Reflections on ESP 621

This class helped to confirm what I’ve known in my practice as a special education teacher, and that is the fact that assessments are very important and ongoing.  Informal assessments can be conducted daily with the individuals that we work with while formal assessments are used (maybe) yearly.  I think that this class helped to point out the importance of informal assessments; I think informal assessments are very important because a lot of our students do not perform well with the standardized formal assessments due to their disability.  I feel this class gave me a better understanding of concepts such as Theory of Mind, the need for a team approach when conducting an FBA, and co-morbidity.  I enjoyed the wikis; I thought they were a useful way to see how other students in the class were using the information on assessments to apply it to what they know because it is so different from the environment that I work in.   Although I have already finished my ILP, I do feel that the annotated bibliography is a great tool for all those who have not finished.  It is a great start to your literature review for those of you doing a research project related to ABA, as you will use a lot of the information that was summarized in the annotations in your literature review.  Overall, I found this class to be informative and helpful in my professional life as well as in my studies.