Module Six

Reading One

In this module you will collect, develop or create interventions that support good discipline and student development.

It is easy to get caught in the trap of reacting to challenges from students.

It is not unusual for students to wear down our resilience, and soon have us using the same somewhat useful responses when a much larger array of tools would support a sense of safety and help the student make academic as well as social and emotional progress.

Once in the classroom, under pressure, working with all your heart and mind, those creative solutions can slip away. For this module, stop and develop a series of tools from different approaches and philosophies so you have a stockpile. Then when challenged, feeling weary or uncertain about what you might do with a student, you can go to the file, flip through these ideas, and your excitement is likely to return.

These can also help colleagues and administrators if you are thorough in your work.

Here are sample directions on what you might do.

• Set up a system for collecting interventions, methods and materials to facilitate teaching.
• You will need 25 separate strategies or interventions for students at-risk.
• You will collect or develop another 25 strategies for students who show signs of more severe behavioral, social or learning issues.
• Categorize the strategies and interventions by type of activity and most appropriate use.
• The following didactic may help you to organize the strategy and catalogue it for use in the classroom.

 Don’t like doing that? Choose your own system. The instructor just wants you to stockpile a large number of options. How you write them up or organize them is up to you.

Remember as you collect and develop these, no matter how many ways we adapt learning activities, the critical piece is to do what is best for the student .

The STUDENT is the CRITICAL PIECE.

The teacher is important

Content is important,

Assessment scores are important

The community of learners is important

Parents and their perceptions are important

The law and regulations are important

but the student is the critical piece.

Here are some examples of modifications. They do not fit the sing model, but they are a good starting place for supporting learning when youngsters have difficulty with math.

• When a child says "NO" find out why.
• When a student says "I CAN'T", believe him or her and back up to the place where success can occur..
• When a student expresses discouragement, go beyond encouraging and listen to what the child wants to explain.
• If a skill eludes a student, try the following:
• Link math instruction to the student's current conceptual understanding.
• Give students problems that pertain to their own lives.
• Teach word problems as games and have students develop their own rather than solving preset ones.
• Concentrate on the success and what is going well.
• Allow students to find personal methods for solving math problems and then allow them to teach the tricks to other students.
• Encourage students to use manipulatives, calculators, computer games to enhance depth and rate of learning.
• Find ways to generalize math operations to current, every day use of the skills.

Adapting for Auditory Learners

i. Be certain to explain the directions orally before having student begin to work

ii. Provide a verbal summary of each step.

iii. During the activity, use key words to focus the student's attention to upcoming tasks, for example, "Now watch."

iv. Allow students to discuss the work as it progresses; to ask peers questions, to share insights, to provide help to one another verbally. [Sometimes you can tell who these students are by watching who "buzzes" as soon as instructions are given -- since these students often turn to others to get a repetition of directions or to say out lout - self talk - what the instructions seem to be].

Adapting for Visual Learners

i. Use concrete manipulatives or demonstrations and modeling to show students what they will need to do.

ii. Have students practice what they observed.

iii. Use mental pictures to punctuate verbal instructions.

iv. Consider using nonverbal signs to move the pace of the lesson along or as an aide to transitions in the lesson.

v. When possible, make picture cue cards or overheads showing the sequence of tasks. Use pictures and graphs to explain processes.

Adapting for Kinesthetic Learners

i. Expect students to gain insight from using manipulatives.

ii. Discuss (two-way talk) what the student is finding and extend learning by modeling some of the outcomes when a student is stumped.

iii. Pair the student with others who learn through touch and let them work in cooperative groupings, sharing insights.

iv. Use a number of different mediums for learning - rods, blocks, puzzles, glitter, food, so the student generalizes the concepts rather than identifying learning with one setting. ( Adapted from Mercer and Mercer, 1988)

Now --- off to Activity One. You are about to start your own files and complement of tools.