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 Ratings
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| Reviewed: |
Sep 02, 2002 by Teacher Education |
| Overview: |
This web site is a series of 4 modules about the development and statement of
instructional objectives that conform to the California Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The tutorial teaches how to write goals and
objectives for children according to IDEA standards. The aim is for collecting
and measuring progress on goals and objectives that assure successful outcomes
for pupils with disabilities.
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| Learning Goals: |
The goals as stated by the web site developers are
1. Be able to identify the components of a performance objective and use this
knowledge in writing goals and objectives per IDEA requirements.
2. Understand the relationship between progress on goals and short-term
objectives and progress in the general school curriculum.
3. Be able to successfully write measurable annual goals and short-term
instructional objectives tied to general education standards while remaining
family focused.
4. Identify systems for collecting and measuring progress on goals and
objectives that assure successful outcomes for pupils with disabilities.
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| Target Student Population: |
Prospective and practicing special education teachers and general education
teachers with children who are mainstreamed into their classroom.
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| Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills: |
Familiarity with appropriate performance standards for the content that the user
is/will be teaching pl usstate and federal guidelines regarding the performance
of students with disabilities including knowledge of mainstreaming issues.
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| Type of Material: |
Tutorial
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| Recommended Uses: |
Useful outside reading and preparation for classroom instruction on the
development of instructional objectives for children in the classroom with
learning disabilities. Especially useful for California teachers who are faced
with the challenge of working with children who have an Individualized Education
Plan (IEP).
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| Technical Requirements: |
Web browser
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| Strengths: |
With growing diversity of the population that the typical teacher will encounter
in the classroom, accommodating to individual needs and differences becomes a
major demand on the teacher. A major component of this diversity is a growing
population with special learning needs leading to greater involvement of the
teacher in the development of the IEP and the construction of learning
objectives to satisfy the educational needs of these students. Herein lies the
strength of this website. In-depth exposition of the components of measurable
instructional objectives is provided. This resource trains teachers to break
down main goals from standards into smaller steps to reflect short-term
objectives that are to be met along the way to meeting the annual goal. The
tutorial requires one to compare this work to examples provided in a reading
assignment. The teacher is reminded to select words that communicate to
families and other professionals. One of the readings (2) relates
standards-based education to the requirements of the IEP.
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| Concerns: |
There are a few spelling and typing errors.
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Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool |
Rating:   |
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| Strengths: |
The content is a strength. The content of this Web is very important to all
teachers. It highlights the need to use an Individualized Education Plan (IEP)
to clarify goals in a way that is meaningful to all the stakeholders (student,
teachers, parents). Numerous examples of instructional objectives are provided.
A pretest and posttest allow student to assess their comprehension of the
information.
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| Concerns: |
A pre-test and post-test tool allow one to self-assess knowledge of performance
objectives and how they should be applied for students with disabilities.
However,
the posttest does not test what seems to be the most important goal of
this website, that of writing a valid instructional objective. Practice
exercises ask the student to develop such objectives but do not provide feedback
to the student. The multiple choice questions have answers, but the answers
selected by the student disappear when the test is scored, making it very
difficult to zero in on the areas of greatest need. The tests should identify
specific questions that were answered wrong and then, perhaps, even link to the
assignments and readings relevant to that content. Therefore, this website is
best used to augment regular classroom instruction on constructing such
objectives, not as a stand-alone tutorial. Links to other relevant sites, in
addition to the National Information Center for Children and Youth with
Disabilities on IEP requirements that make up the reading assignment for lesson
4 on the web site, would improve the utility of this resource. The laws quoted
are specific to California.
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Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty |
| Rating: |
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| Strengths: |
This Web is well designed, with a navigation bar at the top of the page. The
navigation bar helps one move from section to section without getting lost, but
the learner is not entirely in control of navigation. Selection of the lesson
on the menu bar takes one to the reading, with a link to the review questions,
and the review questions finally link to the activity. Good learners may want
to preview the activity before doing the reading.
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| Concerns: |
Because some of the pages are very long and require scrolling, the navigation
bar might have been placed in a frame so that it would be availabile without
scrolling back to the top of the page.
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| Other Issues and Comments: |
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