Ability

What does a classroom look like in support of neurodiversity?

It is best practice in education to be mindful and to exercise pedagogy that involves, challenges, and meaningfully engages all students. In education, it is common to come across challenges in both elementary and secondary school settings, as learning support teachers (special education) are often confronted with disconnect from students who may need additional support. That is why working as a school-based team (the classroom teacher, learning support teacher, and families), is an effective strategy to provide consistency in assessing, problem-solving, and developing:

Appropriate programming

Individualized support plans and/or goal(s)

Adapted curricular and core competency goal(s) to meet expected learning standards

What do student abilities look like in a classroom for both neurotypical and neurodivergent students?

Taking the time to review class composition is crucial in preparation for an inclusive, engaging, and thoughtful classroom community. Neurodivergent students vary in their abilities and in intellectual, cognitive, and/or physical development. Critically and empathically thinking about what a classroom looks like, feels like, how it is set up, is the very first step towards considering success for all students abilities.

  • What is accessible in the classroom?

  • Are there supplemental resources available?

  • Do spaces in the classroom promote core competencies in independence and self-advocacy?

  • What spaces in the classroom can be made for students to approach their learning? (stations, posters, visuals)

What does preference and communication look like in an inclusive classroom?

  • Frequently review and discuss differences in processing, thinking, and completion of tasks in the classroom (Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Glasgow, 2021).

  • Go over classroom expectations and what inclusivity and group work looks like (modelling)

  • Be aware of preferences of students when partaking in role-play/group activities, assigning tasks and roles to students (Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Glasgow, 2021).

One of my favourite strategies is to reflect on a recent lesson that you thought went successfully. Then think about what aspects of the lesson went well and what adjustments you would make in the next lesson pertaining student responsibilities, participation, and self-expression.

What are CBIEPs?

Core Competency-based Individualized Education Plan (IEP)

  • Provides detailed strategies for student(s) to meet curricular and core competency goal(s)

  • It is a living document that is renewed, reviewed, and updated twice every year until K- grade 12 (dependent on when student is assigned designation(s)

  • Designed accommodations for student(s) to successfully approach and proficiently meet goals (Moore, 2020).

  • Provides evidence in students' progress, baseline

  • Provides support on what inclusion for the student looks like and how to better individualize their education (Moore, 2020).

How does an IEP prepare your classroom for neurodivergent students: (practical strategies)

  • Review students' IEPs

  • Do your best to connect to the student's learning support teacher during the first few weeks of September (LST)

  • During your meeting - openly discuss about your concerns, classroom style, questions you may have about students' successes

  • Decide on which IEP curricular goal(s) you would prioritize/strategize for the student to meet course expectations

  • Think about what supports, adaptations, and/or accommodations will be made for your student(s) in correlation to their specific IEP goal(s)

  • Meet with the student(s) prior to mid-semester as a team, to frontload course expectations, units, major assignments/projects/assessments, and how the both of you will be working with the LST throughout the course for supports

How does student preference align with Core Competencies?

Most importantly, we need to presume competence in all students (Biklen, D. et al., 2006). The significance of presuming that students can proficiently meet expectations of tasks and learning standards, is the very first step towards inclusive education. An open mind can assist with providing opportunity for students to self-express authentic learning by connecting with subject-specific areas of learning. (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2022).

What UDL supports look like:

Choice, adaptations, modifications, formats, modes, visuals


How can we best support our students in their learning and personal growth with UDL guidelines?

In other words, a classroom is exercising Universal Design for Learning (UDL) when teachers provide options for: (CAST, 2018).


MEANS OF ENGAGEMENT IN UDL


  • Recruiting Interest

By enabling students with preference and with clear communication, students can merge their abilities to meet areas of learning. Alongside, practicing the core competencies of creative and critical thinking. Their creative and critical process will be accounted for as their participation would be facilitated (Roffey, S., 2013).

  • Sustaining Effort & Persistence

Vary demands (CAST, 2018) for students so that you can differentiate the level of difficulty for neurodivergent students. As long as all students are able to meet core requirements and complete expected activities, students are putting in the effort and demonstrating their learning.

  • Self-regulation

Neurodivergent students progress and regress unexpectedly, despite differentiation in expected tasks and inclusion in the classroom. Dysregulation in behaviours and emotions may occur in the classroom. I've always found it essential to facilitate coping skills and strategies (CAST, 2018), so that students can learn how to self-regulate and to re-approach tasks with calmness and target challenges in chunks.

REPRESENTATION IN UDL

All of these strategies help the practitioner think about what is it that they are trying to assess? What skills and standards are we focusing on to enable students in self-expression, inquiry, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving!

Here are a few examples of my students finding confidence in their learning, and customizing a display of information (CAST, 2018). I often find that students can be stimulated by certain activities, projects, and/or tools used to create their final product! It is a trial and error process, but what has helped me be part of my students' progress, is that I set up consultation time with my students. It is one-on-one, the student and I would brainstorm, I would ask interview-like questions to further expand their thinking and ideas, and discuss what possible ed tech/apps/programs/resources that they could use to mold their final product together!


Inclusive education, a supportive, and empathetic classroom that provides UDL approaches, takes a lot of work! But...

  • working with a LST/reviewing CBIEPs

  • communicating with families and students

  • providing differentiation in activities and tasks

  • breaking down curricular and core competency goals

  • chunking ideas

can help you with your process to create a meaningful way of personalized learning for your students!

Self regulation:

One of my students had a hard time designing a gaming app, so I suggested the student to reflect on what she enjoyed about coding. She said Ms. Y. So she made a talking burger that conjoined and represented her interest in coding and a meaningful relationship she had with myself. This process of guidance allowed for creative thinking and self regulation.

Perception:

My grade 4/5 class really enjoyed playing MineCraft. I decided to make coding more approachable by merging MineCraft Education and Code.org for one of my coding units. Students were able to perceive coding with openness as they were able to apply previous knowledge in gaming and process with the function of coding within their learning objectives.

Expression and Communication:

My grade 4/5 class were able to celebrate and discover their Tinkercad 3D printing projects with their peers. We created 3 meaningful objects related to family, Greek architecture, and place-based objects. The gallery walk was a form of gratitude and expression promoted peer communication and team work when discussing about techniques.

Recruiting Interest:

I did my best to facilitate choice as often students did not want to complete lesson-to-lesson learning. So I decided to promote interest by allowing students to tackle inquiry-based Arduino projects that they could complete on our hub using Edmodo, an online classroom platform.

References