Proficiency and Special Education: Making Quality Learning Work for All Students

MADSEC 2015 Fall Conference
South Portland, Maine | October 29, 2015

Outcomes

The eminently logical notion of aligning student achievement with demonstrations of proficiency has created numerous issues for teachers and schools when dealing with students with special needs. How do we provide personalized learning that meets the needs of each student and at the same time hold common standards that promote equity?

The Great Schools Partnership has worked with educators, schools and districts across Maine and New England digging into implementation of proficiency-based learning and graduation. Designing a proficiency-based learning system is difficult; ensuring the system works for special education students has proven to be one of the larger hurdles for almost all schools and districts. While there is no magic solution that will work for every school and for every student, the Great Schools Partnership has been able to identify key strategies that are starting to provide answers to these tricky implementation questions,

This keynote shares the GSP Proficiency-Based Learning Simplified framework; explores strategies to clarify graduation standards and performance indicators; investigates assessment development strategies; and discusses data aggregation processes for individual students—all with an eye towards supporting learning for special education students.

Presenter

David Ruff | Executive Director 

Materials

Presentation Slides