Curriculum Modifications for Students with Special Needs - Annotated Bibliography Example

Curriculum modifications for with special needs: An Annotated Bibliography The area of special education, in the education sector, has been increasingly calling for curriculum reform to include students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms. This reform agenda has been emerging majorly out of the problems that teachers have been having in teaching students with disabilities and subsequent treatment of such individuals, on the job market, after graduation. Research that confirms this identifies the lack of skills in special education amongst regular education teachers and the standard diploma versus alternative diploma. Studies have gone further to suggest reform in terms of adequately preparation pre-service teachers, including students with disabilities in regular classes, and keeping a standard diploma established on standardized assessments of students. This means that a standard and reliable model should be set for assessing students with disabilities without giving them undue advantage or vice versa. This will in turn promote inclusion of students in regular classrooms, improve their performance at school and after graduation, and enhance teachers’ skills to comfortably deliver quality teaching to all. Keywords: Special education, reform, regular classes Curriculum modifications for students with special needs: An Annotated Bibliography Understanding Educator Attitudes toward the Implementation of Inclusive Education Subban and Sharma (2005) investigated the attitudes of regular education teachers towards the implementation of inclusion of students living with disabilities into regular settings in Victoria State. Through semi-structured interviews, the authors collected data from 10 participants chosen randomly from a list of 25 teachers who consented for the interview from schools in Victoria State. The data obtained during the interviews indicated that teachers may generally embrace positive attitudes toward the inclusion of students living with disability in regular educational settings. Whereas teachers perceive it a challenge to implement inclusive education, they come out as accommodating students with disabilities into their mainstream classrooms. Inclusive environments seem to offer a forum for teachers to test with a variety of strategies and techniques to ensure that the entire students within this environment are achieving. The authors found that the positive perceptions may be attributed to an augmented awareness of the students living with disabilities amongst the respondents, probably due to heightened efforts by Victoria Department of Education to educate teaching personnel concerning their responsibilities as inclusive teachers. Respondents also confidently expressed a need for more knowledge, information, and expertise in their efforts to include students living with disabilities into regular classrooms. The authors observed that it could be wise to introduce a compulsory section on teaching within inclusive surroundings into teacher training programs for preparing trainee teachers for their functions as inclusive teachers. Limitations to this study include being largely based on self-report typical teachers, concerns relating to the inclusion of students living with disabilities into regular classrooms, and the fact that there would often be some doubt as to whether responses of educators reflect their true attitudes. The authors’ suggestions for future research involve considering the influence variables such as language, culture, and geographic location on educator concern and attitude towards inclusive education. Preparing Teachers for Grading Students with Learning Disabilities Jung and Guskey (2010) delved into the issue of lack of unpreparedness for teachers to grade students, particularly those with learning disabilities. Understanding that reporting the students with disabilities progress is a requirement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for IEPs with which states make every effort to comply. The authors describe the 5-stage model for grading those included in general education classrooms. The authors were driven by findings in previous studies, to develop the model to assist teachers in their daily assessment of children with disabilities in mainstream education settings. The major findings they based on previous studies include: the fact that teachers daily need to grade students and yet they are unprepared; teacher preparation programs are acutely lacking in offering teachers enough competencies in daily assessment and without adequate preparation, and educators are missing out on important skills that are essential to appropriately capture student learning as well as make informed curricular decisions. Due to the need to prepare teachers to understand, measure, and report the progress of students with disabilities in accordance to the recommended practice, the authors proposed: suggested competences; the Inclusive Grading Model; and steps for inclusion in educator preparation programs that may provide colleges and universities being a basis for facilitating these significant skills in their pre-service educators. Promoting research-based practices through inclusion? Volonino and Zigmond (2007) reports reassessments of high school transformation movements that try to implement study-based practices in the classes, particularly those practices that deal with the needs of students living with disabilities. The authors conclude that these transformations have changed special and general education; however, this has not essentially improved them. They find that co-teaching forms one of the practices in which special and general educators collaborate and cooperate to teach students with varied needs. Moreover, they examined various models of co-teaching. Further research is suggested in evaluating models of co-teaching and determining use of reputable research strategies for instructing students with disabilities in an effective manner. Do Shared decision-making teams discuss special education in educational reform meetings? Truscott, et al. (2004) report on the qualitative information gathered from discussions with shared decision-making groups from three schools, which are selected from a suburban school district in the State of New York: a high school, a middle school, and a primary elementary school. The authors show that the teams seldom addressed special education needs and topics. As a result, they made three major recommendations, including: that at least a member of the school-based transformation team is assigned the particular duty of representing special education at the time of team discussions; there should be routine inclusion of a chosen agenda item concerning special education for shared decision-making group meetings; and that districts encourage school-based transformation teams to represent special education educators and students and offer training to mainstream education educators to increase their knowhow of special education. Alternative routes to earning a standard high school diploma Thurlow, Cormier, and Vang (2009) examine the optional routes accessible to students, with and without disabilities, to get a standard diploma. The authors describe the sample as including all 26b states that need exit examinations. In these 26 states, 46 optional routes to a standard diploma (half for all students and half for students with disabilities) were identified. They note that, over the last five years, the number of optional routes to graduation has augmented by more than half. They describe one optional route that came out as the GED identification (which is not included toward the rate of graduation for accountability of NCLB) as an optional route to a standard diploma. They note that passing criteria varied for optional routes that applied to the entire students as well as for those that applied solely to students with disabilities. According to the former status, optional routes were more probable to require that students attain the identical performance standard as regular path. On the other hand, paths targeting students with disabilities were less probable to require that students attain identical performance standards as the regular path. They discuss the constant need to attend to optional paths that are established the entire students in general as well as for students with disabilities particularly, to guarantee that students are required to indicate competence on indicators of work and college readiness. They further, discuss the importance of offering transparent and simply available information concerning optional paths to a standard diploma, un-combined data on this measure, as well as information concerning the extent to which optional measures are employed in each state. Evidence-based secondary transition practices for enhancing school completion Test, Fowler, White, Ritcher, and Walker (2009) review 11 articles that were chosen on the following inclusion criteria based on a three-segment search process: data-based journal article published; dependable variable, result variable or basic topic was school completion or dropout prevention; participants were persons with high-incidence disabilities; and predictor variable, independent variable, or practice defined aligned with the classification for transition programming. The authors carry out a literature review to discover evidence-based transition practices that encourage school completion for students living with high-incidence disabilities. They note that, of the articles reviewed, evidence-based support for completing school of young people with disabilities was identified in the five areas of classification. Two articles concerned student-focused planning, two studies concerned interagency collaboration, 10 studies concerned student development, six articles concerned program structures, and two studies concerned family involvement. They describe findings that also give evidence-based support for different secondary transition practices that encourage completing school or preventing dropout. They recommend that programs attempting to increase completing school and minimise dropout for students living with disabilities take on the evidence-based strategies of secondary transition identified in the 11 researches that can serve as an outline for planning of practitioners. They recommend more research investigating the impact on strategies of secondary transition on dropout rates and school completion for students with disabilities. According to them these thorough studies must include descriptions of implementation of data, interventions, and the validity and reliability of the measures. The educational context and outcomes for high school students with disabilities: General education classes and the satisfaction of general education teachers. Schumaker, Bulgren, Davis, Grossen, Marquis, Deshler, et al. (2002) report findings from observations and surveys of general education educators in nine high school (divided equally from urban, suburban, and rural regions) on students living with disabilities or at peril students in their classes. The authors show that, in the general education classes, a lot of time used for interaction between students and educators was used with educators talking and students listening. They report that research-based programs, technology, instructional methods, and accepting students with disabilities were absent. They conclude that general education educators were not contented with how special education educators are collaborating with them to profit the students with disabilities nor were they contented with their own performance while they teach students living with disabilities. They suggest that more research be geared toward guaranteeing that research-based practices are employed in high school education classrooms to enable students with disabilities to succeed in their classrooms. Students with disabilities and accountability reform: Challenges identified at the state and local levels Nagle, Yunker, and Malmgren (2006) report findings from a qualitative research (carried out as portion of a bigger fiver-year mixed-techniques study) that explores the impact and implementation of NCLB adequate Annual Yearly Program (AYP) requirements in the manner they concern students with disabilities. The study participants consisted of 79 key personnel from participating local education agencies and state education agencies representing departments of special education, testing, accountability, special education monitoring, curriculum development, professional development, Title I monitoring and teacher certification. They conclude that taking part in state-wide assessments creates new chances for students living with disabilities and those augmentations in participation requirements, coupled with augmentations in performance requirements, produces incentives to keep out students with disabilities. They deduce that NCLB requirements cause schools to take into account more flexible approaches to the evaluations of students living with disabilities and that AYP requirements implementation began challenging system-level alterations. They shed light on concerns about educator quantity and quality and their impact on the abilities of schools to attain AYP objectives. High school reform: Integration of special education Muller and Burdette (2007) review six interviews carried out in Iowa, Nevada, and Michigan for a policy brief created by the National Association of Directors of Special Education (NADSE) that described efforts to encompass high school reforms concerning special education students at the local and state levels. The authors conclude that, even though the intention and objective of the high school reform efforts of these states is to achieve inclusion of students with disabilities, outcomes are mixed. They conclude more that mandated special and general teacher professional development, inclusion in general classes of special education students, and passing further legislation focused on high school transformation will increase efforts and resources devoted to including special education students in reform initiatives of high schools. Good high schools for students with disabilities Morocco, Aguilar, Clay, Parker, Brigham, and Zigmond (2006) carried out a study involving multi-article series that reflects five elements of the research. This research is an overview of this series. The five elements of the research are as follows. The authors conducted an overview of the evaluation. They also identified three individual case studies involving high schools implementing redesign of high school, including outcomes for students living with disabilities. Finally, they summarise the case studies with the recommendations for the practice in teaching as relates to the subject matter. Next generation state high school assessment and accountability: students with disabilities McLaughlin, Hoffman, Miceli, and Krezmien (2008) outlines policy issues that emerge when students living with disabilities are integrated in high-stakes, standard-promoted accountability models with less room for individualization. The authors summarize the latest educational achievement, experiences, and results for secondary students living with disabilities. They discuss policies and practices that will require informing future accountability and assessment models. They highlight three alternatives and several strategies presently employed several states to meaningfully and effectively include secondary students living with disabilities in new assessment and accountability models. Approaches to dropout prevention: Heeding early warning signs with appropriate interventions Kennelly and Monrad (2007) outline steps that schools have to identify at-peril students and offer the essential support systems as well as relevant interventions to help students in getting a high school diploma. The authors discuss the employment of early warning data systems in targeting interventions for individual students and groups. They end the article by giving a number of best-practice approaches taken on by higher performing high schools and bring forth effective programs presently implemented to stem the problem of school dropout. Diploma options and perceived consequences for students with disabilities Jonson, Stout and Thurlow (2009) examined individual state graduation practices and policies on optional diploma alternatives. The authors’ sample included respondents to a questionnaire sent via mail to the state special education directors or their designees in the entire 50 states including the District of Columbia. The outcomes from the state indicate that states differ in their diploma alternatives and the locus of control over requirements developed to guide graduation: whether the state or the local education agency has further policy-setting authority. It was further discovered that, more than 50 percent of the entire states have increased their requirements for graduation so as to earn a standard diploma for both students living without and with disabilities. The authors also discovered many intended and unintended results of several requirements for graduation. The study thus suggests that it is important to understand what diploma alternatives and graduation requirements are being implemented in each state to better comprehend which policies that lead into learning and attainment for students with disabilities. Finally, the study suggests more research on the intended and unintended results and the implications of state diploma alternatives and graduation requirements. A conceptual framework for understanding students with disabilities transition to community college Garrison-Wade and Lehmann (2009) present a literature synthesis on students with disabilities as well as their transition to the community college, according to a conceptual framework set up from previous research on the subject. The authors explored systematic research reviews published throughout the prior 10 years. The authors’ syntheses analyzed sustained the framework to some level and also offered a better comprehension of the particular interventions that encourage student success. This information directed the revision of the initial framework. Under the revised framework the central role was taken on by planning. Particularly, planning is currently an underlying element in the entire features of the frameworks all over the three dimensions. These dimensions include: ongoing communications across institutions; objectives for the high school student, and the objectives for his or her future career and community college experience. The authors, finally, recommend ways through which community college policymakers, leaders, and education practitioners can employ the framework to enhance the transition to the community college for students living with disabilities. The impact of alternative high school exit certificates on access to postsecondary education Erickson and Morningstar (2009) reports the outcomes of obtain an optional exit certificate in place of a standard diploma. The authors used a sample of two states chosen for their high percentage (10%) of optional exit certificate awarded to students. They chose a sample of postsecondary institutions in every state, amounting to a sample of 22 institutions (eight 2-year public institutions, seven 4-year private institutions, and seven 4-year public institutions). Post secondary alternatives were limited for students who got an optional education certificate. The authors conclude that optional diploma alternatives are not required for students living with disability. They recommend further examination of the social value of optional high school exit certificate. They also note that this value must be clearly communicated to the entire stakeholders and attention must be given to the way students who get these certificates are categorised in studies that examine high school dropout and completion. References Erickson, A. S., & Morningstar, M. E. (2009). The impact of alternate high school exit certificates on access to postsecondary education. Exceptionality, 17(3), 150–163. Garrison-Wade, D. F., & Lehmann, J. P. (2009). A conceptual framework for understanding students with disabilities transition to community college. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 33(5), 417–445. Johnson, D. R., Stout, K. E., & Thurlow, M. L. (2009). Diploma options and perceived Consequences for students with disabilities. Exceptionality, 17(3), 119–134. Jung, A. L., & Guskey, R. T. (2010). Preparing Teachers for Grading Students with Learning Disabilities. Insights on Learning Disabilities, 7(2), 43-52. Kennelly, L., & Monrad, M. (2007). Approaches to dropout prevention: Heeding early warning signs with appropriate interventions. Washington, DC: National High School Center. McLaughlin, M. J., Hoffman, A., Miceli, M., & Krezmien, M. (2008). Next generation state high school assessment and accountability: Students with disabilities. Washington, DC: Achieve. Morocco, C. C., Aguilar, C. M., Clay, K., Parker, C. E., Brigham, N., & Zigmond, N. (2006). Good high schools for students with disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 21(3), 135–145. Müller, E., & Burdette, P. (2007). High school reform: Integration of special education. Alexandria, VA: National Association for State Directors of Special Education. Nagle, K., Yunker, C., & Malmgren, K. W. (2006). Students with disabilities and accountability reform: Challenges identified at the state and local levels. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 17(1), 28–39. Schumaker, J. B., Bulgren, J. A., Davis, B., Grossen, B., Marquis, J., Deshler, D. D., et al. (2002). The educational context and outcomes for high school students with disabilities: General education classes and the satisfaction of general education teachers (Report No. 5). Lawrence: University of Kansas, Institute for Academic Access (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED469285). Subban, P., & Sharma, U. (2005). Understanding educator attitudes toward the implementation of inclusive education. Disability Studies Quarterly, 25(2), 12-36. Test, D. W., Fowler, C. H., White, J., Richter, S., & Walker, A. (2009). Evidence-based secondary transition practices for enhancing school completion. Exceptionality, 17(1), 16–29. Thurlow, M. L., Cormier, D. C., & Vang, M. (2009). Alternative routes to earning a standard high school diploma. Exceptionality, 17(3), 135–149. Truscott, S. D., Meyers, J., Meyers, B., Gelzheiser, L. M., & Grout, C. B. (2004). Do shared decision-making teams discuss special education in educational reform meetings? Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 15(2), 112–125. Volonino, V., & Zigmond, N. (2007). Promoting research-based practices through inclusion? Theory Into Practice, 46(4), 291–300. Read More