Teaching Goals for Students with Special Accommodations
Heather Sanderson
Eastern Connecticut State University
Dr. David Stoloff
April 11, 2018
Many students in our classrooms are going through personal situations that can limit their ability to learn effectively. It is our job as teachers to identify the varied needs of these children and work towards providing them with the support they need to succeed. I have identified the following three areas I would like to focus on to reach these students: making sure socioeconomic status does not interfere with learning, developing relationships with my student’s families, and varying assessment types to reach all students.
Studies have shown “that economic problems, such as low income and financial instability, adversely influence inter-parental and parent/child interactions, which in turn are related to a range of harmful outcomes for childhood development”(Hosokawa and Katsura, 2017, p.2). A way to get out of the cycle of poverty that negatively impacts a child’s development is education. Studies have “found that higher maternal education levels are associated with more supportive parenting, which is also associated with positive cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical child outcomes” (Hosokawa and Katsura, 2017, p.3). I have many students on free and reduced lunch which means they come from a family that is struggling financially. I have been spending more time focusing in on these students while they are working in my classroom to make sure concepts are being understood. I am also making sure these students are going down to the cafeteria at the beginning of school to receive the free breakfast they are provided. I am hoping the extra support and proper nutrition will help my low income students achieve higher education levels than their parents, ensuring the poverty cycle will not continue into the next generation.
A particular group that has been struggling financially is Puerto Rican Woman. According to a 2010 census, “poverty for Puerto Rican woman stood at 27%”, (Toro-Morn and Garcia, 2017, p.22). Hartford Connecticut has the 4th largest Puerto Rican Population in the United States according to 2010 Decennial Census (Toro-Morn and Garcia, 2017, p.22). The socioeconomic numbers for the Puerto Rican woman in Hartford are bleak, their unemployment rate is 23.9%, the cents per dollar they make compared to other woman is .58, and only 6% had a bachelor’s degree or more (Toro-Morn and Garcia, 2017, p.27). Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor grew up in a poor, single mother household and credits affirmative actions for helping her get accepted to Princeton because her Standardized test scores were not as high as others who were accepted to Princeton (Toro-Morn and Garcia, 2017, p.31). I teach at a school 10 minutes from Hartford and have a few students who are from Puerto Rico. Many of these students seem overwhelmed at the rigor of my school’s curriculum compared to the schools they have attended in the past. Now that I am aware of the statistics of this population, I have been diligently encouraging these students to stick with it when they are losing their confidence. I have also been reaching out to their parents to get them involved in their child’s education. I let the parents know what we are working on in class so they can engage with their child at home and further the chances of them being successful with their schoolwork.
Another area where socioeconomic status can negatively impact a student’s education is access to the proper healthcare, in particular their access to proper eye examinations. Statistics show “25% of children suffer from an undiagnosed vision condition” (Gross, 2017, p.57). Sadly, “an estimated 48% of parents with children under the age of 12 have never taken their child to an eye care professional” (Gross, 2017, p. 59). According to Gross, children with uncorrected vision “are often diagnosed as having a learning disability”, “could face legal troubles…one study suggests 70% of juvenile offenders have been found to have uncorrected vision problems” and “could earn up to 12% less income over their lifetime” (Gross, 2017, p.57-58). I have become more vigilant at screening my room for students who are squinting at the board. I then ask the students if they are having trouble seeing the board. Most students have informed me they have glasses but are not wearing them. The ones who do not have glasses have been referred to the nurse for a vision check. I plan on having our school’s social worker contact student’s families who need glasses but have not gotten them to inform them on how they can get free comprehensive eye exams.
To ensure student success it is imperative to build relationships with families. This relationship building can be difficult when there are language barriers. I have shied away from calling parents after I have had an interaction with them where I could not understand them and/or they could not understand me. According to Harry, Wolfe, and Duran “schools often present several barriers to collaboration with CDL [culturally and linguistically diverse] families, including a lack of cultural responsiveness, inappropriate accommodations related to language, insufficient information about team meetings, little respect for familial expertise and contributions, and deficit views of families and children” (Rossetti, Sauer, Bui, & Ou, 2018, p.173). I am determined to reach out to these CDL families and overcome the language barriers. I plan on administering a survey at our open house for parents next year where I will ask what the preferred language of communication is. I will also have this survey available on my Google Classroom for those parents who cannot make it to open house. I will reach out to our Spanish, French, Chinese, and Russian teachers to assist me in those communications with families, if needed. I also plan on getting familiar with Google Translate to assist in communication with parents.
Another area I intend on addressing is how gender differences in the classroom affect student achievement. I teach science which is more of a male dominated field. “Woman who enter college in any of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines exhibit greater attrition then do their male peers, a gap that continues throughout most STEM professions” (Cotner and Ballen, 2017, p.1). It is my goal to make sure the girls in my class have just as much confidence in their science content knowledge as the boys do. Studies have determined that “gender-biased gaps in performance may be explained in full or in part by female susceptibility to stereotype threat, whereby in high-stakes testing situations individuals conform to a perceived stereotype in this example, the stereotype that woman have less capacity to succeed in STEM”(Cotner and Ballen, 2017, p.2). Woman were found to be more successful when “in active learning environments relative to traditional classroom environments” which includes “group work, case studies, modeling exercises, and a diversity of in-class assessment techniques” (Cotner and Ballen, 2017, p.8). Thankfully, the new NGSS curriculum our school has implemented this year decreases the high stakes testing that girls tend to underperform on in favor of modeling, collaborative engineering tasks, and a variety of problem based learning activities which should help the girls in my class gain confidence.
Another interesting study that also seems to show a lack of confidence of woman in STEM is that men actually ask more questions than woman when at science conferences (Hinsley, Sutherland, & Johnston, 2017, p. 1). The study reported that “accounting for audience gender ratio, male attendees asked 1.8 questions for each question asked by a female attendee” (Hinsley et al., 2017, p. 1). It has been found that “the asking of a question is linked to higher levels of self-confidence” (Hinsley et al., 2017, p. 10). Hopefully, with the implementation of the new NGSS Science curriculum, the confidence of my female students will rise, but I also need to encourage them on a daily basis and make sure to call on those girls that do have the confidence to raise their hand.
Another area where girls present differently than boys is with the ADHD diagnosis. Studies show that “although girls, in general, are less likely to exhibit externalizing behavior than boys, when girls with ADHD are compared with girls without ADHD, their risk of developing externalizing problems is equal or even greater than boys with ADHD” (Owens, Zalecki, Gillette, and Hinshaw, 2017, p.724). Some negative outcomes for girls with ADHD include “internalizing problems, externalizing problems, self-injury, educational achievement, occupational attainment, health problems, social impairment, and overall impairment” (Owens, Zalecki et al., 2017, p.732). It was also found that even when the ADHD was not persistent the girls were still at a higher risk for elevated BMI and unplanned pregnancy. I have had many girls in the classroom with diagnosed ADHD and I have to admit they tend to blend right in much more so than the boys with ADHD. I need to be more proactive with my diagnosed ADHD girls with frequent check-ins for understanding and for general well-being.
Varying assessments is a great teaching method to help accommodate many different learning modes. Problem Based Learning assignments in particular have been shown to increase test scores across many different demographics (Sutton and Knuth, 2017). Sammamish High School in Washington, whose school demographics are as follows, 47% white, 5% black, 18% Hispanic, 21% Asian, 8% multiethnic, 38% free/reduced lunch, 12% Special education, 32% students with a first language other than English, 47% children of parents with only a high school education (Sutton and Knuth, 2017, p. 66). This varied population represents the groups that often get left behind by traditional teaching practices. Students given problem based learning projects”learn key content knowledge and cognitive, social-emotional, and democratic skills by solving authentic problems or completing projects that reflect a perceived need in the community” (Sutton and Knuth, 2017, p. 66). After learning through problem based projects the students showed increased test scores on their AP Exams which extended “to all students, regardless of socioeconomic or linguistic status, or special learning needs” (Sutton and Knuth, 2017, p. 70). I plan on creating more problem based learning engineering projects for my classes based on the new NGSS model to engage and improve the science content knowledge of the diverse groups that can sometime struggle learning my content.
Another way I plan on adapting my teaching to reach different groups is to address how differently Asian students learn. My town has a large Asian population, many of which are the first generation in America. From my previous assignments in this course I have learned Asians have a unique axiology and they tend to learn best through a “cyclical and repetitive manner” (Nichols, 2013, p.56). They do not do as well with collaborative learning, but a study done by Gu, Wang, and Mason have found that if Chinese students are given the role of arguer, questioner, or challenger they are more likely to be successful in the group (Gu, Wang, Mason, 2016, p.22). In another study based on physician preference it was found that Asians respond to calm more than they do to excitement which is the opposite of European Americans who prefer excitement (Sims, Koopmann-Holm, Young, Jiang, Fung, Tsai, 2018, p.11). So putting all of these research studies together, to reach my Asian students I must address them with a calm demeanor. When assigning roles within a group, I should have them be in charge of making sure group information is correct. I will also supply them with review sheets that allows for them to test their content knowledge by going over what we have already learned in class, addressing their preference for learning by repetition.
References
Gross, Kristan. (2018). Success in School Tied to Healthy Vision. NJEA Review. 90, 57-60. Retrieved from https://www.njea.org/success-school-tied-healthy-vision/
Gu, X., Wanh, H., & Mason, J. (2017). Are They Thinking Differently: A Cross-Cultural Study on the Relationship of Thinking Styles and Emerging Roles in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 20 (1), 13-24.
Hinsley, Amy, Sutherland, William J, & Johnston, Alison . (2017). Men ask more questions than women at a scientific conference. PLoS ONE, 12(10), E0185534. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185534
Hosokawa, R., & Katsura, T. (2017). A longitudinal study of socioeconomic status, family processes, and child adjustment from preschool until early elementary school: The role of social competence. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 11, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 2017, Vol.11.
Nichols, E.J. (2013). Cultural Competence in America’s Schools: Leadership, Engagement and Understanding. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Owens, E., Zalecki, C., Gillette, P., Hinshaw, S., & Davila, Joanne. (2017). Girls With Childhood ADHD as Adults: Cross-Domain Outcomes by Diagnostic Persistence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 85(7), 723-736.
Rossetti, Z., Sauer, J., Bui, O., & Ou, S. (2017). Developing Collaborative Partnerships with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families during the IEP Process. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 49(5), 328-338.
Sehoya Cotner, & Cissy J Ballen. (2017). Can mixed assessment methods make biology classes more equitable? PLoS ONE, 12(12), E0189610. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189610
Sims, Tamara, Koopmann-Holm, Birgit, Young, Henry R., Jiang, Da, Fung, Helene, Tsai, Jeanne L., (2017). Asian Americans Respond Less Favorably to Excitement (vs. Calm)-Focused Physicians Compared to European Americans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology Vol. 24 No. 1, 1-14. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000171
Sutton, Paul S., Knuth, Randy. (2017). A schoolwide investment in problem-based learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(2), 65-70.
Toro-Morn, M., & Garcia, I. (2017). Gendered Fault Lines: A Demographic Profile of Puerto Rican Women in the United States. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 29(3), 10-35.