstruction, or self-explanation.
Practice retrieval of addition, subtraction, and multiplication
facts daily for 8-20 weeks.
Memory strategies to help recall of facts and procedures.
Both approaches have been found to be effective, although
the sample sizes have been small.
Approaches not mutually exclusive; future research may
help determine for which type of LD each approach is most
beneficial.
Students with LD:
Instruction – Problem Solving


The typical special education curriculum in mathematics focuses on
basic computation skills, not the problem-solving skills that are
essential for success in the general education mathematics
curriculum (Cawley et al., 1998; Maccini & Gagnon, 2002)
Research base nonetheless suggests various effective methods for
teaching problem-solving to students with LD, according to three
basic approaches:

Use of specific schemata or organizers to facilitate problem
representation, such as:





Graphic organizers.
Problem-representation schemata followed by problem-solution
schemata.
Self-regulation to develop, monitor, and evaluate the results of a plan
for solving a problem, such as: guided instruction.
Use of authentic, engaging problems that motivate students to find
solutions, such as anchored instruction.
As with basic skills approaches, problem solving approaches can be
complementary, and different types of students may more clearly
benefit from different types of approaches.
Students with LD:
Assessment





Although accommodations for students with LD are an
important component of large-scale testing, there is limited
research supporting the efficacy of accommodations and
their impact on the validity of the inferences drawn from
test results.
The read-aloud accommodation is the most commonly
researched accommodation for this population, and results
are contradictory.
Extremely limited research on pacing and computer-based
testing.
No research found on extended time, memory supports,
manipulatives, and calculators as accommodations.
Classroom-based assessment

Curriculum-based measurement / progress monitoring with
concept and application probes is an effective means to
improve LD students’ math performance.
ELL Students:
Instruction
 Four articles published between 1995 and 2006 on the
topic of middle school mathematics instruction for ELL
students.
 Studies suggest difficulties with mathematical
language could undercut mathematics performance
both directly and indirectly by necessitating timeconsuming strategies such as translation and
rereading, which could slow progress through the
test.
 Two emergent themes:
 Importance of fostering mathematical conversation.
 Importance of building connections between
mathematics and ELL students’ personal lives and
cultures.
ELL Students:
Assessment

Validation of instructional literature by identifying a mixture
of linguistic, cultural, and mathematical factors that
influence the test performance of ELL students, and the
linguistically, culturally, and socioeconomically diversity of
these students.



Specific language-related difficulties include unfamiliarity with
vocabulary, literal interpretation of content under inappropriate
circumstances, poor reading fluency leading to slow progress
through the test, and difficulties understanding the syntax
used (Abedi, Courtney, & Leon, 2003).
Fairly extensive documentation of a persistent gap between
ELL and non-ELL student performance as well as evidence to
support construct-irrelevant language issues as a causative
factor.
Language-related factors have received the most attention
in the assessment literature.


Support for use of dictionaries and glossaries but concern over
threats to validity.
Use of native language testing, dual-language testing, and
linguistic modification inconclusive.
Conclusions

Large disconnect between the level and types of instructional
supports and testing accommodations for all three student
populations.



Discontinuity reflects the limited nature of current large-scale
assessment techniques and psychometric approaches toward their
design.



Instructional supports focus largely on pedagogical approaches toward
reducing barriers to learning.
Test designs, modes of administration, and accommodations largely
limited to reducing accessibility barriers.
Concern over compromising the validity of test inferences or
comparability of scores of students who do and don’t receive such
supports.
General failure to consider the heterogeneity of the student
population that could significantly impact the effectiveness of test
design factors, modes of administration, and accommodations.
As a result, techniques that may be largely successful in allowing
these students to learn effectively may not available at the point
that students must demonstrate learning.
Considerations for Future Research
 Approaches toward assessment that better dovetail
with the supports students receive instructionally.
 Additional research focused on methodologies for test
development that consider construct-relevant vs.
construct-irrelevant factors, such as Evidence
Centered Design (Mislevy et al.).
 Approaches that consider individual student
differences, such as through application of universal
design (Mace et al., 1996) and Universal Design for
Learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002) principles, to create
and administer tests that consider diverse students
from the start (Thompson et al., 2002) and flexible
tests that include built-in supports for diverse
students (Bryant & Rivera, 1997; Dolan & Hall, 2001;
Dolan, Hall, Banerjee, Chun, & Strangman, 2005;
Ketterlin-Geller, 2005).