Tools for Teachers

students with intellectual disabilities in the elementary school classroom
Context

At present, educators are limited to relying on teacher rating scales to assess students’ social skills (e.g., whether a child cooperates with peers, etc.). No assessment method is available that directly measures how well a child actually employs the critical social skills that underlie “appropriate” social behavior. Ten years of research conducted at CSDE have provided the foundation for a new, process-oriented approach to social skills assessment. This method presents children with a realistic simulation of everyday social problems in the form of videotaped vignettes, accompanied by questions designed to test critical “social-cognitive skills.”

The Project

The Social Cognitive Assessment Project (Tools for Teachers), funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is in the final stages of field testing. Over the past four years, project staff have developed and pilot-tested this new assessment methodology. Working in partnership with eighty-five classroom teachers in Brockton, Cambridge, Everett, Hanover, Melrose, Peabody, Revere, Watertown, and at four Greater Boston educational collaboratives, project staff have tested more than 660 students without disability and 190 students with intellectual disabilities who receive special education services. As the Social Cognitive Assessment Project concludes its supplemental year, the project staff is preparing the results for dissemination.

The Social Cognitive Assessment Project is also in the final stages of developing and pilot testing innovative instructional planning tools. Teachers in inclusive elementary school classrooms will be able to use these tools, called the “Tools for Teachers,” to translate assessment data into individualized instructional objectives that address their students’ diverse needs. Last year, project staff completed an initial round of pilot testing of the Tools for Teachers with forty-two teachers, instructional aides, and other school personnel at five schools in Brockton, Boston, Melrose, and Watertown. At a series of workshop sessions conducted onsite at participating schools, the participants practiced utilizing the tools to expand their social skills assessment and instructional practices. During the coming year, project staff will implement a second, final round of pilot testing of the “Tools for Teachers.”

For more information, contact Dr. Jim Leffert.