Lose the Lecture, Lady!

How many of you have sat through a class where the teacher stood in front of the room the entire class and lectured; giving you page after page of notes?  I know I have and from experience, it made me dread school!  I had the chance to browse Paula Kluth's website and I stumbled upon an article titled "Don't Lecture Me: 5 Ways to Keep Whole Class Instruction Active and Memorable".  Let me tell you, I wish my teachers had read this article because I think it would have done a world of difference when it came to students participating and just being coherent during their lessons.  As I read through the article, however, I realized that in some cases, it is actually GOOD to lecture.


"A common misconception teachers have is that lecturing or whole class instruction is discouraged in the differentiated classroom. While it is true that these formats should not be the centerpiece of classroom instruction, lectures and whole class lesson delivery certainly have a place in the diverse, inclusive classroom. It is important to realize, however, that in order to reach different types of learners, teachers may need to be choosey about how and when to use lecture techniques and may want to explore a range of strategies for keeping this traditional form of instruction lively, engaging, and comprehensible."

Paula Kluth gives some insightful tips for teacher to incorporate other means of teaching besides the traditional lecture.  Sure, lecturing is good, but what is even better is to allow time for other forms of teaching besides having the teacher talk the whole time.  Kluth suggests sharing the stage with students.  Whether the student is at their seat or in the front of the classroom, let a student facilitate a discussion.  With a student leading a discussion, it will get the ball rolling for students to begin thinking critically about an issue and it will also help them make connections between an event in their life and the lesson.  Another helpful tip is to get the students moving!  We all know that if we sit for too long, our eyes get heavy and all the blood flows to our bottom.  Think of activities that you can implement into your lesson that will get the students up out of their seats and moving about the room. 

Multi-Modal Madness

Podcasts, blogs, twitter, and digital videos are all examples of multi-modal techniques that can be used within general education and special education classrooms to teach literacy.  Before taking a graduate course on the different techniques that have been developed to accommodate students within the classroom, I had absolutely no experience with several of these techniques that the professor had introduced to us in class and found it challenging to begin using these means of communication and expression. I had never been exposed to them.  Despite the initial struggles I encountered, I found myself enjoying exploring and learning about these forms of literacy and actually  being able to complete assignments by creating my own podcasts and setting up my own blogsite.  I have discovered that using these means of multi-modality not only will benefit students without disablilties, but it will benefit students with severe disabilitities by giving these students the capability to do be complete activities that are done in the general education classrooms.  These accommodations set these students with severe disabilities apart from being disabled to being "dis-abled".  Learning about these technologies will definately be a part of my classroom.  I have been lucky enough to learn about these helpful tools and I see these tools as a gift for me to share with my future students. :)

Critical Literacy Isn't That Hard After All...

The big question is, “What does critical literacy mean to me?” When I think of critical literacy, the one word that comes to mind is authentic. What I mean by authentic is work created by students that gives them a purpose and meaning for learning. This work that they create gives them ownership of an assignment because of the uniqueness the student brings to the task at hand.

Whether we as literate humans know it, but critical literacy surrounds us and appears everyday. It can be the simplest task such as waking up to the alarm clock and hitting the snooze button to reading a schedule in the airport to find out that you have missed your flight. Critical literacy skills are modeled and learned by students who are then capable of applying these skills in order to function in any situation in life. It’s the real life application (which we discussed as a whole class) that makes critical literacy so crucial and necessary in life.


But mastering critical literacy skills does not limit ones ability to just knowing how to read (phonemes/words), write (phonemes put together to create words), speak (using ones vocal chords), and listen in the typical conventional ways. Students who have significant disabilities have the capability to communicate and learn just as those without disabilities. The difference, however, is that students with significant disabilities utilize other devises in order to communicate in life and what they have learned through multi-modal technologies, simple pictures, enlarged writing/pictures, etc. By adapting and accommodating to those students needs, we are making them able to be “normal” rather than classifying them as disabled.

Eye Opening Observations

After the hour and half hours of field work I participated in, I was really able to notice a lot about how crucial it is for humans to be able to be literate in order to function and survive in life. Being literate doesn’t mean being able to perform “normally”, rather being able to have access to tools that can aid people with significant disabilities. People who may have visual or hearing impairments are able to communicate with others and be literate when they have the appropriate accommodations. Too often, people who are classified as “different” are shunned away and thought of as unable or stupid, when in fact they are quite capable of doing just as much as those who may not have a disability.

Taking a Look at the Picture of Literacy

After reading Concept muraling: Dropping visual crumbs along the instructional trail, I took some time to reflect about what was said in the article about children being pulled towards images they recognize and how that can be applied to my life.

Concept muraling is a a way that teachers can use direct instructional in order to represent the teachings in a visual way.   Within the article, the authors site a quote:

"sight is swift, comprehensive, simultaneously analytic and synthetic... it permits our minds to receive and hold an infinite number of items of information in a fraction of a second."

Reading this quote made me realize that "seeing" is a huge part of literacy.  Yes, we all need sight to see the words we read or write, but I mean "seeing" in the sense of pictures, signs, and other forms of representing words.  As a child before beginning school, I knew that a big sign that was red with white letters was a stop sign even though I didn't know the word "STOP" was written on it.  Just looking at it, I was able to recognize what it was saying by its meaning.  The same goes for any other environmental print.  I was able to associate the big double arched sign with it being a representation of McDonald's.

For students who may have significant disabilities, providing them instruction with the use of pictures could make a difference of them being "dis-abled" instead of "disabled", giving them the opportunity to achieve and excel in school and in life.  Using the approach of concept muraling can not only be beneficial for students with significant disabilities, but also students who may be more of a visual learner.  I have always considered myself to be visual, auditory, and kinesthetic; however, depending on the subject area, I can be more of a visual learner.  For instance, when it comes to science and learning different stages within a cycle, it is more beneficial for me to see pictures of the events occurring rather than reading or hearing about them.  I am most likely to remember what was taught if it can be visually represented.  

Another strong characteristic of concept muraling, is its structure and organization it provides.  If anyone knows me, they know that I need structure and I am extremely organized.  I find myself always trying to reorganize and categorize something to make things more easy to locate and to find better ways to have things placed.

Concept muraling is a great way to provide differentiating instruction within your classroom whether you work with students with significant disabilities or not.  It's always a great idea to implement a wide array of approached to teaching to keep students involved, eager to learn, and attentive.

Knowing Your Rights as an Individual: Access to an Equal Education

Why is it that people assume that individuals with a handicap or those who have significant disabilities are not capable or worthy of receiving a good education?  And when they do attend school, they are placed in isolated classrooms away from students receiving general education instruction?  I find this unfair because it not only gives those students a clear label of "disabled", but it robs them of having social interaction with a variety of peers, engaging in literate behaviors (conversing, playing, working collaboratively) with others. 


What ALL students need is an equal opportunity to receive the best education, more specifically a solid foundation of literacy so they have quality of life experiences.  First and foremost, whether an individual has a disability or not, parents must expose their children to resources that provide engagement of literacy.  Providing home-based initial instruction using such resources to develop reading and writing skills pave the way for the future development of these skills.  Parents of children who have significant disabilities need more training and instruction on strategies in order to begin building their children's literacy skills.  With the ever changing progression and growth of technology, children with disabilities benefit more than those in past years; assisting them in ways according to their particular needs, however, parents and teachers need to stay abreast of these changes so they can ensure children with disabilities with the utmost literacy instruction.


Another issue is the separation between general education and special education.  How can we expect any literacy skills to develop and grow for students with disabilities if they are not exposed to atmospheres where literacy practices are being used?  Replacing the idea of separate instruction based on ability needs to be replaced with inclusive classrooms, which will benefit literacy skills for children with disabilities.  It has been determined that when students with disabilities interact with children with no disabilities, there is an improvement in their communication skills.

The Fundamentals of Fading

I have never heard of the term "fading" until I read about it in June Downing's Teaching Literacy to Students With Significant Disabilities.  Since becoming more familiar with what fading is, I am continuously visualizing a child riding a bicycle with training wheels.  As the child first first learns to ride a bicycle, she needs the extra support and aid that the training wheels provide.  As she continues to ride her bicycle and becomes more familiar with the mechanics, balance, and over all feel for steering and pedaling she hold the capability of eliminating the extra aid those training wheels have provided her. Through development and practice, she has the ability to eliminate that extra support and ride a two-wheel bicycle.  With this said, efforts to fade the level of support for students with significant disabilities should be made so that the student can acquire as much independence as possible when performing a task.  For fading to be most affective, it is best to implement the support in a way that it is not taken away too quickly so that a child will not benefit the instruction or have the support remain present even after the child has mastered a particular area and the support is no longer needed.  

This concept is critical for any student, but it seems to be a vital factor in the developmental growth of those with significant disabilities.  Teachers strive for their students to be independent and accomplished and this is an affective way for students to make achievements.

A.O.E'S

You may be asking yourself, "What the heck is an A.O.E?" Well, A.O.E. stands for "Area of Expertise" and what it is, is a special area or field that someone is exceptionally good at. It's important for a teacher to show off his/her student's A.O.E at within the classroom, school, and can even be shared throughout the community. Allowing students to share with their classmates what they're good at often brings to the student a sense of accomplishment/achievement and a drive to continue to work harder by boosting self-esteem. By students demonstrating their A.O.E, they can receive praise from teachers, role models, and other adult figures along with peers within the school community. A student's expertise may be some sort of talent, skill, their wealth of knowledge in a specific subject matter, etc.

After reading about A.O.E in Paula Kluth's, "A Land We Can Share", I tried reflecting back to when I was in school and if there was any time when a teacher encouraged my classmates and me to share with one another certain skills in order to aid each other as we learned. The sad thing, is that I can't recall any moment when that happened. Sure, we often worked in groups on assignments, but it was never anything that we learned from another student. We as students were never given the opportunity to take the role as teacher. Having students share their expertise's builds community within the classroom because it provides students with the assistance from other students.

Surely every student within a classroom will have some special skill, but how will the teacher and other students know what those skills are? Paula Kluth suggests creating a chart of some sort to hang in the classroom so it's visible for all to see. On the chart, each student's name and then a short description of what each has a special nich for will be written. When the occassion arises that somebody may need help with a certain topic, he/she can look on the chart posted to see if any of the students in the class may have some additional knowledge and insight of the topic and assistance can be provided by a peer rather than the teacher. The student takes on the role as a teacher, helping others and teaching about something that others may not be as knowledgable about.

Adapting and creating the A.O.E chart in my future classroom will be one of the initial tasks I will hold in the start of a new school year. Knowing what your students strong qualities and interests and also letting the class know that of each student is an important piece of building the foundation of the classroom community. The concept of A.O.E is a bright idea that I think every teacher should know about!