Goal 20.

3 Reflection
Goal 20: Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Based on assessed student needs, provide accommodations and implement

modifications.

Artifact G20.1: List of Annotated Websites

Artifact G20.2: Lesson Plan with UDL Principles
Reflection: Teachers who deal with special needs students successfully understand
that there should be an emphasis on treating students fairly rather than equally.
This idea is clearly portrayed in the drawing of the Module 5 presentation. For
example, it is no good getting two people cereal for breakfast if one of them is
lactose intolerant. This idea is prevalent in the cafeteria and in other sectors of the
school, including the classroom. This is the motivation behind Artifact G20.1, which
is a list of websites that address accommodations and modifications. When you go
through them, you will see that all of the websites are faithful to this portion of Goal
20: Based on assessed student needs. The focus is always on the students need
first in order to be able to give a customized response. In fact, the list includes two
websites specifically about the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), because it is
the one strategy that thinks about the students potential needs before it is even
evident who exactly the student will be.
Artifact G20.2 is an example of a lesson plan built with student needs in mind. The
lab was built around several realizations: (1) some students learn much more with
hands-on activities, (2) some students learn much more by taking advantage of the
strengths of others, (3) some students need much more time than others to
complete inquiry labs (4) some students have subpar research skills that can be
scaffolded, and (5) some students needs more freedom while others need more
focus, depending on their cognitive ability, personality, and other academic skills.
Based on these needs, I

Added the word optional to some materials, shortening the time students
need to figure out how to design the correct experiment
Added potential sources to use at the end of certain prompts, shortening
research time
Allowed students to work in teams while requiring each student to submit an
individual report. This allowed them to leverage each others strengths
without having individual reports affected by the individual weaknesses of
others.
Added a list of procedures that had to be put in order instead of asking
students to write from scratch.
Added a table that had to be filled out instead of asking students to fill it out
from scratch.

Essentially, I wanted students to get the lab version that would allow them to show
their academic understanding and skills. If a student showed a weakness in a
particular area, I would simply add some constructs to shorten the amount of time
needed to complete that section. I would give them a template, but they still had to
know how to use it.