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RE: Use of exams.



Martha and Donald;

I have an attention deficit disorder person in my class at present. She
comes to take the tests at the regular time and either sits in the back of
the room facing a corner with earphones or sits in the room next door with
earphones. I tend to give students as much time as they need anyway so this
is not a problem. My student is doing quite well in a calculus based class.
She was extreamly nervous at the begining about my reaction to her spectial
needs but once I made it clear that I was flexible and considered the
important thing to be whether she learned the physics, not how she took the
test she relaxed quite a bit.

Although I see Donald's point in a previous post on reminding students that
they have to recognize they are working in a world that has time
constraints and other restrictions, I think it is important to keep in mind
that it sometimes takes very little effort to make adjustments for people
who are different than us. My experience in teaching for more than 20 years
here in the US and abroad, at high school and university level is that the
percentage of people you have to work at to accomidate is extreamly small.
The key thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of the exercise is to
learn physics. If I can bend my way of doing things so that a student has a
better chance to learn some physics, I'll do it. I am continually surpised
at the payoff for this kind of effort in terms of students who might not
have made it otherwise.

kyle

Two comments:
(1) I have found this policy on make-up exams to work pretty well (announced
on the syllabus)--a fairly liberal willingness to give make-up exams when
students have another test the same day, or must be off campus for something
official like a job interview or sports participation--but they must take
the exam before rather than after the scheduled exam. This cuts down on the
number of students taking make-up exams; it also discourages what I call
"deficit studying".
(2) Although I haven't experienced it myself, I know some teachers have had
to give separate untimed tests for students diagnosed with attention deficit
disorder (mandated by ADA). In many cases this is legitimate, but there is
also the possibility of abuse. Has anyone else had experience with this?
Martha Takats
Physics Department
Ursinus College
Collegeville, PA 19426
mtakats@acad.ursinus.edu

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