Modified test?

Question

My teacher gave students in my class including me a test without a wordbank wheras other students were issued a wordbank. I heard that teachers are not allowed to pass out modified tests to students unless they have a disorder. Also I heard that the tests all ave to be fair. I asked my teacher and he tried to play it off by saying that the other students were being rewarded. Someone please help. Is this true, a teacher doesnt have the right to do this does he? Where can I find proof? Thanks.

Answer 1

The word to use here is not modification - its Accommodation. A modification is a change to the curriculum, while an accommodation is a change to the method of presenting or assessing that curriculum. Accommodations are considered to be perfectly fair (even if the students do not have a diagnosed disability) because the curriculum is not changed. Students learn in different ways, and respond better to different methods of testing.

In Canada, Individualized Program Plans (IPPs), called IEPs elsewhere, require that students with special needs recieve accommodations or modifications to help them learn and express learning. Because I don't know the nature of your test, or what subject, or who has IEPs or not, I can't really say whether your teacher was right or wrong; all I can tell you is that it is common practice to present exams in different forms to different students, as long as the reason for doing so can be justified by the teacher. I would image that if the wordbank on your test didn't give away any of the answers to the test, it is probably fair. If you are concerned that other students had an advantage over you, you should ask your teacher what the purpose of the wordbank was, and document his response. Your next step would be to speak to the principal, or another administrator if the teacher cannot justify the wordbank. I would guess that there was probably a reason for including the wordbank, as it would be extra effort for the teacher that would otherwise not be worth his time to do. If you did well on the test anyway, it might not even be worth the effort.

The accepted philosophy in education is that inorder to treat students fairly, you have to treat them all differently - treating them all the same is not necessarily fair.

Answer 2

As a teacher, I would say that the students who had the word bank are able to due to an Individual Education Plan - this could be for any student with a physical or learning disability, etc. You would not be able to recognize most people on these plans but there is paper work that is strictly confidential for those students. I think that his saying that it was a reward was probably to cover up the fact that they are disabled in some way because as I said it is confidential!

Finding proof to prove otherwise would be very difficult as it would require you knowing and being able to prove that there is no paper work for these students.

Answer 3

I don't think a teacher does. Are you sure the students who had the word bank do not have a disability. The teacher does not have the right to give you that information, so maybe he jsut said it was a reward because he was caught, and knew he couldn't say it was a disability. It was not fair at all, however, if those students did not have a disabilty. You should have had a word bank available also.