Running head: PROGRAM EVALUATION & REFLECTION 1

Program Evaluation and Reflection Assignment

Amy J. Jensen

Brandman University

EDUU-631
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Progress Toward Program Vision

The vision of Teaching Students with Special Needs is to give learning opportunities to

all students through a high quality learning environment, where students work together on goals

to gain shared knowledge.

Teaching Students with Special Needs has partnered typically developing peers with

those diagnosed with a disability in a special education classroom on campus. Each typically

developing student is partnered one on one or two on one with those students in the special

education classroom for three days a week. The vision is being met by the data due to the fact

that students are both groups of students are learning. Those diagnosed with a special need are

working toward meeting their goals and the typical peers are asking questions and learning how

to best work with those who need extra or one on one support. The high quality learning

environment is a positive environment where both groups of students are contributing to the

learning of each other.

Progress Toward Program Mission

The mission of Teaching Students with Special Needs is to give general education

students the opportunity to work with special education student by providing a supporting and

nurturing classroom environment where peers work with peers to achieve IEP goals.

Teaching Students with Special Needs has opened doors for both typical and special

education students. The students spend three days a week for an hour a day working together on

special education curriculum that is age appropriate using common core standards and working

toward IEP goals. The peers are learning from each other. The typical peers are learning how to

interact and support those diagnosed with a special need without doing the work for them. The

typical peers are asking questions of the teacher and paraprofessionals to be better equipped to
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adapt their skills to best interact with all of the special education students. Typical peers have

begun assessing the students’ progress in the using a 3 2 1 scales when working on their cooking

lessons. The students look at hand washing and then depending on the cooking items how many

prompts or help they have to give: 3 - is the student can accomplish the skill with little to no

help; 2 - the student needs help and; 1 - the student could not do any of it on their own.

Progress Toward Program goals

Academic/cognitive goals are to answer comprehension questions with 80% accuracy

when being assessed on her Wh questions using News2You. There are 6 questions, so this

would mean she needs to get 5 out of 6 questions correct. A goal in mathematics 80% accuracy

in money exchange, either mock or in a real setting.

Progress for the academic goals showed improvement from week one to week two from

33% to 100% accuracy answering Wh. Then there was the Thanksgiving break of a whole week

off. The next two weeks were steady with 50% accuracy and then after two weeks of having the

peer buddy back the student went up to 67% accuracy. As far as with mathematics the students’

score was 67% then after the break the scores went to 33%. After 2 more weeks of peer

mediated instruction and intervention (PMII), which was one of the evidence based practices

used the students’ score went back up to 67%. This shows that when there is consistency of the

PMII and no breaks in school the student does better on the Wh comprehension questions and on

the math skill of money.

There is no recommendation due to the fact that there was progress made as the students’

scores improved and have stayed steady. The support and services are adequate, but the student

would benefit from having the peer buddy for PMII more of the day or for all five days of the

week. The services do support the mission of providing students the opportunity to work with
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special education student by providing a supporting and nurturing classroom environment where

peers work with peers to achieve IEP goals.

Behavioral goal is to comply with verbal directions in 10 seconds or less when prompted.

She is always the last one to clean up or finish eating, so this goal will focus on having her be

ready when her peers are ready to move onto the next activity.

Progress for the behavioral goal improved with the peer buddy using PMII and

Reinforcement (R+) of prompting the students to prepare for or answer questions from the

teachers with little to no prompting. The first observation the student had to be prompted twice

and then the next observation the child only had to be prompted once. Again the child had a

hard time coming back from a week off of school. The child had to be prompted more the first

week back and then continued to need little to no prompting from the teacher or peer buddy

throughout the other observations. The child did have to have a timeout from their peer buddy

when returning from the week off due to not following prompts or showing appropriate behavior

both socially and in behavior interactions. This made the child very sad and showed the child

that having a peer buddy is a privilege.

The recommendation is that the supports are working and the student needs less

prompting when looking at the data with behavior. The student does have challenges coming

back from long breaks off of school. A recommendation would be to work with the parents to

help with these transitions. The support and services are working and should be continued. The

student also benefited on a field trip with working with different peer buddies. This is good to

know that as long as the student has a peer buddy it is beneficial and it does not always have to

be the say typical peer.

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Social/emotional goal is to use appropriate voice volume and good eye contact when

communicating. The student also uses a lot of just yes and no to answer, so part of the goal will

also be to communicate with others using 3 to 5 words per sentence.

Progress for the student is that they are speaking and participating more in class. The

student is slowing using a louder voice that is classroom appropriate. The student is now talking

to more adults and peers in the classroom setting. The student has volunteered in class to read

passage aloud with help and is answering questions with help from their peer buddy.

The support and services are working, as the data shows the student is now saying three

to five work sentences and using the eye contact. The student is using socially appropriate

words to express themselves to their peer buddy and their peers in the special education class.

The student is becoming more social which supports the mission. The only recommendation is

to keep the supports for the child.

Transitional/independence goal is to work on the students’ time management. This goes

along with her behavioral goal. She needs to learn to be better about cleaning up to be ready on

time in the future as she becomes more independent.

Progress for the goal of transitional/independence still needs more work. The student has

good days and bad days. The student is very good at being stubborn when it comes to

complying with adult requests. It seems that as she gets close to or returns from a break there

are more issue.

The recommendation is for the student to have new goals toward transition goals of

compliance with fewer prompts. During this class period the student does not always have the

peer buddy one on one and seems to do better when they do. The support and services need to

be changed for less prompts to earn the money as part of the token economy system. The
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student is capable of complying with one or less prompts and the token economy portion of R+

should be re-evaluated.

The program goals are working and should continue to be implemented to see more

positive outcomes. The student seems to enjoy having the peer buddy and in most areas where

the peer buddy is more consistent and one on one the student does better. The supports and

services should be continued throughout the school year and have help to work toward the IEP

goals.