Profiling Developmental Standards of Learning for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (SWANs)
Staffing
P. Griffin , R. Adams, I. Claridge, K. Underwood, T. Pierce, K. Woods, B. Coles-Janess, E. Roberts
Summary
Profiling development of students with intellectual disabilities will help teachers monitor and intervene accurately. Techniques of assessment and tailored intervention offer new insights to curriculum and teaching. The methodology has been developed over a twenty-year period, tailored to competency-based assessment, and applied in this project to assessment of students with intellectual disabilities. The project combines disciplines of the Specialist School, Department of Education section responsible for student well being, and the Assessment Research Centre, specialising in profiles and their assessment and teaching implications. The multidisciplinary team brings together each of the facets needed for a successful project.
This project addresses an area of educational assessment that has been traditionally neglected as ‘too hard’. It offers hope to students with intellectual disabilities. If developmental progress can be mapped and identified in competency terms and linked to successful teaching and learning strategies, the students can expect to make more rapid progress towards achieving their potential. Teachers in mainstream schools can also expect to be helped in recognising development and given advice for intervention.
Funding
Australian Research Council Linkage Project and Industry Partners Centre for Advanced Assessment and Therapy Services and Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Explore the SWANS project
The SWANs project is funded by a grant from the Australian Research Council, in partnership with the University of Melbourne, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the Centre for Advanced Assessment and Therapy Services.
The project aims to develop materials that will assist teachers to assess and report the learning of their students with additional needs. In 2007 almost 700 teachers across 77 Victorian government schools described their students’ proficiency in the areas of intrapersonal development, interpersonal processes, communication and literacy. The project team has used that information to refine the original assessment materials.
In 2008 and 2009, and with the continued assistance of teachers, the team wants to reassess these materials and establish their usefulness for schools, teachers and students. In particular, the team wants to find out if the information generated from the assessment materials can be used by teachers to support the development of teaching programs targeted to the specific learning needs of their students.
SWANs project resources: