In Education 400 and some of our other classes, we have talked a lot about differentiting instruction. I am currently placed in a Special Education classroom so there is a lot of this going on. Each student has his/her own IEP and special lessons that the teacher has set up for them. My question is, how much can you change the lesson or accomodate for the student?
In the classroom I was in last semester, some of the students had trouble with spelling and so they only had a list of 10 words rather than a list of 20 like the rest of the students. When I was doing my volunteering hours, there was a child with an emotional/behavioral disorder who refused to do a lot of his work. When he did do his work, he was not penalized for missed problems as much as the other students. While I do believe that differentiating is important and accomodation is absolutely necessary, I just wonder how far you can take it before it becomes unfair to the other students who are required to do more work. Also, do the other students notice that some of their peers are not required to do as much work or get easier versions of the assignments?
We have heard a lot about students "falling through the cracks" of the school system and getting passed through school without learning much. I fear that if the assignments are modified too much, the student will become used to not doing the same things, and come to expect that they do not have to do as much. In this case, they will just keep getting passed on and on without having learned as much as their peers. I think this would also be a case of "falling though the cracks," because the focus is on promoting them to the next grade rather than having seen that they have learned everything they are supposed to. So how then as a teacher or special educator can we ensure that our accomodations aren't actually debilitating the student and cause them to become reliant on these changes?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Your question is one that I have as well. I can remember when I was in elementary school a group of the slower paced students got shorter and easier versions of tests. I would be so angry and upset because I felt I was being cheated. Now looking back at those times I realize how lucky I was to not need the extra help, but I wonder, too, if students notice and feel those same things. I don't know how they feel, but I do believe they notice. At my PDS students are put in ability groups and each student knows which one they are in. Once when I went a substitute was there and announced to the class during the spelling test how many words each group had. Maybe the students didn't pick up on it, but maybe they did. How do we ever know if we are being fair to the students that need the help and the students that don't? Also, like you, I wonder is this extra help on quizzes and tests is really being fair to those students if they rely on the ease given to their tests.
ReplyDelete