Special Education Portfolio Feedback for Everyone
Overall, many of you demonstrated a useful general knowledge and many of you pointed to the fact that you now have
sense for the scope of the work involved in supporting students with special needs. Many of you integrated
accommodations that were adjusted to be relevant to the lesson you were teaching and that were informed by the text.
Some of you paid attention to accommodations that encompass the lesson in three dimensional ways that attend to:
cognitive support, as well as the physical and social environments. That’s fantastic. And as you recognized it’s just a
beginning. Given that many of you are only just beginning to learn about how to support students with special needs, it
will be important to continue honing your skills so that you are implementing informed modifications that actually will
support student learning.
Important notes for everyone:
I only read lesson plans for the quality and accuracy of accommodations made. I did not read for the quality of the lesson
plans per se. Some patterns that emerged from reading the set of portfolios indicated some areas that will be important to
keep in mind as you refine your skills in differentiating lessons:
(i) For this project, you developed accommodations in the absence of information about student and from an IEP.
Obviously an artificial situation. In all cases it’s very important that you start with the IEP as a jumping off place for
adapting your lesson. Make sure the accommodation is specific to the needs and concerns of the child. There are
individual differences within a given disability and within student circumstances even if a student’s needs happens to
fall within a particular category (e.g. gifted, EBD, PDD, ADHD, Autism, etc). You need to make sure that the lesson
you are adapting is not at odds with the objectives and strategies laid out in the IEP.
(ii) Remember your job as teachers is to help the students learn, not to provide therapy. Notice lesson plans where you
are supporting students with some form of emotional or conduct disorder. Check the IEP for what the
learning/behavioral objectives and strategies are. While you are right to consider the student’s amygdala, check in
with whether you are in fact trying to protect the student from reasonable challenge or let the student remain in their
comfort zone. For example, some of you made accommodations that allow a student to choose whether or not to
participate in group or make oral presentation based on how comfortable s/he is. A better strategy over time might
be to negotiate with the student: “Our goal is to find a way to share your report with the class… let’s set up some
interim steps for how that might happen.” Again, the IEP will be informative here.
(iii) For both students who are gifted or who have developmental delays you may well need to adjust the learning goal
not just the activity to meet the students’ needs. The IEP will help you with students who are developmentally
delayed. The challenge with gifted students is that they don’t have an IEP for being gifted (unless it shows up for
depression or conduct disorder as a result of being bored out of their skull) so you’ll need to use your assessment
strategies to determine appropriate learning goals for these students.
Sherry pointed out some things to look out for when working with gifted students in particular. Enrichment does
not necessarily mean the student is doing the same lesson as the other students with some embellishments. If a child
can already do the task the rest of the class is still learning to do, then don’t expect them to do the task again. Let
him/her go on to do some other form. She doesn’t like the term “enrichment” because the teacher may forget the
need to develop a distinct learning goal/opportunity for the student. Also, while the student may be cognitively
gifted, s/he may well still need to have support or scaffolding in meeting his/her learning goal. For example, the child
may be able to come up with the right answer – but not be able to explain how s/he got the answer. A problem that
can play out in more contexts than WASL exams.
(iv) Not all group work is alike – pay attention to the particular ways in which you need to structure to group work to meet
particular learners’ needs. Remember in making accommodations to not plan away opportunities for thinking (e.g.
have a partner decide what to write vs having a partner write down students’ ideas).
(v) Remember to identify the details involved in staging the accommodation and learning opportunity for the student.
For example, how will you go about providing assistance to students with differentiated learning goals/activities.
Resource: the texts with the lesson plans that model differentiated instruction, which Sherry shared with us, are in the
resource room across from her office.
(vi) Try to use language of readiness rather than fixed language of ability when talking about student with different skill
levels. Avoid language like “the high students” “the low students.” Try using language like “the students who
currently have more /less ___skills” or “the students who have developed /or still need to develop ____skills” etc.
… and for T S
Annotation of 3 children's and
adolescent books that address a
disability or someone with the
disability:
√ for elementary student
√ for middle or high school students.
Annotations include:
Brief summary of the story-line
√ Critique of the content, both
positive and problematic. You
need to address any ethnic, gender,
class, and disability stereotypes, at
a minimum. You could also
address out-of-date information,
quality of illustrations, etc.
√ The age level for whom the book is
appropriate.
Not yet A short list of ideas how the
book could be used in your
curriculum.
Annotation & review of 5 (total) websites
√ a brief description of the site
√ a critique of its usefulness.
5 lessons plans differentiated:
Mostly specific strategies identified in
text
Not entirely clear If used “more
capable peer” or
“small/cooperative groups” as
accommodations, identified
and explained the specific
strategies to be used in these
situations.
Useful critiques.
How accurate did the depictions of the disability seem given what you have
read in the text book?
What are ways in which you could build text into curriculum?
You found some interesting sites. You identified some ways in which they
could be useful. Any other difficulties with the sites: e.g. vested interests or
incorrect information? For the sites that you say are cursorily related to
special education (e.g. Exploratorium) – what about them could be useful
given the kinds of accommodations you may find yourself needing to make.
You built in several strategies identified in text. Your instructional choices
were often thoughtful about ways to build in the strengths of students with
special needs into the classroom.
Great ideas for (i) making knowledge of languages an asset, rather than a
deficit; and (ii) checking in with students understanding of term of concept.
What might you need to build in if the student doesn’t know the meaning of
the English term for the concept? What if the translation the student gives is
actually not the right concept you are working with? What other ways might
you have for checking understanding? See Magda’s handout with the range
of accommodations appropriate for different levels of language proficiency.
(This may be spelt out in student characteristic section of your transformative
unit plan). What are the particular issues that you are attending to for the
students you are attending to for the students with ADHD, conduct disorder,
etc. How are the accommodations appropriate to the particular needs of the
child. You do a good job of spelling this out for the child with Aspergers and
TBI.
Group work is recommended in many areas in the text. You often focus on
comfort and experience as criteria for grouping. Check the text again for the
purposes of the groupings for the specific students where you recommend it.