Alternate Assessment Of Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities

About the Book

There are increasing demands of accountability for improved student achievement, hence the challenges for governments, school systems, and educators to promote the development of teacher preparation and educational practices that assimilate precise strategies and alternate assessment tools for effective use in the classroom. This research study looks at the level and type of preparation given to teachers prior to the administering of the alternate assessment offered to students with significant cognitive disabilities to indicate students’ contribution to the schools’ academic progress or failure. Results of this study provide informative guidelines to all stakeholders in the business of training and preparing teachers to become more knowledgeable and efficient and hence demonstrate positive attitude toward this form of assessment.

About the Author

Dr. Icylin Leslie Harding, EdD, is a social worker; is an educator with over thirty years teaching at elementary, middle, and high school; has administrative experience. Recognizing from an early age that education and hard work were the only paths to upward mobility, she attended Church Teachers’ College, Mandeville, Jamaica, and earned a teaching diploma. She later changed career paths, attended the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, from which she earned a bachelor of science in social work. She subsequently worked with Children’s Services Division, Ministry of Health, where she served as regional director. She was honored with the governor general’s award for twenty-five years of outstanding service as a civil servant. Dr. Harding earned a master of education in reading specialist from Mercer University, Atlanta, and a doctorate in curriculum development and higher education from Argosy University, Atlanta. She also worked as adjunct professor at Northern Caribbean University and University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies, Montego Bay. For the last fourteen years, Dr. Harding has taught students with significant cognitive disabilities and has been directly involved in administering alternate assessments to this group of students, hence her unyielding interest in conducting and publishing this research, with the expectancy that the results shared will be beneficial to all stakeholders and even more so to parents, policy makers, and educators of students with significant cognitive disabilities.