How to Optimize Accommodations for Special Populations Students

The term 'special populations' often brings to mind students with disabilities, but this is a narrow perspective. Exceptional students encompass a wider range of learners, including English language learners (ELLs), gifted students, students with disabilities, learners with diagnosed health impairments, and those requiring additional interventions to succeed. 

As instructors, we should be careful about grouping students into boxes based on diagnoses and prescriptions. Doing so might undermine the original purpose of accommodations, which is to lessen the impact of a disability on learning without reducing learning expectations. 

Educators must evaluate all aspects of their instructional delivery and be willing to think outside of the “normal educational delivery” when attempting to meet the needs of special populations. 

How Can You Optimize Learning for All Students?

Let’s explore instructional methods which optimize learning for all students while emphasizing accommodations over modifications. 

Traditional classroom instruction often relies on the following methods, which can vary depending on content and deployment: 

• Direct Instruction traditionally involves the teacher lecturing in a classroom environment. Today, there are many more options for direct instruction, including multimedia presentations and digital curriculum. 

• Guided Practice involves instructors leading students through learning exercises in a supported environment. 

• Independent Instruction takes practice a step further, giving students multiple opportunities for independent learning. 

• Project-Based Learning (PBL) allows students to learn through completing meaningful real-world projects. 

• Mastery Learning gives students ample opportunities to achieve a concept, ensuring long-term success. 

• Multi-Sensory Learning uses visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile inputs for a richer learning experience. 

• Asynchronous, Synchronous, and Blended Learning incorporate online learning into instructional delivery.
  

By varying your instruction and introducing accommodations, you can ensure your curriculum meets the needs of all students in your classroom. 

What Is the Difference Between Accommodations and Modifications? 

Accommodations and modifications both have their place in serving special populations students, but it’s important to understand the difference to effectively use them in your instruction. 

Accommodations are designed to lessen the effect of a disability without lowering a student’s learning expectations. They can reduce learning gaps by removing or limiting the hindrance of a student’s disability without reducing the learning demand. 

Accommodations can be used throughout the educational pathway, increasing the chance of student success in future events, such as other CTE pathway courses or certification exams. 

Modifications, on the other hand, involve changing the learning expectations through modified or reduced assignments. 

 While modifications can enable students to achieve temporary success, they have the potential to increase learning gaps by not requiring the same expectations as their peers. Most scholars agree that modifications must exist, but they should generally be used as a last resort in meeting student needs. 

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  

With that in mind, we should consider accommodations whenever possible in our instructional delivery methods for students with disabilities, thereby limiting potential increases in learning gaps. 

How Do You Integrate Traditional Educational Methods with 21st Century Technology?  

In the Career and Technical Education (CTE) classroom, combining multi-sensory learning with direct instruction, guided practice, independent instruction, and occasional project-based learning can effectively meet the needs of special populations.  

Online tools that are instructor-created and led can create vast opportunities for all students. For example, using a Learning Management System (LMS) can easily help create multiple sections and enable modifications depending on the section. 

Times have changed. Creating instructional videos in the classroom with high-quality audio and video is now more accessible than ever, while also meeting Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance requirements. Blending high-quality content from a certification course such as ICEV helps give teachers a foundation to build and supplement content around a student-centered approach to teaching. 

Some may argue that their class is too diverse and that they are unable to modify to the extent needed, but mastery learning is the key. Allowing students to work at their own pace can help advance gifted students and assist struggling students in gaining the necessary skills for greater success. 

Instructional pedagogy varies across classrooms, but the goal of all classrooms should be to do what is in the best interest of the student and to create the greatest impact. 

5 Keys to Making the Most of Modifications in Your Classroom 

When it comes to applying modifications in your classroom, it’s important to consider your students’ needs first. While some modifications are federally mandated, you can go beyond these requirements with modifications that better serve learners in special populations.  

Here are five tips for maximizing the effectiveness of modifications, reducing learning gaps, and increasing student success: 

1. Create Multiple Sections of the Blended/Online Course: Creating multiple sections allows you to easily apply modifications that suit all students, such as extended time and extra opportunities.
   
   
2. Utilize Instructional Videos: There are many services that can store online instructional videos, such as YouTube, Kaltura, and Vimeo. These platforms should provide subtitles, language translations, the ability to embed videos in other programs, and unlimited storage. YouTube, for example, offers all these features for free and is a great way to create an instructional video playlist for your students.
   
   
3. Mastery Learning: As an instructor, you often have to decide which is more important: grades or learning—or if you can do both. Mastery learning enables all students to learn the objectives at their own pace, meeting them at their level, rather than creating a pass-or-fail scenario that can leave students without foundational knowledge for future learning.
    
4. Flexible Learning: Create a pacing guide and set possible due dates with the understanding that students might need extra time to complete learning objectives. It is also important to allow students extra time within lessons, quizzes, and assignments to successfully meet learning objectives.
   
   
5. Graphic Organizers: Graphic organizers are excellent learning tools that can help direct students to targeted instruction and create a note-taking outline. It is good practice to create and implement note-taking guides for students to follow along during lessons.

Ultimately, using these modifications can make a serious impact on your students’ ability to master course material, increasing their chances of future learning success. 

Certifying Special Populations Students: A Success Story 

In 2020, our school district implemented a certificate program for all students with iCEV to obtain the Center for Financial Responsibility Personal Financial Literacy Certification. 

 Personal finance was already a state requirement, so it made sense to give students a chance to obtain a certification and help build a ready graduate, a goal for all students in the state of Tennessee. 

In the first semester of the course, we piloted the implementation with special population students, all of whom had an Individual Education Plan (IEP). The course was based on iCEV’s Financial Literacy course and implemented into our Learning Management System (LMS) through an asynchronous course structure that was built with mastery learning using the direct-to-independent instructional method in mind. 

Early on, the course was a work in progress, and student feedback, as well as data, helped us create the course design we currently use today. During the first semester, the special populations students certified at a rate of 60 percent. Currently, across our district, we are able to certify over 400 students in the general population with the financial literacy certification each school year. 

Using iCEV’s content and thinking outside the box with our unique course design has helped give each student a chance at obtaining a certification as well as gaining the associated skills and confidence. 

Are you interested in serving special populations students in your CTE program? To help meet the needs of all students in a blended learning environment, iCEV offers a free, easy-to-follow guide for implementing accommodations and modifications in your course. 

When you download your free guide, you’ll learn more about these and other Teaching Strategies for Special Populations so you can help every learner succeed!