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 K S
Checklist of necessary components
Annotation of 3 children's and adolescent books
that address a disability or someone with the
disability:
√
for elementary student
√
or middle or high school students.
Annotations include:
√
Brief summary of the story-line
In
progress 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.
√
A short list of ideas how the book
could be used in your curriculum.
Annotation & review of 5 (total) web-sites
√
a brief description of the site
Could
elaborate a critique of its usefulness.
5 lessons plans differentiated:
√
specific strategies identified in text
NA
If used “more capable peer” or
“small/cooperative groups” as
accommodations, identified and
explained the specific strategies to be
used in these situations.
Feedback
Succinct descriptions of books. You begin to turn a critical eye
toward the stories (e.g. Natalie as purely autistic vs. as person with
other qualities).
You identify some interesting ways of integrating these stories into
your classroom.
You found some interesting sites and provided succinct
descriptions of what kinds of resources they contain and who the
site is directed towards. Here a places to turn more of a discerning
eye: what might be some problems with the sites: e.g. Vested
interests, accuracy of information, etc.
You identified some interesting accommodations, some of which
are informed by the guidelines in text and that address the kinds of
needs students with particular disabilities have.
Make sure you are attending to what the specific issue is for the
student (e.g. what is the student struggling with in reading?) Make
sure that you are paying attention to what distinguishes disabilities
(e.g. language and speech disorders are different). The
accommodations need to fit the specific issue the student has.