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Teaching Students with Disabilities discussion forum for Elementary Music teachers

Assessment of Learning Messages in this topic - RSS

Anielka Silva
Anielka Silva
Posts: 3


12/27/2016
Anielka Silva
Anielka Silva
Posts: 3
Since I have all students ranging from grades between K-5 I give my students a variety of adaptive assessments. I have successfully used exit cards on post-it notes and the students enjoy the brevity of the assessment and the quick feedback. This type of assessment has no more than 5 questions and the students correct their own card. I also use response cards for all grade levels and the students enjoy using whiteboards and the students can quickly respond and are patient for those students that need some more time. With the response cards I can quickly assess the students and those students who respond quickly I can provide them quick feedback while the other students are writing their response. Using adaptive assessments aids with evaluating and grading fairly, and providing the students with feedback that will enhance their learning.
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Staci Pendry
Staci Pendry
Posts: 3


1/3/2017
Staci Pendry
Staci Pendry
Posts: 3
I use several types of adaptive assessments in my lessons. The first I use targets my speech impairment students. We do a self assessment strategy called 4-3-2-1...they show me 4 fingers if they think they did a perfect job on the activity, 3 if they only made 1 or 2 mistakes, 2 if they understood but need small group pull out and a 1 if they do not understand and need one on one assistance. We also keep "what did I learn today" journals in which the students draw or write, depending on their own disabilities, what they learned that day. I use this activity as their own personal exit tickets.
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Jennifer Edelblute
Jennifer Edelblute
Posts: 3


1/3/2017
I have numerous students with autism. One of my first graders with autism immediately blossomed when he started music class. He expressed an interest in playing the piano, so I put his parents in contact with a teacher who specialized in piano lessons for students with special needs. Since then he has grown by leaps and bounds. He gets easily bored in music class so his instruction has to be very rigorously differentiated. As my other students were working on long and short sounds utilizing shapes such as hearts or starts he was using traditional notation with time signatures. He was still achieving the objective of describing long and short sounds in music but doing it in a way that fully engaged him and showed his successful completion of the objective.
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Elizabeth Bricknell
Elizabeth Bricknell
Posts: 2


1/9/2017
Recently I had a student transfer to my school who is VI. I had to adapt his seat location to be right up front and provide computer-based testing with headphones so that questions could be read aloud to him. This is also part of his IEP accommodations and it was important that I follow the IEP as with his classroom teacher.
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Kimberly Molineaux
Kimberly Molineaux
Posts: 6


1/11/2017
I have a current student who has difficulty remembering steps and procedures. She often appears attentive during directions, but when she starts her work she has a meltdown because she does not know what to do. I think it would be a good idea to have picture directions for her of the steps to complete her task. It would also be helpful for me to a few signals that her understand simple directions that we use frequently in class.
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John Wall
John Wall
Posts: 3


1/19/2017
John Wall
John Wall
Posts: 3
In an assessment of identifying notes I had students who had physical limitations on how they were able to write or draw. I would create manipulatives that would be mixed and they would choose the shapes to combine with stems and flags if necessary to create the notes that everyone else would draw on their assessment. The para would help with placing things for them and then ask them if it was the way they wanted it and then I would check it and record it on an assessment sheet.
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Stacey Smith
Stacey Smith
Posts: 3


1/21/2017
Stacey Smith
Stacey Smith
Posts: 3
To be honest, this is my first time teaching students with severe disabilities. I was a middle and high school band director, and a high school band director for the first 14 years of my career. I moved to elementary music (4th & 5th grade only) just this school year. I have a self-contained class that comes to me once a week and I've already exhausted all my techniques with this group. This class has a blind student who screams and rocks no matter what you try to get him to do or listen to. There is a deaf student who defies his paraprofessional, runs around the room touching everything, and who throws a tantrum if he doesn't get the instrument he wants at the time he wants it (despite me doing rotations). There is a student in a wheel chair who does not speak and can't use her hands or her feet. There is a student with no fingers. There is a student who also screams randomly and seemingly without any provocation. The other students in the class are violent with each other and their paraprofessionals. There are four of us in the room with them (me trying to teach and them trying to handle the issues) and we can barely keep it together. I've reached out other music teachers in my district and they are at a loss too because they don't have these extreme cases in their class rotations. To say that I, one teacher, could adapt my teaching for one of these cases while teaching a mainstream class is possible. However, I really can't see how I can adapt my teaching for all of these students at the same time. I love the kids. They make my heart melt when I am with them, but I feel that I am doing them a disservice in that I am out of ideas.
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Teresa Riley
Teresa Riley
Posts: 3


1/22/2017
Teresa Riley
Teresa Riley
Posts: 3
I have a student with an OI who has difficulty covering the holes on his recorder and moving his fingers at a quick enough pace. I have found that he has more success playing the same music on the xylophone. I am still able to assess him on the same concepts as the students playing recorder, and he is progressing at a much faster rate due to this accommodation.
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Mick Burns
Mick Burns
Posts: 6


1/25/2017
Mick Burns
Mick Burns
Posts: 6
I have a few self contained ESE classes that I teach through different grade levels. I never like to make my assessment any less rigorous for them, instead changing how they show me what they know. For instance, rather than having them write assignments about what they hear, I like to pull those that struggle with writing aside, and ask them. Most of the time they know the content, they just have a hard time getting it on paper.
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Earl Vennum
Earl Vennum
Posts: 3


2/11/2017
Earl Vennum
Earl Vennum
Posts: 3
  • Describe an example of adapted assessment you have successfully used in the fine arts classroom for students with disabilities.

A great example of how I have adapted an assessment for a student with disabilities is when I asked the student to play steady beat for their part on the xylophones in stead of the more intricate note patterns that their physical disability would not allow them to accomplish.


Another example is for one of my students who lacked dexterity in his hands. When the other students showed specific hand signs for the solfege patterns of the melody, I asked him to show the levels (high and low) of the pitches with his hands in the same position (which ended up resembling the Curwen hand sign for "Mi".)
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Norman Mason
Norman Mason
Posts: 3


2/18/2017
Norman Mason
Norman Mason
Posts: 3
I currently have an autistic student that does not speak or write however he will respond through pointing or touching objects. Whenever I give a verbal or written assessment to my students, I modify this student's assessment by using response cards or cut outs that can be pointed to or sorted into groups.
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Llewellyn Humphrey
Llewellyn Humphrey
Posts: 3


2/18/2017
I had an ASD student that was non-verbal. As part of my assessment, I would ask the class a question and allow all my students a chance to answer. I could also assess my ASD student as they could respond as well.
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Ruth  Pasalagua
Ruth Pasalagua
Posts: 2


2/22/2017
Ruth  Pasalagua
Ruth Pasalagua
Posts: 2
I had a student with OI. She had more trouble using one hand than the other. I would use rhythm cards and partner her with other students when using an instruments.
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Michael Troina
Michael Troina
Posts: 3


2/27/2017
Michael Troina
Michael Troina
Posts: 3
I actually just started using a website called Plickers. It uses specialized cards that the students hold up and I can scan with my phone to see if a student got the question correct or not. So far I'm just testing it out, but it has been an easy way for my students w/ disabilities to answer questions and really check their understanding.
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Karen Watson
Karen Watson
Posts: 3


3/11/2017
Karen Watson
Karen Watson
Posts: 3
I have an OT student with difficulty covering the holes on the recorder playing a piece of music for assessment. I would have him sing the note names for the melody in rhythm while covering the holes instead of having him play them, this way I can assess the note names, melody, rhythm, and fingerings.
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Deborah Fahmie
Deborah Fahmie
Posts: 3


3/13/2017
Deborah Fahmie
Deborah Fahmie
Posts: 3
In working with students with Intellectual Disabilities, I have used access points for a performance based assessment where I would reduce the levels of complexity on what was being accessed. For example, if students were playing back a recorder phrase as an echo to a dictation I give, I would use a limited number of notes for the student with Intellectual Disability (the regular ed class was assessed on phrases containing a pentatonic scale, but he phrase with accommodations included only do-re-me) or a cross over bordun was being used to assess barred instrument playing technique, but the option of playing a broken bordun was used as an accommodation.
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Swantje Biernacki
Swantje Biernacki
Posts: 3


3/24/2017
Option 1
I have a grade 1 student who is intellectual disabled as well as language impaired. In one of my music lessons I wanted to assess melodic direction as well as having students identify low middle and high pitch. Instead of having a question and answer assessment with this student, I had him show me through movements if the melodic directions were going up or down and also identified through visuals what he heard.
When assessing his high middle and low pitch conception I used the solfege system hand signs. Using his body through movements and identifying visuals seem to work really well.
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Katherine Reynard
Katherine Reynard
Posts: 3


3/27/2017
I have a self-contained SVE class with several non-verbal students - We are learning to read simple stick rhythms with the verbal students reading the simple rhythm out loud to the class - The non-verbal students point out notes as I say them like ti-ti they point to the ti-ti and ta they point to all tas.
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Teresa Almond
Teresa Almond
Posts: 1


4/2/2017
Teresa Almond
Teresa Almond
Posts: 1
I had a choral group of students that were students with learning disabilities. I begin with having them practice the scales and listen if they sang the appropriate note during the scales. If I felt that they were needing extra practice hitting the correct notes I would demonstrate the correct notes or have another student demonstrate the correct notes of the scale. I would then introduce the song they were to sing. I would either use a taped version or I would perform it. To asses if they sang the notes and words correctly I would have them sing individually if they felt comfortable doing that or listen to each member as they sang.
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Joi Chapman
Joi Chapman
Posts: 3


4/3/2017
Joi Chapman
Joi Chapman
Posts: 3
I have had a student for the past two years that is hearing impaired. He loves music and always wants to participate. He comes to class with an interpreter that helps him as needed, but he is always encouraged to do as much as he can without assistance. As long as he is sitting closest to the board, and to the sound source, he does quite well. I have found that he loves movement to music, and gets so excited when he is successful. He was recently in our talent show doing a cup stacking routine and he was fantastic! The other students were fascinated by his ability and it really opened up communication between him and students of all ages that were also in the talent show. he began teaching them how he learned his skill, and it was so rewarding to witness these interactions.
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