One of the most essential equity issues that exists in a heterogeneously grouped, full-inclusion classroom is the need to meet the IEP accommodations of those students with learning disabilities. These accommodations may include varying modes of presentation of information, availability of class notes and materials, and the use of written resources for summarizing main points of text and/or presentations.
In order to communicate classroom events and assignments in a multi-modal manner, I am sure to see to it that all essential information is provided verbally at the beginning of each class, visually on the homework section of my classroom whiteboard, and on my teacher QUIA website. In doing so, I meet many of the accommodations of the IEP students in my classroom, as well as the different learners, with regards to multiple modes of conveying information. Below is a link to my QUIA teacher website – please see the homework assignment and test information sections as examples of this point.
MY QUIA TEACHER WEBSITE - Use your browser's back arrow to return to this page
Another way to promote equity in the classroom is to differentiate instruction to address multiple learning styles and abilities/disabilities of the students. In the beginning of my unit on astronomy, I introduce the students to cosmology – the study of the size, structure, and behavior of the universe. I do this via a lecture and PowerPoint. The topic is heady, and many questions arise, so it can be difficult for some students to keep pace. In recognition of this, I provide four additional resources so that all learners are able to access the information at their own pace. One is that I post the PowerPoint on my website, so students can review it after class if necessary. A link to the PowerPoint is below:
SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE POWERPOINT
Secondly, I provide word-processed printed lecture notes so that now students, while viewing the PowerPoint during class, can access the content on visual , textual and verbal levels, so that multiple senses and learning styles are being engaged. The printed lecture notes are linked below:
SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE LECTURE NOTES
c. I also produce a “summary sheet” for students to complete as they view the PowerPoint. The questions on this sheet distill the presentation down to its essential points, and serve as a review and study resource. The summary sheet is linked below:
SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE LECTURE/PPT SUMMARY SHEET
Finally, for some students, these resources are not enough for them to accurately recall my explanations and descriptions of the content of the PowerPoint, as the topic is very abstract for grade 8 students. For these learners, I have recorded a Photostory of myself delivering the lecture and slideshow. The Photostory integrates verbal, visual, and textual information on the screen simultaneously, which addressed yet another population of learning styles, and is available on my website for on–demand review by my students at any time. A link to the Photostory is below:
PHOTOSTORY: SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE MUTIMEDIA LECTURE
I often teach students with mathematical learning disabilities, and my class includes many topics which integrate math to a significant degree. For this purpose, I have developed and utilized PowerPoints that serve as both skill-building tutorials to guide them through the process of acquiring mathematical skills and procedures, and for use as remedial materials for IEP students to use as guides to facilitate their completion of problem sets, and to review their work. Linked below are two such “tutorial” PowerPoint presentations. The first walks students step-by-step through the process of dimensional analysis (or “unit conversions”); the second shows the steps performed in calculating the average atomic mass of an element.
DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS TUTORIAL POWERPOINT
CALCULATING ATOMIC MASS TUTORIAL POWERPOINT
Finally, some IEP as well as mainstream ed students require instantaneous feedback when working on problem-based assignments, and require repetition to attain mastery. The use of QUIA-based assignments, hosted on my teacher website, allows me to provide these supportive structures to such students. QUIA assignments allow the teacher to choose to, upon the completion of an assignment, show students not only the correct answers (if the instructor so chooses), but also teacher-developed feedback for use by students to recognize errors and to show the correct way to address a problem. Both of these pieces of data can be effective in improving student comprehension and performance, especially for students that require a higher degree of prompting to recognize errors or proper procedures. Examples of these QUIA-based assignments are linked below:
CHEMICAL FORMULAE PROBLEMS ASSIGNMENT "S" - Use your browser's back arrow to return to this page
ELEMENTS COMPOUNDS AND MIXTURES PROBLEMS - Use your browser's back arrow to return to this page
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