Assessing learning process

1. Assessment of Diverse,
Learners,Exemption, Concessions,
Adaptation & Accommodation
By Sayyid Muhammed Shafeeq & Sabitha Robin

2. Introduction
Diverse student learners include students from racially, ethnically, culturally, and
linguistically diverse families and communities of lower socioeconomic status. If
educators act on the knowledge research offers, we can realize the educational excellence
we desire for all children.
Diversity encompasses many characteristics including ethnicity, socio-economic
background, home language, gender, special needs, disability, and giftedness. A diverse
learner is one of two things: 1) A learner that is racially, ethnically, culturally,
economically and or linguistically diverse. 2) A learner who learns differently from the
majority. This label is a catchall assigned to many different types of students because of
their culture or race, religion, academic ability, native language, or socioeconomic status,
among other considerations.

3. In general, the term represents one
who differs from the majority of
students in some way when it
comes to their education.
Who are diverse
learners?

4. 1. Students from different language, literacy, ethnic, racial, and
cultural background.
2.Students who bring a broad array of learning styles, varying
academic histories and needs, and may also have cultural and
linguistic differences.
3.General education classrooms are populated with students who
have different backgrounds, talk different languages, and have
different needs. Frequently, students with disabilities are taught in
general education classrooms and can extend the diverse academic
and social needs of learners.

5. In order to be successful with the entire student body, a teacher
needs to create a classroom in which students feel accepted and
respected and where diversity is celebrated. In the classroom,
diversity applies to learning styles, background, educational
backgrounds, language and support at home.
Due to the vast diversity among learners, teachers must work
diligently to use different methods of instructions and constantly
monitor the comprehension taking place in the classroom to enable
all. A teacher will need to push the high achievers a little farther,
scaffold the students to use technology, when it can assist or eliminate
things such as language barriers.

6. Teachers must reorganize the
difference in the learning styles and
abilities of the students as each student
comes to class with a different
background that affects first her ability
to succeed and that may cause learning
difficulties. Diverse learners can learn
in more than one way. The key is to
teach in a variety of ways, typically 4
or 5 that there will at least be one of
the ways your diverse learners like to
learn.

7. EXEMPTION

8. Exemptions from some assessment for disabled students are permitted.
It is permitted if there is enough alternative evidence of student’s
assessment. E.g. students with visual impairment, a physical disability
or dyslexia, take oral examinations. Hearing and speech impaired
students take only written examinations. Hearing impaired students
are exempt from listening comprehension exams. Students can also be
exempted from some aspects of a marking scheme. When assessing
the script of hearing-impaired students, confusion between some letter
couples (e.g. P and b) is not counted as an error. When assessing the
scripts of visually impaired students, confusion between some pairs is
not counted as an error (e.g. P and d)

9. CONCESSION

10. The term assessment of diverse learners in concession consist
several concepts, that are:
Exams written by scribe: the student may be unable to write the exams for
many reasons. At that time, the exams are written with the help of a scribe.
Liberal evaluation: the disabled diverse learners exam evaluation is not
strict. It is liberal that is suitable for the academic performance.
Grants: the government offers the grants for the diver’s learners. That is the
part of concession. This is very helpful for the impaired children and their
family

11. · Reservation: the government give proper reservation seat for
all level sectors of our economy. This will ensure powerful
participation of the disabled individual.
· Support services
Allow more time in exams: the impaired children are not
required to complete the exams in the given time. The
government and school authorities allow more time in exam for
disabled children

12. ADAPTATION

13. Curriculum Adaptation is an ongoing process that changes the regular
prescribed curriculum by modifying or adapting it in terms of the
content or delivery of instruction to meet the learning requirements of
students with learning difficulties including children with disabilities.
The content, the teaching process, assessment and evaluation, and the
physical environment may be modified or adapted and activities
should be flexible in order that the students benefit and achieve
success in the classroom. Teachers ought to adapt the curriculum to
provide equity and meet the needs of diverse learners in order that all
learners benefit and can fully participate in the classroom activities.

14. Create a plan for adapting materials. Effective adaptations
require sustained development and support. They must be
made under the framework of a larger plan that include
consideration of basic and strategic skills, instruction and the
role of people involved in the adaptation process. In some
cases, it is important to involve your administrator and
curriculum or programme coordinators from the beginning
and identify exactly who will be responsible for making
implementing.

15. Develop Goals For Teacher Strategies And
Making Adaptations

16. Some problem can be solved by adaptations, other problems
may signal the need for intensive instruction in skills or
strategies of teachers. Teachers may need to provide
adaptations while simultaneously teaching the students the
learning strategies he/she needs in order to perform the
work. All adaptations lead to become dependent on the
person who needs them. Before an adaptation is made for
the individual student, educators must carefully consider the
best approach to address the student’s difficulty and
promoting success.

17. Adaptation should be approached as short-term solutions with-
in a long-term plan for teaching skills and strategies that will
promote the student’s independence as a learner and ultimately
reduce the need for adaptation. Content adaptation must also
meet local and state education standards. In some cases, the
IEP may address the degree to which the requirements
associated with meeting state standards and taking assessment
may be modified. The teacher must decide, which parts of the
curriculum the student will be required to learn and will
constitute mastery of the course content.

18. When the curriculum is considered appropriate for the
student, adaptation may force on format rather than
content

19. The design of materials may present many different types of problems for
students, who struggle. Teacher adapting materials should examine each
curricular unit for features that might cause a learning problem. For
example, the content may be very abstract, complex or poorly originated
or it might present for much information. It may not be flexible options
through which students can demonstrate competence. Guidelines for
identifying these and other problems in the design of instructional
materials may be found in resource life, those listed at the end of the
article.
Determine the type of adaptations that will enable the students to
meet the demands. Once the materials have been evaluated and the
possible problems have been identified, the type of format adaptation
musty be selected. Format adaptation can be made by:

20. Altering existing materials: re-write, re-organize, add to, so that the
student can assess the regular curriculum material independently.
E.g. Prepare a study guide and audio tape.
Mediating existing materials: provide additional instruction support
guidance and direction in the use of the materials. Alter your
instruction to mediate the basics presented by the materials in
different ways. For example, have students survey the reading
materials, collaborating preview the text and create an outline of the
materials to use as a study guide.

21. Selecting alternative methods: select new materials that are more sensitive to
the needs of the students with disability or inherently designed to compensate
for learning problems. For example, use an interactive computer program
that gives critical ideas, reads texts, insert graphic organizers, defines and
illustrates words, presents and reinforces learning in smaller increments and
provides more opportunities for practice and curriculum review.
As the adaptation is implemented, the teacher should evaluate its effects to
determine whether the desired outcomes are being achieved. If not,
adjustments will need to be made either in the adaptation or in the instruction
to the student in its use adaptation should significantly reduce failure and
learner difficulties.

22. Fading the adaptation when possible. Adaptations usually are
short term solutions to allow classroom learning and
participation until the needed skills and strategies can be
taught. Once the adaptation is in place, the teacher should
begin to plan with other teacher, how to teach the needed
skills and strategies. The adaptation should not be removed,
until the students possess the skills and strategies to learn and
complete the tasks independently, for some students, an
adaptation may be required for several months, while for
others, time be maintained for years.

23. Accommodation

24. The term "accommodation" may be used to describe an
alteration of environment, curriculum format, or equipment
that allows an individual with a disability to gain access to
content and/or complete assigned tasks. They allow
students with disabilities to pursue a regular course of
study. Since accommodations do not alter what is being
taught, instructors should be able to implement the same
grading scale for students with disabilities as they do for
students without disabilities. Examples of
accommodations include:

25. ❖ Sing language interpreters
for students who are deaf.
❖ Computer text-to-speech
computer-based systems for
students with visual
impairments or Dyslexia.
❖ Extended time for students
with fine motor limitations,
visual impairments, or
learning disabilities.

26. ❖ Large-print books and
worksheets for student with
visual impairments and
❖ Trackballs and alternative
keyboards for students who
operate standard mice and
keyboard.

27. Who deserves accommodation?

28. All accommodations are not just for students who are struggling,
where accommodations are made and all students benefit from it.
Accommodations don’t fundamentally go after all lower
expectations or standards in instructional level (conceptual difficulty),
content or performance criteria, instead changes are made in the
instructional delivery method, assessment method or both to enable the
student to have access to the same learning and equal opportunity to
demonstrate learning.
Teachers need to communicate with families, counselors and other
professionals within the school teachers and other teachers, with whom
the students have had success in communication.

29. Accommodations fall under four major
categories:

30. Content: What the student needs to learn. The instructional concepts
should be broad based, and all students should be given access to the
same core content. However, the content’s complexity should be
adapted to students’ learner profiles. Teachers can vary the
presentation of content, (e.g., textbooks, lecture, demonstrations, taped
texts) to best meet students’ needs.
Process: Activities in which the student engages to make sense of or
master the content. Examples of differentiating process activities
include scaffolding, flexible grouping, interest centers, manipulative,
varying the length of time for a student to master content, and
encouraging an advanced learner to pursue a topic in greater depth.

31. Products: The culminating projects that ask students to apply
and extend what they have learned. Products should provide
students with different ways to demonstrate their knowledge as well
as various levels of difficulty, group or individual work, and various
means of scoring.
Learning Environment: The way the classroom works and feels.
The differentiated classroom should include areas in which students
can work quietly as well as collaborate with others, materials that
reflect diverse cultures, and routines that allow students to get help
when the teacher isn’t available (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999;
Winebrenner, 1992, 1996).

32. It is important to note that teachers should pair instruction along with the use of
adaptations or accommodations in two areas. First, sometimes students need
instruction in how to use and apply the adaptation or accommodation to their learning.
The teacher should not assume that the student will be able to benefit from the
adaptation or accommodation without this instruction. Second, as mentioned
previously, adaptations or accommodations increase dependence in the student.
Instruction in the learning deficit ensures that the student builds his or her abilities
while being supported, and then the support is reduced or removed as the student’s
skills improve. While the specific instruction will vary depending on individual student
needs, all instruction for struggling students should be explicit (directly taught),
systematic (sequenced so that skills build on one another, not left to incidental
learning), scaffolded (supported instruction that is gradually withdrawn as students
become more proficient) and modeled (teacher models both the task/skill and the
thought processes to complete the task/skill).

33. Conclusion
Assessment involves the use of empirical data of student learning to refine
programs and improve student learning. Assessment is used in many ways
in education. The good deal of attention is given to the use in helping and
learning. Assessment consist of the diverse learners needs the learner’s
assessment assess the certain level of individual that include concepts of
exemptions, concession, adaptation and accommodation. All are perfectly
helpful for the assessment of diverse learners.