Specially Designed Instruction – Modifications
Lucas was a student in my high school biology class. According to his Individualized Education Plan, Lucas required curricular and assignment modifications. Like many of you reading this, I was initially confused. I had a specific curriculum to cover and my students take a state assessment at the end of the year. If I modify the material, instruction, and assessment, how would I be able to prepare Lucas for the required test? I needed to shift my thinking for this student. In order to learn biology, he would need to learn it at his level. If I carefully limited the scope of my content to several essential concepts, Lucas could learn some important things about his body, the natural world and the role he could play in it. His learning goals were outlined in his IEP, not the state exam or school curriculum.
To some degree, all students with disabilities require specially designed instruction to reach their full potential in the least restrictive learning environment. For many, this may include modifications. When I began my career in special education in the late 1980s there was not much of an emphasis on student modifications. That’s not to say teachers weren’t modifying work for students in particular situations, but rarely did I encounter modifications in students’ Individualized Education Plans. That is not the case today. Teachers will frequently find modifications in students’ IEPs, which must be incorporated into the student’s instruction and/or assessment. But what exactly is a modification? How are modifications different from accommodations? How do I effectively modify work to suit an individual student’s needs?
Modifications are actual changes to a student’s academic learning and are not synonymous with accommodations. Accommodations are designed to level the playing field, permitting students with disabilities to achieve success on the same curriculum as their peers. In contrast, modifications call for changing the playing field, adjusting the material in some way to enable a student with a disability to achieve personal success within his or her instructional level. Modifications mean that this student’s work will differ from that of their peers in a meaningful way. You can think of this as when ordering a dish off a menu. If I order a salad and ask that the dressing be “on the side” the restaurant is accommodating me. It’s the same salad, same ingredients just presented differently. If my friend orders the salad but asks for the cucumbers to be removed and chicken to be added, those are modifications to the salad. It’s no longer the same as the one described on the menu.
Students with disabilities should always be educated in the least restrictive environment possible to maximize their potential academically, socially, and emotionally. Modifications to instructional material and course expectations can play a vital role in a student’s education plan, allowing them to be educated with their non-disabled peers. Research shows that students with disabilities achieve higher outcomes when they can learn in more inclusive environments. Children may benefit from modifications in just one academic area or across multiple subjects.
We can group types of modifications into three distinct categories. These are: Reduced Quantity of Concepts, Leveled Modifications, and Out of Area Modifications.
While all students with disabilities can learn and retain information, some may become overwhelmed when presented with multiple topics or concepts in a short period. In such cases, reducing the number of topics or concepts can allow the student to better learn the selected content. For example, if a teacher is presenting three methods of solving a math problem, such a student may only learn one method. This will allow him or her to become more proficient in one strategy through repetition and practice of this skill over a longer period. In a social studies, while the class is learning about all fifty states in the United States, a student with a disability may be tasked with learning only about one region of the country, such as New England or the West Coast.
In other cases, students with disabilities may be able to complete the same learning objective as their peers but may require a change in the complexity of the concepts. This is where Leveled Modifications can be useful. For example, if students in a science class are working on a fill-in-the-blanks task with learned vocabulary, a teacher may provide a word bank, or vocabulary cards for a student with a disability to use. He or she would still need to know the definitions and applications of the new vocabulary to complete this task but will not need to recall the words from memory alone. Similarly, an English Language Arts teacher can provide a leveled modification by providing sentence starters or a template to a student to support him or her in writing a well-organized paragraph.
When using both above strategies (Reducing Quantity of Concepts and Leveled Modifications), the teacher is adapting grade-level or class material to suit the specific learning needs of a student with a disability. This should foster a high degree of class participation in lessons with their non-disabled peers. The third category of modifications is to be used only when participation in the grade-level or class material is entirely beyond a student’s current instructional level. These are Out of Area modifications. Sometimes it may be appropriate to exempt a student with a disability from a particular topic or learning task, yet still allow for them to be involved in the lessons with their peers. Perhaps they are not developmentally prepared for learning this skill or there are educational priorities as goals on their IEP that they need time and support to master. Ideally, teachers in this case can use class materials in a unique way to help this student achieve another learning objective or IEP goal. For example, if the class is reading a challenging piece of text, the student with a disability may be tasked with highlighting particular vocabulary words or phonetic sounds within the text. Or, during a group math assignment, a student with a disability could be assigned to use a calculator to compute the total number of classwork problems assigned instead of completing the trigonometry examples. When employing Out of Area modifications, aim to design instruction that does not completely remove the student with a disability from the larger learning environment. Here teachers should consider ways to address the individual’s learning needs in creative ways that include him or her in their class to the greatest degree possible.
When a student’s IEP includes modifications as a part of his or her specially designed instruction, teachers should aim to employ the least amount of modification as is needed for the student to experience academic success. This will enable the student to more fully engage with his or her non-disabled peers, and the general education curriculum at an appropriate learning level. When necessary, more significant modifications can be made to address unique learning needs. Remember, modifications are designed to facilitate the inclusion of all students in the classroom. Keeping track of the frequency and types of modifications that are used with a student is important for future planning and IEP development.
So how did Lucas do in biology? He did well! He did not achieve mastery on the state assessment, but that was not his goal. However, Lucas did learn some very important things about biology. Lucas understood that living things, including himself, are made of little things called cells. While Lucas couldn’t name all of the organelles that his classmates did, he did know five really important ones. Lucas learned how plants, animals and other living things are similar and different and interact in important ways to sustain a balanced ecosystem. Sometimes Lucas needed word banks and labeled diagrams that his classmates did not need. Lucas discovered how four of his body systems are organized and function to keep him healthy while his classmates knew seven. Lucas could explain why people need to take care of the environment, with three details in a short paragraph, but not the three paragraphs his peers were required to present. Some of his were scaffolded and had limited multiple choice responses. Sometimes he was my lab assistant during demonstrations, other times he worked with his peers in small lab groups. But he learned. If I had attempted to hold him accountable for all of the classwork, lab activities, quizzes and tests, he surely would have become frustrated and may have given up entirely. By adhering to his IEP and modifying appropriately, I was able to keep Lucas engaged and productive. He was a contributing member of our class and he learned to love biology!
If you would like more information about how we can help support MODIFICATIONS in your school or district, go to our website www.cmdi.us to set up a free discovery call.