ONLINE COURSE: Learning to Achieve Accommodations Discussion Thread

This thread is intended to provide a place for users who have completed the Learning to Achieve: Accommodations course with a space to reflect on the course content. The course content was updated in early 2019 and will be made available in spring 2019. Please stay tuned for the launch of the updated course. 

We hope you enjoyed the Learning to Achieve: Accommodations course. Please use this thread to share:

Of all the concepts and ideas discussed in this course:

  • Which were new to you?
  • Which ideas stood out as most important for you and your practice in supporting adults with LD in your classroom?
  • What are some specific strategies from this course that you feel you can readily incorporate to help your adult students with LD?

What other strategies or resources have you used in providing accommodations for your adult students with LD, and how effective were they?

Comments

Very informative and very useful course.  Your presentation of the concepts underlying UDL, and how the application of these concepts can help all students is an eye-opener!  Well presented.  Implementing these concepts can help to keep students engaged.  Thank you!  

This was noe concept that was a little new to myself. Specifically, the concept of not using the "Bubble" sheeet and allowing students to wrtie directly on the test paper or booklet. I feel like this is something that even students that are not in need of accommodations would feel more comfortable and less anexity if they had this option when taking a test. This is something I have thought about many times when explaining to students how to take the TABE Tests. I explain to them how to "Flag" a question and then at the end it will let you go back and review. However, I think this method takes away from the alloted time constraints for the student. To me, it would be much easier to wrtie on the paper then go back and look for the ones you did not answer without having to click and wait and then click and wait to go through what you need to. For example, if a student has a problem with a math question and flags it and then a few questions later is like oh yeah I get that now...well they can't just flip back and find it they have to wait and go to the review and then by that time they might have gotten off track and forgot or ran out of time. But then again, I am definately "Old School" and still believe "if you actually write it down then you are more likely to remember it." Which I think technology has taken away from that thought process of learning.

As an Adult Education teacher it is imperative to to implement accommodations in presentation, response, scheduling and providing optimal setting for instruction. Universal Design in curriculum is a game changer for so many students. The really difficult task is finding the best accommodations for each student.

I hadn't put too much thought into the self awareness/determination/advocacy etc. of the learner and how it can affect their learning process and how it could be helped with accommodations.

As well, I like the UDL information - the TEAL sheet - very helpful.

The accommodations were familiar to me due to my experience in the K12 educational system. It is interesting to develop ways of applying them to adult education. 

I feel the concept of universal design is most important.

At the conclusion of this course I was asked to discuss what was new, what stood out, and specific strategies I would be using. A little history is in order to address these strands. 

I am a former elementary teacher who has also been teaching Adult Education for quite a while. I specialized the last several formal years of elementary education in the special education department in a very rural poverty stricken school. As a teacher (I can only speak to what I personally know.), doing what needs to be done to assure the success of students is what we do! The practices are things most of us practiced on a day to day basis so we could get the job done. 

At this point where I am only teaching Adults I find that I not only make accommodations but I also inform students who are in need of those accommodations about what's available to them and how they should approach advocating for themselves. 

So to conclude, I would say that the education about and the use of accommodations to help my students progress toward their goals is the most important thing I teach. It is the best strategy I use, and the most needed by my students. Knowing that they can speak up to advocate for themselves is so satisfying at the end of my day.