Accommodating students with exceptional needs by aligning classroom assessment with IEP goals

ABSTRACT

The majority of students with exceptional needs receive most of their formal education in general education or inclusive classrooms. These students often need a variety of accommodations to ensure their success with the general education curriculum. The purpose of this article is to explore accommodation approaches and strategies for teaching students with exceptional needs in inclusive classrooms. We first discuss the relationship of classroom assessment and IEP goal development, followed by a discussion on how to accommodate learning objectives for classroom assessment. We further discuss how to use classroom assessment to document IEP progress. Finally, we present assessment accommodation categories by providing vignettes of students with exceptional needs who receive appropriate and adequate accommodations in inclusive classrooms. We conclude with a brief discussion on practice, policy, and research implications of accommodations for inclusive practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Accommodation
• classroom assessment & IEP goal development
• learning objectives for classroom assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yaoying Xu

Dr. Yaoying Xu is Professor in the Department of Counseling and Special Education at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She is also the Director of Asian-American Educational Studies Center of VCU's School of Education. Dr. Xu's research interests and expertise focus on social aspects of students with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and how social interaction affects students' academic performance.

Laura Kuti

Dr. Laura Kuti is Assistant Professor in Education and Assistant Chair of Graduate Education-Teacher Education from School of Professional and Continuing Studies at University of Richmond. Dr. Kuti's knowledge and experience stem from language learning education and span the fields of world language, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and assessment.