Indivdiualising Assessment

Special Provisions

Use the school processes.
Follow directions for reasonable provisions to provide access.
Maintain student privacy to the degree possible.
Maintain rigour of skills, thought and method

This can be difficult or subject to pressures from student or family, but students must meet the requirements of the course.

T courses versus A and M Courses

In T courses, students are being ranked and scaled. Assessment therefore must be highly comparable to allow fairness. Students do the same test, the same tasks under the same conditions.

In A and M students are being graded against the standards. There still must be fairness as students are being given grades. They must meet due dates and complete tasks that align to course expectations. Tasks must be weighted equally.

However, there is some freedom to design tasks that suit individual students. For example:

students can choose from a range of topics or options
stimulus in a test might vary
students can very text type or output within the bounds of the course
scaffolding to support can vary, such as, section organisers

Be aware that variations will be visable to students and disucssed by them.

Varying Access in Classwork

When providing classwork material, you can consider multiple entry and exit points in the material.

Provide:

Simple introductory audio visual that orients generally on the topic and visible comprehension activity, e.g. timeline, diagram
A simple orienting written text, e.g. textbook section. It is easier to read something if you know what it is about. Focus questions or quiz to consolidate. e.g. students write a kahootz for the class in small groups with each taking a section
Two more complex reading that focus on particular aspects. This can be accompanied by individual work such as questions or summations to a scaffold. Or contributing to an ongoing task liek a journal or process diary.
Or one text each for small groups in the class. These can vary in lexical density or abstraction according to your knowledge of the groups. They read and report to the class in some way- poster, oral presentation, advertising pitch etc.
an extension text or documentary for students who finish early

Documentary or Film Scaffold

Students need help to understand what is significant in a documentary. A few will get it without assistance. Some will bb able to concentrate, while some will not.

Provide a note taking scaffold to enable them to collect material useful for the end of sequence assignment.

Guiding them to extract useful quotations from the scholars or significant people in the doco.

Pausing the doco to allow them to fill out the scaffold and briefly discussing what was said.

Pausing the documentary to replay and reinforce verbally significant parts if students haven't recorded the key information. I like to exclaim and show enthusiasm at these parts!

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