Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.

During my summative practicum, I was able to adapt my practice to support students with different needs. Although providing modifications to assessments require a specific individualized education plan for a particular student with particular needs, I was able to provide adaptations to some of my methods of assessment without changing the intention of the assessment.

In my science 9 class, I had one student who had a very difficult time communicating their understanding on written tests because the test format, amount of writing, and test environment was restrictive to this student. However, during the Ecology project called Land Quadrants, the class(es) and I would go outdoors everyday and spend 15-25 minutes applying our learning to the land. During this time, I got to know more about the mentioned student, and about their strengths and weaknesses in learning and communicating science. It turns out science was this student’s favourite subject—albeit they never particularly enjoyed it at school for apparent reasons mentioned above—and I got to hear many of this student’s ideas and understandings through these walking conversations during the outdoor project.

For the unit test, I asked the student if they would prefer to write their test in a different room with the EA so they could orate their answers and the EA could scribe. The student did not want to go to another room and do this, so they elected to write it by hand and accept whatever they got. As I watched the class write their tests and this student skip question after question, I eventually went over and asked if they would be willing to come in at lunch or in the differentiated learning block during the last hour of Wednesdays to finish it. “I’ll read the question, you tell me everything you know, and I’ll score you in real time,” I said. The student seemed keen on the idea and gave me the test to hold. Upon returning, the student orated their first question well and received full marks for that question. The sight of me writing full marks and providing immediate feedback on how comprehensive the answer seemed to invigorate the student’s engagement with the questions, for when we came to a question where the answer missed the mark, the student responded (happily!) “That’s okay, I had forgotten that one but gave it a shot.” For all remain test/quiz assessments, I offered the same conditions for the student and each time it was gladly accepted and successful. This is just one example of how I made adjustments and gave my personal time to act in the best interest of students and their success.