Task 4: Accommodation and Modifications Activity Assignment
Understanding the difference between accommodations and modifications is important for
teachers, administrators, and parents. This allows the collective to create educational programs
that help meet the needs of students and sets them up for success. An activity that can be used
at a staff meeting is a jigsaw activity in which staff is divided into groups to work collaboratively
to differentiate between accommodations and modifications.
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Each group will be asked to define their given term and the teaching strategies that can
be used based on their prior knowledge, classroom experience, and research.
The groups would be given a large piece of chart part to examine either the term
accommodations or modifications. The piece of chart paper will also include three
subheadings with the terms instructional, environment, and assessment strategies. It is
up to each group to use their prior knowledge, examples and any resource they may
have to create a mind-map that would help others understand each term and the
strategies that go along with it.
Once complete, the staff will then be asked to place their piece of chart paper around
the room. Once this is complete, the staff will move around the room to another group's
chart paper. Staff will be able to add information to other groups' chart paper using the
sticky notes while building on each other’s knowledge.
Teachers will be able to provide feedback, clarification, classroom examples, and
different teaching strategies as they move around the room, discussing both
modification and accommodation with one another.
Once this task is complete staff will be asked to collaboratively work together to analyze
different case studies, videos, or images. They will then have to decide as a group whether the
adaptation that has been described is an accommodation or modification. Staff will be asked to
justify their responses. Examples of these can include,
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Justin is a student who finds it challenging to stay focused in class and finds it difficult to
organize his time. Justin is a student with ADHD and when his teacher assigns a
culminating performance task, the teacher breaks the assignment into smaller tasks
with different due dates for each task.
Maria enjoys creating stories and sharing them with her classmates and teachers. Even
though she enjoys telling stories, she finds it challenging when she has to write them
down. When she is assigned by her English teacher to write a one-page paper, Maria is
allowed to write one or two paragraphs instead.
These two activities provide educators with the chance to further explore accommodations and
modifications through collaboratively sharing ideas, examples, and strategies that can help set
students up for success. These activities can be used to challenge our knowledge, pedagogy,
and teaching strategies that can result in the building of dialogue between staff. This can
include communicating with one another about methods of identifying students in need of
accommodations or modifications, strategies that are effective in the classroom, and the
students that require additional supports. It should be emphasized that accommodations and
modifications should constantly be evaluated and updated as students’ progress.