SPE203 Exam Paper

• Strength-based approach refers to the focus on a student's strengths, capabilities, qualities, and talents, instead of the deficit areas of the student's skills and abilities
• Strength-based approach


  • Promotes pedagogies that draws out students' potential
  • Helps establish positive self-image and self-esteem in students
  • Encourages respect and appreciation for diversity
  • Builds intrinsic motivation for learning
• People sometimes mistake strength-based approach as simply ignoring any weaknesses or deficits
• Potential issues with ignoring weaknesses/deficits

  • Students may miss out on available support/interventions
  • Implications on assessment, such an approach will likely rely mainly on modifications instead of accommodations
  • Identifying and improving on weaknesses allows an individual to be more versatile in skills
  • Being aware and having conversations about the student's needs sometimes help teachers and peers to be more understanding and accepting
• One way to lessen the issues with ignoring weaknesses/deficits is to embed it into IEP templates, practice giving balanced feedback for students' work, conduct PLC, etc.
• Determining effectiveness of the strategy of assigning a talkative student as a buddy for Cassie

  Operationalise the definition of "open up" by identifying concrete observable behaviours, and then track the frequency of the said behaviour over time
• Potential improvements to the strategy

  • Explore with Cassie to understand what the barriers of her speaking in class
  • Identify situations where she is comfortable speaking
  • Establish meanings and relevance for her to practice speaking in class
  • Break down the task into smaller achievable steps
• Flexible grouping


  A classroom arrangement and strategy, where the teacher intentionally switches between teaching in small-group and whole-class, based on to the teaching needs
• Advantages of flexible grouping


  • Allows for more targeted drills and practices for students at different mastery level
• Disadvantages of flexible grouping

  • The flexibility and changes might be too confusing for some students
• Embedding a social skill (e.g. sharing material, asking for help from a peer) for a small group using flexible grouping


  1. State the overall social skill target

  2. Break down the skill into smaller steps

  3. Lesson rundown - lead teacher focuses on the targeted group to practice the social skill, while co-teacher rotates amongst the other groups to facilitate the activity, then reshuffle the groups for generalisation
• Prompting strategy


  Modelling prompt
• Steps to teach replacement behaviour using modelling prompt

  1. Get a co-teacher to sit on a non-associated chair

  2. Demonstrate to the student, go up to the co-teacher, tap on his/her shoulder and say "excuse me"

  3. The co-teacher leaves and sit at another chair

  4. Student's turn to model

  5. Repeat the steps for fluency

  6. Later stage the co-teacher may randomly test the skill, lead teacher may support with additional prompts and encouraging the student
• Prompt


  1. Get a co-teacher to sit on a non-associated chair at the recess area

  2. Demonstrate to the student, go up to the co-teacher, tap on his/her shoulder and say "excuse me"

  3. The co-teacher leaves and sit at another chair

  4. Student's turn to model

  5. Repeat the process for fluency

  6. Later stage the co-teacher may randomly test the skill by sitting on "the spot". Lead teacher may support with additional prompts and encouraging the student
• Sam

  A year one secondary school student with partial vision loss in both eyes
• Sam's condition

  • It is a degenerative condition
  • At the moment Sam does not require a lot of assistive support, except for occasional use of his glass magnifier for small prints
  • He does experience fatigues for prolong reading, looking at computer screen, or under bright lights
• Sam's aspiration

  To become a programmer in the future
• Sam's goal

  To enrol into a programming diploma after his N levels
• The school's AED has arranged a meeting between the AED, the form teacher, and the parents, to discuss the necessary support for Sam
• Reasons for digital magnification software

  1. Using a glass magnifier physically on a screen may distort the light and make it hard to read

  2. Holding a magnifier with one hand while using the computer is also not a practical solution

  3. A magnification software digitally enlarges the visuals on screen, and the magnification can easily be adjusted

  4. Some software also has the feature to invert colours, further improving the readability for some case
• Support plan for Sam during computer lessons

  1. UDL - Providing multiple means of representation: e.g. provide e-text version of textbooks/notes to the student so he/she has the option to listen to the content

  2. UDL - Providing multiple means of action: e.g. providing the magnification software in computers, keyboard with large prints

  3. Accommodation- adjustment to timing and scheduling: e.g. giving extra-time, scheduling breaks in between

  4. Peer assistance - assigning a buddy to partner with the student during computer class
• Evaluating Sam's social integration

  Direct observation for class participation, employ the use of sociogram with the class, student's self-rating or report
• Appraisal of using a human scribe vs speech-to-text software

  1. The appraisal can be done with or without the use of an AT evaluation framework (e.g. SETT)

  2. Considerations: Both the use of a human scribe and speech-to-text software are an adjustment to response, both requires the student to verbalise his thoughts or answers, which means will also require a separate location for the exam to take place, the student's aspiration is to become a programmer, which means long term wise a computer-based solution will potentially have a better benefit, the student has a deuterating condition, so it will not be a bad idea to plan for future-proofed arrangements, such as practising typing without looking, familiarising the accessibility functions on computers, reading printed text with the aid of a magnifier may no longer be sufficient later down the road, prolonged looking at the computer screen can also lead to his fatigue
• A better idea might be to request, where possible, the major exams to be administered through a computer equipped with accessibility functions for the student, and only uses a human scribe for subjects that are difficult to input through a keyboard, e.g. plotting of graphs