A focus on curriculum

The term "inclusion" suggests that special-ed children need to be included in regular education classes. Most of the time, children with special needs must have their lessons, tests, quizzes, projects, homework and class work differentiated to accommodate their learning disabilities. This, no doubt, takes an extra level of donning and doffing and planning by teachers.

Then teachers face the challenge of teaching those who do not have "special needs" but have special needs. What I mean is the majority of my students do not read on their grade level. The reading level for my 10th-graders ranges from third to 10th grade.

Teachers find sources and taxonomies to assist with differentiation. Bloom's Taxonomy is a guided classification of thinking with the following levels, from rudimentary to most complex: knowledge (recalling), comprehension (grasping), application (applying), analysis (breaking down information), synthesis (breaking down information and reconstructing it in another form) and evaluation (comprehending two sets of criteria and making a value judgment). This helps teachers plan different levels of work for students and dictates the time it takes to grade the work. It's more time-consuming to grade 70 analysis papers than knowledge tests.