Virtual assessment in reading
Virtual assessments for students with disabilities: A case study from India
Published:
2022-11-11DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52291/ijse.2022.37.36How to Cite
Abstract
The pandemic in India impacted over 247 million learners (UNICEF, 2021). Children with disabilities were at a significant disadvantage, losing access to rehabilitation, medical and remedial services (Verneker, Pandey, & Seth, 2020). This article presents a guide to assessing students virtually. It explores one teacher’s attempts to navigate learning to read remotely using a digital curriculum-based measurement tool, FABLe. It discusses the processes she employed to set goals, monitor progress, and structure virtual assessments over the course of an academic year. Overall, virtual assessments were easy to conduct. Teachers require two devices when conducting FABLe virtually, one to share the reading passage, and one to mark progress. FABLe provides end of year benchmark goals that can be used as individual target goals for students. More research is needed to develop benchmarks specific to the Indian context. FABLe data were most useful when communicating progress with parents as well as to inform instructional practices. Many processes used to implement FABLe virtually can be applied to face-to-face settings too such as goal setting and progress monitoring schedules. Learning was impacted for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who struggled with access to the internet and support at the home setting.
Keywords:
Curriculum-based measurement, reading assessment, students at-risk, virtual assessment, IndiaIssue
Volume 37, Number: 2, Year 2022 of International Journal of Special Education