P1.- Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction.

P1.- Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction. Teacher candidates plan and/or adapt standards-based curricula that are personalized to the diverse needs of each student. At my placement school, I have several students with IEP's in my classroom. planning and adapting standards-based curricula seems to go hand in hand with adapting classroom materials to meet the needs of specific IEP students. In sixth period Biology, I have a student (ES) with both physical and mental issues. He is partially blind, partially deaf and partially disabled. He learns slower, most likely due to the physical ailments he deals with on a day-to-day basis. Due to his partial blindness, each handout or warm-up I create, I print out in bigger font for him to read. Attached is a screenshot of various documents I have enlarged for ES. His IEP states that accommodations as such are necessary for his learning success... for obvious reasons. If his eyes have to strain just a little less his mind is more open to think about the biology we are discussing in class. When creating any lesson, I work to meet both state standards, national standards and preparation for the Biology EOC. This means that everything we do in Biology class is for a purpose. Students are constantly asked to think creatively and make connections between subjects. For students that have physical or learning disabilities, tasks as such can be monumentally harder. accommodating students in simple ways such as increasing the font-size is a great way to give these students a leg up.   From this experience, I have realized the necessary balance between accommodating students and having high expectations. ES is enrolled in a mainstream science class so the expectations we have for him are high. He is expected to reach the standards we teach to in biology. ES works hard and truly benefits from the accommodations spelled out in his IEP. If accommodating ES by creating larger documents allows him to reach the standards, then I am happy to serve this student in this way.

[caption id="attachment_371" align="alignleft" width="300"] A few documents that were enlarged for ES as well as a folder where I keep most of the enlarged documents for the cell unit, for future students who may need this accommodation.[/caption]

For ES, giving him accommodating documents improves his learning environment . Improving the learning environment allows for more organic learning and will hopefully help ES succeed in high school biology.  Seeing the benefit that accommodations give IEP students, my next step is to accommodate students of all abilities in any way I can. Not every student is on an IEP but many students could enjoy an accommodating classroom environment in one way or another. Without the IEP or 504, it will take an open atmosphere in my classroom to discern what accommodations students may need. Whether enlarging documents for partially blind students or other accommodations, my goal as a teacher is to best serve my students.