Friday, May 15, 2009

AAT: Breaking Barriers

Today's classrooms are full of students with a multitude of learning styles. Some learn better through hands on activities while others may be verbal, logical, or naturalistic learners (to name a few). Then there are some students who require special services and instruments to perform tasks that they would otherwise be unable to complete or experience a great deal of difficulty in trying to do so.

As a teacher, your job is to educate each child to the greatest extent and ensure each student is afforded an equal opportunity to learn and contribute. In order to do so, our lesson plans should include the appropriate modifications which will allow our students with disabilities to meet the objectives; however, before we can incorporate modifications, we must first analyze our learners. Who are we teaching and what, if any, types of disabilities do our students have? What modifications are listed in their cumulative folders? After identifying who our learners are, we can list our objectives.

Objectives must me measurable and attainable by all students. In my one of my classes, I have a student who has a degenerative hearing impairment. He refuses to wear his hearing aide because doesn't want to appear different so I need to include certain instruments in my lesson to ensure he gets the optimum learning experience as would any other student without his disability. In addition to having him sit closer to the front, he is provided with a lap top, headphones, and a copy of my (PowerPoint) presentation with audio inserted into each slide. All he has to do then is look up to see what slide I'm on and then click on the respective slide on his screen as well as the audio icon.

There are times, however, when he does not want to use the laptop and headphones so I provide him with a mini audio recorder. He is able to play back my lecture and our class discussions in the privacy of his own home.

Revised lesson plans should contain the same objectives and evaluation but they may differ in the media/technology, method of delivery, and assessment. In other words, all students are being held to the same academic standard; however, modifications are made in order to allow all students to participate and contribute equally.

Without adaptive/assistive technology, many students would be segregated from our mainstreamed classrooms and discriminated against without being given the chance to succeed like everyone else. Students with disabilities may start to feel inferior and insignificant. As educators, we are supposed to help build our students independence and teach them how to adjust to the society in which they live in.

Lesson plans that include participation of disabled students should not be optional or something that we do to be commended for. The inclusion of all students despite their disabilities should be a standard and code of ethic that all teachers live by. Without such lesson plans, many of our students will never know the feeling of success nor would they be able to appreciate the pursuit of knowledge in the same light as other students without disabilities. Moreover, without such lesson plans, students with disabilities may undoubtedly lose confidence in themselves and have lower self esteem than their peers.

At the end of each lesson, the effective teacher needs to go back and reflect on the lesson plan itself. Did it work? If not, what went wrong? What could the teacher have done to improve the lesson plan or make it more accommodating to all learner styles? More importantly, go back to the objectives and figure out whether or not they were met. Were students indeed able to do what you said they should be able to do after completing the lesson? If not, you need to reflect on what should be done to accommodate students with disabilities.

Teachers need to help our students break the barriers by incorporating all appropriate and necessary adaptive/assistive technology into their classrooms so that every child will have the opportunity to build their independence and become successful members of society.

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