Graduate Education Assistance

Please answer 5 discussion questions in 150 words each. This is due within 10 hours! 

**Due within 10 hours**

Please answer each discussion question and response using 150 words each. You must cite all references used for discussion questions. This is a course regarding STEM.

Discussion Posts:

1. As the teacher, what is your role in providing accommodations and adjustments in assessments for students?

2. Discuss possible bias in test questions and assessment results. How can you avoid and/or address bias in both areas?

Response Posts

3. Troy wrote:

I think you did a great job explaining our role with assessments and accommodations. Whether it is for students with IEPs or not, we should make accommodations for our students to succeed. In the past few years, I have tried accommodations for the entire class. If I give an essay/short answer test, I will read the questions aloud giving students a chance to write down an answer before I move on. It may be something simple, but I have students without IEPs that benefit from these changes. The purpose of an assessment is to gather information about a student’s ability to learn a concept (Lynch, 2016). This is our ultimate role, giving all students a chance to learn and succeed. Do you have any other accommodations that work well for a class?

4. Stepanie wrote:

Teachers have a responsibility to provide accommodations and adjustments during assessments to students that need it. Differentiating content can be accomplished through the use of many mediums including video, lectures, audio recordings, and readings (McCarthy, 2015). Relationships between teachers and their students help teachers to connect the content being taught with the student’s interests and learning profile (McCarthy, 2015). Differentiating content for students can happen all at once within the classroom, usually without students even noticing that it is taking place. The same topic can be presented in multiple ways by staring with a video, moving onto vocabulary, watching a demonstration in the classroom, and finishing with a question and answer period for students to clarify what has been presented to them.

The process that students use to make sense of the content can also be differentiated based on student needs. Teachers can work processing time into each class period so that students have time to digest what they have been taught that day through taking time to think about the information, getting together with classmates and discussing what each understood was taught, and then sharing how they understood the information with the class, which also allows for the teacher to hear what students understood and allows for any correction if needed (McCarthy, 2015). This type of activity also provides the teacher with a formative assessment of what information the students have understood.

Differentiating an assessment end product allows for students to pick how they want to present the information they have been taught. Allowing students to make a book, develop a power point presentation, write an essay, create a poster, or record a podcast gives students a chance to create an end product in a way they feel they can excel at.

Offering different levels of complexity allows for students that need accommodations or adjustments to still do the assessment, just at a level that is appropriate for them.

5. Irene Wrote:

The teacher should know whether or not students have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). If a student has an IEP, the teacher should be making sure they are incorporating that particular student’s accommodations in the classroom. That is a non-negotiable when it comes to providing students with accommodations. These accommodations and adjustments should give students access to participating and completing assessments and should be based off of what the student’s disability is. As my belief, I also believe teachers should be providing accommodations and adjustments in assessments for students, if by providing these, the students will be successful. I am not implying that we should make assignments as easy as possible for all students. The purpose of accommodations are to provide all students with an equal opportunity to learn (Kessler & Schneider, n.d.). Not all students that need some accommodations once in a while in the classroom have an IEP. Using surveys at the beginning of the year and taking into consideration observations from students, a teacher can generally get an idea of what accommodations students need in the classroom at particular times. Accommodations