Assessment 2: Case study on differentiation (critical task)

Assessment type: Case study response and plan

Individual/group assessment: Individual 

Word count/time limit: 2,000 words

Weighting: 50%

Assessment description 

This assessment requires you to critically analyse the bio-ecological context of one of four case study students in the provided hypothetical scenarios. You will use this analysis to set SMART targets and plan successful inclusion strategies. This will include differentiated teaching, learning, and assessment planning, and strategies for how to provide support for their participation and achievement in learning activities.  

The task has three sections. Section 1 involves creating an extended biography of the chosen student. Section 2 is the student as a learner and their situation within the broad education context. Section 3 is for specific goal setting and an appraisal of how SMART goals sit within inclusive practice. 

Assessment details

The task is divided into 3 sections: 

Section 1.

Section 2A and 2B.

Section 3A and 3B.

Section 1: Extended biography (200 words)

Choose one focus student from the profiles provided:

Extend this content to create an informed biography about the student’s schooling, family and home life, friends, after school activities, adult life ambitions and learning needs. You are welcome to include maps, images of school, parklands, recreational events to help contextualise the biography.

Section 2A: The student as a learner (500 words)

Research to gather more detail about their home life, their schooling situation and how the disability impacts their day-to-day lived experience of the world. 

Describe the student as a learner and their specific home, school and disability condition.

Identify the student’s strengths and barriers to learning.

Analyse the demographic and academic context.

Section 2B: The student and broad education context (800 words)

Identify relevant and contemporary Australian legislation that protects and supports the student’s access, participation, inclusion, and learning.

Explain strategies for how you would work collaboratively across contexts with parents/care givers and other education and medical professionals.

Identify ongoing professional learning that currently exists to support the engagement, learning, and success of students with disability in inclusive contexts.

Section 3A: Specific goal setting with SMART goals (400 words)

Define and explain SMART goals.

Use the Smart goal template given to

plan and design 

three

 SMART learning outcomes to overcome barriers to learning for the selected student. Outline differentiated teaching strategies to support your student’s needs, assess their progress of the SMART outcomes in an inclusive practice classroom. 

Section 3B: Appraisal of inclusive practice (300 words)

In terms of your student, analyse the broader implications of disability, inclusive learning strategies, and the teachers’ responsibilities and duty of care to meet these needs.

In terms of your selected student, explain how schools can provide high-quality inclusive education for students with disability and better align whole school support and educational adjustments.  

Supporting resources:

Teaching social behaviors: what do teachers need to know about teaching social behaviors? (PDF, 468KB) (Progress Center, 2021).

Developing a Multi-Tiered System of Support-Based Plan for Bullying Prevention Among Students with Disabilities: Perspectives from General and Special Education Teachers During Professional Development (Robinson et al., 2023).

Student profiles:

Assessment 2 Student profiles

Each student profile contains a link to an article that has informed the student profile. While the names in the article/student profile may be different, the article can be used to develop and expand information for your selected student. Include the article in your reference list and it may be used (Author/date) as an intext reference.

Student 1: Raf

Raf is in in Year 6 in an inner-city State High School. Raf has average academic skills, interested in the Pre-Raphaelite artists and represents the school in basketball at Zone and Regional level. The coach is convinced that with further after-school coaching, weekend matches that Raf could become a state representative and should be aiming to apply for a sports scholarship at the Institute of Sport. Raf’s father is an itinerant worker and when he is away Raf takes on the care of her mother who has a chronic debilitating disease. Since Year 7 especially Raf has juggled care for her mother, academic work and the increased after-school training sessions. It is leading to increasing anxiety about school and home responsibilities symptomized by insomnia and control of food intake.

Study reveals plight of child carers (Hill, 2007).

Student 2: Maxi

Maxi is a Year 4 student at an inner city state primary school (just around the corner allowing Maxi to walk to/from school), lives at home with parents (medical professionals at the large inner city hospital) and a 4-year-old brother. Maxi has a congenital hearing impairment caused by mother becoming infected with cytomegalovirus during pregnancy. Maxi’s parents are keen that AUSLAN be not only taught but, become the preferred mode of communication and have requested the school liaise with the state’s Deaf Society to increase once-a week visit from the hearing advisory teacher. Maxi also uses assistive and communicative technologies at home and these are suggested for classroom use as well. Maxi’s academic skills and interests are average for a Year 3 student. Maxi enjoys gardening when visiting their grandparents at the weekend.

Deaf children falling behind as specialist teacher numbers fall (Skopeliti, 2022).

Student 3: Alex

Alex is in Year 6 student at Our Lady of the Sacred Grounds, Beechton, south-west of Melbourne. Alex, diagnosed with moderate intellectual disability from Downs’ Syndrome enjoys building houses from any found material (more craft than engineering). Although Alex is a friendly student, it is a concern for the parents who have asked the school and classroom teacher to begin and continue Protective Behaviours program. Their concern is that when Alex becomes overwhelmed, Alex’s speech becomes more incoherent and slurred, and thus difficult to understand. He is a friendly student and mostly enjoys school but can get overwhelmed at times when he has difficulty communicating. Alex is an only child of a widower who works part-time at Skipton’s Timber Yard. Alex receives speech therapy twice a week. Although Alex is eligible to attend a Special School, it is not a consideration for the father.

My son has Down’s syndrome – and he belongs in a mainstream school (Phillips, 2018).

Student 4: Mally

Mally, now in Year 8 at a large Catholic High School, north-west of Fremantle has not met academic benchmarks since beginning school. Last year there was a confrontation when the parents refused to have Mally assessed as the school counsellor suggested Mally may have Autism Spectrum Disorder. Mally’s parents want an appropriate, whole-of-life, inclusive practice education without any labelling. Mally is mostly compliant, except when bullied or teased, has adequate sport/PE skills, avoids Maths work, attempts most literacy/English activities and enjoys talking about weather patterns of WA and climate change. Mally wants to become a weather broadcaster and makes small video clips with three neighbourhood friends. In general, Mally doesn’t care about academics or school. The teachers react to the diffidence and the parent’s demands.  

‘I was different, not broken’: how my autism diagnosis changed my life (Thom-Jones, 2022).