Curriculum and Instruction
Domain 2: Curriculum and Instruction
This domain tests instructional design for students with mild to moderate disabilities: evidence-based methods, access to the general curriculum, and the difference between accommodations and modifications. Items often ask what to change when a student is not progressing.
Core rules
- Specially designed instruction (SDI) is the core of special education: adapting content, methodology, or delivery to meet IEP goals. It is more than placing a student in general education.
- Accommodations change how a student learns or is assessed; modifications change what the student is expected to learn or the performance standard. A calculator on a math facts test can be a modification because it alters the construct.
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) calls for multiple means of representation, action and expression, and engagement. It is proactive design, not reteaching after failure.
- Explicit instruction follows a model-lead-test sequence: state the objective, model with clear examples, guide practice with feedback, then require independent practice.
- Reading instruction should target phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Math often uses a concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) sequence. Writing benefits from explicit strategy instruction and self-regulation.
Worked example
A student with dyscalculia cannot reliably subtract multidigit numbers. The IEP goal targets regrouping. The teacher begins with base-ten blocks, then drawings, then the written algorithm, and provides graph paper to align columns. The graph paper is an accommodation because it does not change the math being tested. A calculator would change the construct if the goal is computation, so it is not an appropriate default accommodation for that goal.
Traps that cost marks
Do not call a reduced reading level on a content test an accommodation when it changes the content standard. Do not use UDL as a synonym for technology. Do not confuse SDI with generic good teaching or with testing accommodations.