111: Differentiation of Special Needs Student

Prompt: One of the key elements of TPA task 2-4 (and a key element of effective teaching) relates to how you differentiate, accomodate and/or modify your teaching to make sure that you systematically meet the special needs students and still make sure that they achieve the expected outcomes of the course. How do you make sure that special needs students meet your UbD outcomes and are successful on their assessments despite their disabilities? What do you need to improve?


I think one of the things that I have realized more and more recently is that I need to find my own 'style' especially in dealing with students outside of the mainstream. When we recently went on a classroom visit to a school at Stanford, the classroom was so open, unregimented and calm. While it did stand in total opposition to the type of teacher that our school site wants us to be, there was also an amazing (and nearly infectious) creative energy going around- the differentiation was incredible too! It really inspired me to step back and re-evaluate the time I am spending with my struggling students. It was such a positive for the children in this classroom-- doing special projects, having additional steps built in to ensure completion of a task (such as having their work 'pre-edited' by a parent, then typed back for them to evaluate themselves), etc. It was definitely apparent that there was a path to success for these students, and there are some critical links missing with my own. While I am not sure how well it would be recieved at our school, I think that a lot of what I read up on in Chapter 2 (movement, wait time, environment, lighting, 'safe space', softer relationships with the students, etc) could potentially really help my strugglers to feel safe with their challenges rather than hiding, averting their eyes, avoiding putting up their hand, etc. I also loved the idea of students learning how to self-monitor their own 'attention level' and having to guide them on how to pay attention- something I majorly lacked in my first semester of teaching. Whereas learning how to be a student came so naturally for other students, I questioned why these few kids couldn't just stay in their chair, keep their eyes on me, etc. Now I see that there were so many other factors in play most likely, that I had not even considered-- emotional/developmental maturity, etc.

There are a few ways that I think I've gotten decent at differentiating this year, or at least have made improvements in the last few months. I am fortunate to have E. in my class-- a student with mild emotional/developmental needs as well as fairly minor academic challenges. Despite his challenges, he is super cooperative, eager to please and really willing to let me try out new tactics on him before moving them onto other students. Communicating with his team of support staff there to help him has really helped me understand some 'small ways' to help my learning disabled students out, and it has made a HUGE difference. For instance, I was able to get an inflatable 'balance' cushion for students to sit on when they are struggling with moving in their chairs, two small rugs to place outside of the classroom carpet for students who need more individual space, and a weighted vest suggested by an Occupational Therapist to help the student regain focus or balance, especially when transitioning from a more physical activity to a more sedate one.

At the same time, there are some pieces I'm definitely missing. While I'm getting better about chants and movements, I still do not do nearly enough (especially not for D, a student with an IEP for speech who is still really struggling with spoken English). I need to work on incorporating this more-- I did just get a set of chants to try out in terms of grammar/vocab building and I'm excited to try these out. There is so much from the two articles that really I'd like to see if I can experiment with this year, to see if it helps me be more effective and find my teaching strategy with those specific lowest students. I often comment that I feel like I've found my teaching style with my 'other 34' but still can't figure out how to reach my lowest six. At this point, anything is worth a try-- be it better lighting, more movement, more sound, rhythms, bell sounds/transition sounds, effacy/personal responsibility individual reporting, etc.

I think that this course should give me a jumping off point to work with those six students-- and I think I'll really be able to devise a plan that more effectively hits their needs. As of now, I have all sorts of extra time blocked into the day for them, which I feel is somewhat taking away from my instruction of other students, but needs to be done because there is such a wide gap in my classroom right now between the 'low kids' and 'everyone else'. Until this gap closes a bit, I feel pretty powerless to help others when some are struggling so very much. However, in reading and thinking about this unit, I think there may be a huge part of me that is approaching my instruction of these students wrong, and perhaps that is really contributing to their lack of success. I plan on revising my plan for these students that I have with the academic dean to reflect some of the things I will come away from this course with.