Inclusive Learning 365

 The Pandemic and remote learning have accelerated the release of tech books about education issues. While assistive technology has always been at the forefront of edtech, it's importance seemed consumed by the need for all the students to access learning opportunities. Inclusive Learning 365: Edtech Strategies for Every Day of the Year, by Christopher Bugaj, Karen Janowski, Mike Marotta and Beth Poss addresses meeting the needs of students with disabilities through tech. They also stretch their ideas to show how they can be useful for all students. The book presents each idea as a separate page with an overview, inclusive uses, sample tools, extension ideas, related resources (links to videos and other resources around implementing the idea and standards for students. It is written in a highly readable format. Some ideas are repetitive, I'm not sure how often hashtags are mentioned. Some are old standbys, like audiobooks. Others are insights to extensions from Google or Microsoft that enable a particular feature. 

Reading this book through made clear to me how confusing this could be for students. Last year it became clear how confusing the multiple platforms we were exposing kids to could be. Yes, some of our darlings latched on to anything tech and ran with it.  Many of my students, however, struggled to learn and manage the platforms, needing far more support to utilize the new things that teachers came up with. It made me think of a presentation by a superintendent about the approach they took to working on developing vocabulary for our school, an area identified as a weakness across the board. They taught four strategies across the entire district and then expected the teachers to use those strategies and no others. Because they were taught across the board, once they were taught, students had the tools and teaching related to how to use them was reduced. Focusing on strategies meant that teachers really need to focus their vocabulary development and become aware of the number of words they expected students to learn for each class. While adaptive technology might be novel tools for individual students, coming up with a limited cadre of universal ones seems appropriate. 

I like the idea of being exposed to new skills on a slow rolling basis. Reading the book straight through had me dogearing a couple of pages to refer back to. Even a strategy a day, is probably more than most can incorporate into their schema. That said, having read through the book, I have an idea of where to go when I am trying to figure out how to do something more efficiently. An interesting resource, we'll see how practical some of the ideas are...

Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick

 I've been distracted, so it's taken awhile. Actually I suspect that school has me worn and when I come home I do not want to engage in deep thought or deep reading. I just finished Elizabeth A. Sautter's book Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick! Second Edition. This book is designed as a collection of easily usable strategies for people to use with children from, let's say, preschool through elementary school. As the subtitle suggests it provides "practical activities to help your child manage emotions, navigate social situations & reduce anxiety." Clearly the book targets young people on the spectrum or with social processing concerns.

The book has three parts:

-Introduction which contains a rationale and overview of the text
-Activities which lists hundreds of ideas for meeting the goal of the text
-Appendix which contains reproduceable reproducibles and examples of how to implement some of the ideas. 

After reading the introduction, you can pick and choose where to go from there. Identify an area of concern and look in that section. 

The activity section is a tremendous resource. First it is divided into places/times for each activity. For example, the holiday/special event group includes ideas for Thanksgiving, birthday parties and vacations. Ms. Sautter provides 3-5 idea on a page of ways to help teach your child a skill or manage a situation such as waiting in line and flexible thinking. The ideas are sourced from both Sautter's work and that of some big names in the field such as Sarah Ward, Michelle Garcia Winner, and Rick Lavoie. The format of these pages has each idea in a box. You might copy a page, post it on your refrigerator and use it to remind you to look for times to utilize the idea. On many of the the activity pages are comments about the hidden rules of social situations. These are overarching ideas children may need to be explicitly taught in order to successfully function in society.

An easy to use resource for anyone working with students in this age group. Definitely a good one to have on the shelf.

Inclusive schools in action

 It was on the sale pile and I bought it hoping it would be more strategies to use in consulting teaching. That said, James McLeskey and Nancy L. Waldron's book, Inclusive Schools in Action: Making Differences Ordinary was an easy and interesting read. When I started teaching some three decades ago, inclusion was just starting to appear in my area. People were trying it out to see how to make it work. Now, it is ubiquitous. Every program is mostly inclusive. This text focuses mostly on beginning the implementation of consultant teaching. It discusses the need for staff buy-in and the need to change how we teach. While I believe that my area has embraced the concept, the idea that we then need to change how we teach is still an unmet ideal in many places. People need co-planning time and a willingness to give up control that is just not the norm everywhere. Further, when one special ed teacher works with multiple teacher, co-planning and adjusting prior to instruction is very challenging to impossible.  

The key that the book mentions early on is that inclusive teaching is "improving general education classrooms so that teachers are better equipped to meet the need of all students" (p. 16). We can talk about differentiating instruction and expectations, but all too often that means you have the audiobook version of the text and extended time, that kids rarely use, on test. We have not changed the concept of how we teach.

The chapter on addressing student academic needs was well written. They look at the planning side with a triangle of expectations. 

This creates a plan where it is acknowledged that not all students will or should walk away with the same understanding. I once had a biology teacher who was an expert at this. She knew exactly what the kids needed to know for the end of year gateway test. That is what she focused our CT class on. She presented more than that, but the whole class instruction was centered on the must knows. She was not as strong at then meeting the needs of the most capable students. Trying to meet the needs of all is challenging, but if you can see the spectrum you have it easier.

The author does include a chart copied from Deschenes, and Sprague's 1994 book, Adapting Curriculum & Instruction in Inclusive Classrooms: A Teacher's Desk Reference. It offers many ways to adapt materials to meet the needs of diverse learners. Many of the suggestions are very basic, such as pairing visual and verbal instruction and audiobooks. This is what has led to the inclusive classroom being a place for students to succeed with little changes. Students who need more continue to have their needs addressed in a separate setting. This could be a resource room or special class. While I find a great deal of value in a resource room that can pre-teach, reteach and review material, I find too many of them, especially at the secondary level, are about getting homework and class assignments done, not addressing concepts at all.

A book with some good ideas, but not necessarily addressing the challenges of the school that has gotten over the initial implementation phase of consulting teaching.

The Classroom of Choice

 Jonathan C. Erwin's The Classroom of Choice: Giving Students What They Need and Getting What you Want is a treasure chest of ideas for building choices into a classroom in order to develop social relationships and accountability. One link he makes in the chapter on freedom is that with rights come responsibility. Often students think that being an adult is going to be awesome because you get to do whatever you want. The truth is that yes adults get lots of opportunity to make decisions, but each decision comes with consequences that need to be addressed. He urges schools to step up and make this a reality for students so that as they go out into the world, they are ready to be responsible citizens.

He discusses the requirement for learning of meeting basic needs which he defines as survival (food, shelter, physical comfort and safety), love and belonging, power, freedom and fun. When a classroom is built to ensure that these needs are met, behavior and learning both increase. The class becomes a place where students want to be rather than a place where they are forced to be. For students who have been chronically disengaged or abused, achieving this goal is hard. Establishing routines and consistency is important and surprises minimized. That being said, Erwin acknowledges that novelty has a place in intriguing the mind. There does, however, need to be adequate structure with that novelty. 

The chapter on creating the environment had several points that struck me. He argues that students need to have a voice in the classroom. This can be established through class created rules/constitutions, needs circles to address how to meet student needs, student-generated curriculum, student recognition, specific feedback, celebrations, and recognition. A focus here is on responsible behavior. He states that "responsible behavior is that which enables us to meet our needs without making it more difficult for others to meet their needs" (105) . The whole you rights end where mine begin idea. This would mesh nicely with discussions about the bill of rights. Personalized learning fits nicely in this framework where voice and choice are key features.

Power is another key element he talks about. One way students get power is by having help to achieving competent or better quality work. When students have success, it generates other success. Here he talks about the difference between educating and schooling. Education is "using knowledge and gaining skills that can improve the quality of our lives" whereas schooling is "acquiring skills and memorizing knowledge they will rarely use outside of school" (119). So often students ask when are they ever going to use this. If we can provide concrete examples to students, they are more hooked. This means reading for meaning is so important because that is something that must be done regardless of occupation as opposed to trigonometric proofs which do provide practice in logical reasoning, if taught well, but students often fail to appreciate it. Some of the social studies programs have moved to be more around reading like a historian, that repeat these facts/dates.

The true power of the book lies in its strategies. each chapter is loaded with activities, games and structures that you can use today to enhance your classroom. A great read.

Building Thinking classrooms in mathematics

 For the first time since my children were born, I agreed to teach summer school this year. It was not a true summer school program, just a three week program designed to provide extra support for students who struggled during the school year. The vast majority of the students had IEP's and there was no assigned special ed teacher or aide support. I was assigned an ELA class, but the math teacher for 8th grade expressed a desire for more support and I agreed to help her as well. She was participating a book study of Peter Liljedahl's book, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics Grades K-12 and wanted to try some of his ideas. Consequently, I bought the book, read it and prepared to jump in trying his approach.

The first three things he recommends working with are giving thinking tasks, forming visibly random groups and using vertical, nonpermanent surfaces. Some might say they always use thinking tasks, but all too often that is not true. Just jumping in with thinking tasks in math tends to flop, so he recommends starting with three days of non-curricular tasks. Since we had a total of 12 sessions over three weeks with students not all attending for the entire time, spending one quarter of the time this way, seemed potentially problematic. The plan became: start each day with a noncurricular task and then use thinking tasks later in the same day that were curricular. We also ended with thinking tasks. 

Tasks like how many sevens are there if you write the first 100 numbers, do not require complex math, but do ask students to use critical thinking to explore an idea. Our students were randomly assigned to groups of two or three and a whiteboard or chalkboard space to solve the puzzle. They were required to all be able to explain how they arrived at their answer so that accountability was built in. Students who had spent the school year dodging work and feeling math stupid all had to stand up and work in their groups. Surprisingly, no one dodged work. They all participated and slowly they built some confidence in their ability to do hard math things. No, we did not create a group of master problem solvers, but we did increase their feelings about their personal abilities. One caveat, we had a student from a self contained class and one who spent the year with 1:1 aide support. These students needed extra support to stay on task and participate. They needed prompting to use their calculators to get answers to arithmetic problems. Their peers were not enough to keep them engaged and an aide was secured to help them be successful.

Working at the boards helped students stay engaged, Nearly the entire group had ADHD. Being able to stand and move a bit, met their needs and helped to keep them participating. Being in groups of 2 or 3, meant they could not rely on their group to do all the work for them. Being asked to explain what was done, meant they had to pay attention and verbalize success solutions. With two teachers in the room, we were able to monitor the groups, offer hints as needed and  provide encouragement to continue. I can see where a co-taught class or a large class might make this much more challenging. While some preferred to work with particular people, they good-naturedly  participated in their assigned group. (Using self-selected groups with the same students during ELA showed preferential relationships, but the groups were not consistently productive like they were in math.)

Students liked working on the boards. The vertical surfaces meant that a teacher in the middle of the room could monitor progress, provide help as needed and distribute new tasks as the old ones were accomplished. Curricular task progressions were an important component of the middle of the lesson. We asked students to find slope using a graph where they had to identify points and use rise over run. They practiced with positive slopes, negative ones and a few grappled with slopes of 0. Questioning each group when they arrived at a solution ensured proper notation of work and understanding before a more challenging task was assigned. 

This approach worked for our struggling math students. I would love the opportunity to try it out more with students. I really liked the potential to build math confidence, persistence and problem solving even for our neediest students.

The book is an easy read. He recommends practicing with his steps in a three step sequence. We only practiced the first step. Looking forward to trying this with different groups.

Mindfulness in the classroom

 With the events of the pandemic a more urgent light has been shown on mental health and children. We are thinking about the trauma this experience has brought for students and how we can best help them. If we fail to provide social-emotional security their ability to learn will by significantly impacted. Thomas Armstrong's book, Mindfulness in the Classroom: Strategies for Promoting Concentration, Compassion and Calm, addresses meeting the SEL needs of students. Since the book is a pre-pandemic one, its references are particularly important as doable in ordinary times, not just these extraordinary ones that we find ourselves in now.

Armstrong makes a strong case for addressing the needs of students through secular approaches to mindfulness. References, even unintended ones, are likely to derail the work. Throughout the text he comments on how to approach the activity from a non-religious stance.

Since stress is on the rise in children, it is critical to teach students how to deal with it. As stress increases, people lose their ability to cope with challenges, cortisol interferes with learning. He is careful in advising against using mindfulness as a reactive discipline strategy. Mindfulness chairs that are new names for time out, do not contribute to reduced stress and increased capacity for self-control.

He suggests working to help students become aware of being present, being ok with distractions and being able to redirect their thoughts. His book includes an appendix with many resources for mindfulness ranging from apps, to children's books to training materials and sources. This text is more of a rationale for mindful practice than a how to manual. 

I found it interesting that he talks about mindful breathing. Being still and thinking about breathing. Since we know that physiologically deep breaths relax the body, practicing mindful breathing before stressful situations, like a test or even the beginning of the day, may help students be more successful in school. If we can give students tools to address stress, we are empowering them in future. Life is, after all, stressful at times.

For someone on the fence about mindfulness, this book presents an easy to read explanation of why it might be helpful to kids. It shares how to keep parents aware of what is involved and how to avoid first amendment challenges. A well written book that outlines a program that could greatly impact students.

Strategies to engage the mind of the learner

 I just finished reading a book that I discovered on a shelf at school, Strategies to Engage the Mind of the Learner: Building Strategic Learners: Volume 2, second edition, by Rachel Billymeyer. The majority of the book is an overview of strategies. They are grouped into categories: opening strategies, vocabulary development, literacy strategies for narrative and informational texts, questioning strategies, graphic organizers, information building strategies, discussion strategies, grouping and energizing strategies, reflection strategies and closing strategies. While many of the strategies are oldies but goodies, like the KWL chart and semantic mapping, some were more novel to me.

One strategy I found interesting was Chat and Go Questions. Groups of four work together. They each draw a question and share an answer with their group. Group members can ask questions of the person sharing for more clarity or further details. The author includes a fabulous list of possible questions such as 

• What are the high points of interest within the selection for you?
• How were the characters depicted in the selection? What are your impressions about them?
• In what ways is this selection similar/different to what you usually read? (p. 133-5)

This list could be used for a variety of activities. The open ended nature of the questions leads to good conversation. Other strategies throughout the test also include great sentence starters as well.

What struck me as I read through the strategies was the way so many relied on skills of summarization and paraphrasing. Having worked on paraphrasing with my seventh graders this spring, I was reminded of how difficult this skill is. Students struggle with putting things in their own words. I have walked students through restating a claim, and I think they would benefit from a more structured approach. Jeff Anderson talked about teaching students to combine sentences, a critical skill when it comes to summarizing. We talk about rules of summarizing being:

• include only important information
• combine ideas
• add connective words for clarity and coherence, 
• use category terms instead of a list of words
• do not include your opinion, quotes, or what the author "should" have said. (p.113)

Practice with each step is important. When we combine them into one group to use, we often do not give students enough practice. 

One important thing that Billymeyer includes is a plan for teaching a strategy. She suggests introducing the strategy with the reason for using it. Then use a traditional Hunteresque approach, demonstrate the strategy, participate in a we do with the strategy then have students do independent practice with it. Of critical importance is the idea that students need multiple opportunities to practice the strategy in order to internalize it.