Kim Matias

Education Specialist Candidate for CSULB

Competency 2b Narrative

While I question myself as a teacher in my ability to assess from

Competency 2A, I do feel that I am doing a lot better when it comes to

progress monitoring. While I do not assess my students in every possible

way, I do try to breakdown what I assess into as many useful parts as

possible. My 578 Case Study was not based on real students. They were

imagined students with some information that was provided to me in a book.

With such limited information, I was still able to create an IEP plan.

Within my very own classroom, I can be overwhelmed by the amount

of sources I can pull information from with my students. I have access to

parents, former teachers, other team members, and IEPs as far back as when

they were first assessed. Though I feel like I am doing a lot of data collection,

I still feel that I am not up to part when it comes to turning that data into

effective instruction. We take goals on IEP data almost every day. I do try my

best to make sure that I am able to create my weekly lesson plans based on

the students IEPs, however, I do not create my weekly lesson plans based on

their progression on those goals as much as I should.

My artifact is from the LINKS Curriculum that my current employment

uses for almost everything. We evaluate our students three times a year with

a major focus on functional skills. Its a very thorough way of evaluating

students within the classroom. 60% of my curriculum is based on the most

recent assessments. If I had been trained properly on LINKS, I may have

been able to take LINKS to a whole new level. LINKS had lessons in it that a

teacher could have access to and use in his/her own classroom. If I had been

trained properly, the amount of work I could have been doing would have

been 2/3rds of what I am doing now.