Assignment:
Discussion: Curriculum Barrier Case Study
Robert, a 9th grader, is very popular because of his wonderful sense of humor, his respect for teachers, and his expertise in military vehicles. Robert also happens to have Spina Bifida, which confines him to a motorized wheelchair due to his limited mobility and limb strength. His disability negatively impacts his access to reading materials because of the motor coordination it takes to hold a book. Robert is fully included in the general education classroom but struggles to keep up with grade-level reading and written assignments.
The 9th grade social studies teacher is beginning a history unit specifically on the Civil War and has asked you to help evaluate the elements of this unit in regard to Robert's strengths, areas of need, level of readiness, barriers that will impact his learning, as well as differentiated instruction strategies and instructional technology to overcome those barriers.
Your peer, the 9th grade social studies teacher, has provided you with the unit elements, requirements and Robert's characteristics.
Unit Elements & Requirements
• Subject Matter: Civil War (events leading up to, the event, event outcome)
• Group Discussions
• Workbook/ Worksheet & Textbook Reading
• Videos
• Written Homework Assignments
• Summative Unit Assessment
Student Characteristics
• Loves military vehicles
• Good sense of humor
• Respectful
• Auditory Learner
• Logical/ Mathematical Thinker
• Limited Mobility
• Limited motor coordination
• Can use a computer but due to limitations, slow typist
DISCUSSION QUESTION: Using this Case Study information and past discussions you have had with this teacher:
1. Provide a list of at least two differentiated instruction strategies and two instructional technologies to overcome those barriers specific to this unit plan.
2. Explain how each instruction strategy and instructional technology device fit into the TPACK framework.
3. Explain how safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including the respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources will be incorporated into the lesson.
4. Provide additional webpages, journal articles, and videos that the teacher can also use for future reference (cited in APA formatting).
Introduction
You will:
1. Apply a range of differentiated instructional strategies and assessments in a diverse learning environment.
2. Design classroom scenarios integrating best practice for digital technology and differentiated instruction.
3. Facilitate technology in differentiated learning community that respects information about students' individual differences.
You are now equipped with differentiated instruction theoretical underpinnings that you can use to create a physical and academic environment, which embraces various learning modalities, is free of cultural bias, and engages learners at their level of readiness. In this final week of class, you will analyze authentic situations and suggest teaching strategies that include differentiation, Universal Design for Learning, and education technology tools to best meet students' learning needs.
Discussion Board
As you have learned, the concept behind differentiated instruction is rather straight forward: vary instruction to meet individual student needs, including pacing, content delivery methods, real-world examples and high-interest application, and self-expression of subject mastery. When differentiating curriculum and class instruction for students with a disability, the same components apply. Keep in mind that getting to know the student's learning styles is key to their success. For example, students with autism typically have sensory integration disorder which they can either listen to instruction or watch instruction.
In this case, knowing your student is a visual learner will help you to differentiate instruction accordingly. Another idea on which to build for students with a disability, and really ALL students, is to move away from pencil/pen, paper, and textbooks, and on to other sensory regions. Studies show that information is processed in different areas of the brain depending on the input source such as visual, auditory, music, and olfactory (Royet et al., 2000); therefore, using a multisensory approach to instruction is a more effective method of curriculum delivery. However, there are also competing theories about how students learn (Riener & Willingham, 2010).
For specific links and examples check out the following resources:
• ISTE Standards: Teachers
• What is Multisensory Teaching Techniques? (Praveen, n.d.)
Assignment
To get started on assignment, please review this video (Nesbitt, 2007) about the range of student needs and interests in K-12 environments.
Any time you can incorporate tablets, Smartphones, computers, or even graphing calculators into your lesson plan, students will be hooked; however, it is essential that before any instructional technology is used as a teaching tool, students know the basics of copyright protection, intellectual property, and proper citation and documentation for cited sources.
Let's start with a video (YouTube Spotlight, 2011) discussing copyright and fair use:
There are many free resources available to teachers on copyright protections laws and fair use. For example, Teaching Copyright (Electronic Frontier Foundation, n.d.) provides lesson plans, handouts, and a link to national standards.
Students also need to be aware of intellectual property and proper citations. According to the Street Law (2013), intellectual property refers to copyrighted material, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. Students who violate any of these areas of protected information are subjected to legal consequence of varying degrees depending on the severity. To help students clearly understand each of the four safeguarded domains, they created the "Educating to Protect Intellectual Property" online toolkit for teachers that include definitions, lesson plans, case studies, and additional resources to use in their classes. Additional tools you can provide for your students to use at home are found within many college courses. One particularly useful website is the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (Purdue University, 2014), to which all Ashford students have been directed. It is an extremely helpful website for creating proper attribution of others' ideas.
References
Ashford University. (n.d.). APA key elements.
Fayne, H., Weiss, A. (2014) Incorporating multisensory approaches in the secondary general education classroom.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). ISTE Standards: Teachers.
Nesbitt, B. (2007, November 28). A Vision of K-12 Students Today
Praveen, A. (n.d.). What is multisensory teaching techniques?
Riener, C. & Willingham, D. (2010). The myth of learning styles. Change Magazine, Sept/Oct 2010, 33-35.
Royet, J-P., Zald, D., Versace, R., Costes, N., Lavenne, R., Koenig, O., & Gervais, R. (2000). Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant olfactory, visual, and auditory stimuli: A positron emission tomography study. The journal of neuroscience 20(20), 7752-7759.
YouTube Spotlight. (2011, March 24). YouTube copyright school
Required Resources
Articles
Fee, L. (n.d.). Leveraging technology to differentiate instruction.
Hackett, N., & Hasty, E. (2012, March). Differentiated instruction: How to ensure success for all students.
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (n.d.). Focus on effectiveness: Education challenges.
Multimedia
Edutopia. (2012, June 11). Differentiating Instruction Through Interactive Games (Tech2Learn Series).
TPACK
Recommended Resources
Articles
Lamb, A. (2003, January). Ready, set, what's missing? Success through differentiation & technology.
Los Angeles Unified School District. (n.d.). Steps to provide differentiated instruction.
Website
Common Core State Standards