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I had a student who has a visual impairment in my dance class. While she has some residual vision, her vision is not functional. She is able to see some color, shadows, and light perception; however, her primary sense is tactile. Therefore, she predominately learned through touch and auditory means. Students who are blind or visually impaired often benefit from dance. It helps improve their movement, coordination, independence and helps to support their orientation and mobility skills. I accommodated her by giving her physical guidance or access to my movements. I had her hold my hand as I rehearsed the arm and hand movements.

I have a student with Down's Syndrome. She started in Kindergarten and now is in the 2nd grade. During her Kindergarten year, my class was the last one of the day. She did not have a one on one paraprofessional yet so her parents had agreed to come to all her resource classes. After one class, they started picking her up early so she rarely attended any of the resource classes. In first grade, a wonderful para was assigned to her and has been with her since. In first grade, she would come in, walk on the "line up" tape back and forth while I was teaching, sometimes sitting where she was supposed to. In the spring, we did a first grade show where all the children were on the stage on risers singing. During one of the last rehearsals, she got up in front of them and started waving her arms around imitating me! That was the first "sign" to me that she had connected to music somehow. This year, during the second grade show, she participated in the dance her class did though sometimes doing her own thing. She sang very loudly sometimes but I could tell she knew the words and the melodies. She also would come into my class with her doll and tell me I needed to be quiet because the doll was sleeping and I understood what she said. She is surrounded by classmates, teachers and staff that love and know her. Her classmates are always bending over backwards to help her along. It is exciting to see how far she has come but I am concerned what will happen as she gets older.

In considering a particular student with ADHD, who I previously taught in a regular kindergarten classroom, two of the strategies discussed in this unit seem particularly appropriate for working with him. The first is "discovery learning." Since this child was especially active and enjoyed any movement and hands-on activities, allowing him to explore materials, objects or even a variety of books related to a subject, would be beneficial and enjoyable for him. With teacher direction, such exploration could lead him to gaining a good deal of knowledge from such exploration. While this would not necessarily be related to music in every case, the strategy could be applied to learning about particular musical instruments or other facets of music education.
A second strategy that would be beneficial to this student is "peer partners." I found the suggested article very informative and feel partnering this student with another child to work on particular projects or lessons would potentially help both of them learn the concepts more thoroughly. In addition, the communication and cooperation skills required to work together with a partner would be helpful to this student.

Provide/Describe one or more examples of adapted or alternative assessments you have successfully used in the music classroom for students with disabilities. Be sure to identify the student's disability.
I have had several students with anxiety disorder. If playing in front of the class for assessment purposes caused them anxiety they were allowed to come play for me during their lunch period of after school. Some students are able to stay after class. In band they are allowed to video record them playing their scales and submit their assignment by email.