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High Leverage Practices for Special Education: Collaborative Methods at Home

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In part one, we discussed the four different categories of high leverage practices (HLP) and how educators utilize these practices to drive instruction and learning. Whether in a physical classroom or not, the goal of HLPs is to ensure that young learners are engaged, supported, and challenged. Now that we’re all in the throes of virtual learning, where much of our schooling is happening at home, it’s helpful for families to be able to adopt and modify various high leverage practices for their own use.

 

Collaboration is key, especially since much of the learning is currently happening outside of the classroom. Students are no longer experiencing a fully monitored, structured school day, which makes collaboration and open communication all that much more important.

 

  • Goal statement: Since the aim of collaborative HLPs is to ensure that all members of the child’s support system are on the same page, working towards the same goals, parents should use a goal statement as a starting point when reaching out to teachers. Whether in person, on the phone, or via email, parents should make a point to advocate for their child’s learning goals and reiterate them as needed to provide teachers with reminders about where they’d like their child’s learning to be headed.
  • Check-in: Yes, students receiving special education services already have formal documentation concerning learning goals, but it never hurts to remind the team of those goals along the way. Teachers can easily become overwhelmed throughout the quarter with IEPs, 504s, and numerous other learning plans for individual students. And while teachers are legally obligated to offer modifications and accommodations, the learning goals may receive less attention. This is why parents should make a point to check in regularly with their child’s teachers to ensure that everyone is aware of and working towards the child’s learning goals.
  • Reevaluation: These check-ins also allow for data updates, recent observations, and discussions about reevaluating or resetting goals if necessary. Be sure to ask for quantifiable updates, such as Lexile level, Map scores, attendance and participation, writing samples, etc.
  • Point person: To simplify the task of reaching out, especially with middle or high school students who have multiple teachers, parents can plan to send a weekly or biweekly email to their child’s counselor or special education case manager. This person will act as the point of contact and will be sure to disseminate all vital information to the teachers, while keeping you in the loop about all of the replies.
  • Student accountability: Bring your child into the collaborative effort by asking him to help track his own progress towards the goals set at the beginning of the year or quarter. It’s much more probable for a student to strive for success when he’s been part of the goal setting process. Involving your child in these discussions ensures that he’s taking ownership and feels invested in the effort he’s putting forth.
  • Positive reinforcementConsider small benchmarks or checkpoints along the way and make a point to acknowledge when goals are achieved. No matter your child’s age, kids benefit from positive reinforcement and thrive on recognition for a job well done.
  • Open communication: Another high leverage form of helpful collaboration is to connect your child’s teachers with any other “key player” on your child’s educational team. Teachers must have parental permission to correspond with pediatricians, therapists, psychologists, tutors, and even older siblings regarding a student. Therefore, if you want certain professionals to cooperate, you must first provide permission and then facilitate that correspondence. Remember, it takes a village, but you have to put all of the villagers in contact with one another, first.
  • Support groups: Another collaborative HLP that parents can modify for use at home is to facilitate a small virtual study group or neighborhood support group for certain ages, subjects, or classes. Reach out to neighbors about how their child is fairing with virtual learning. Ask if they are using any specific programs, tools, or methods that they find particularly helpful. During these times, many parents are finding that distance or virtual learning is all about trial and error. So why not collaborate with other parents in your neighborhood to help carry the load?

Zoom Differentiation and Accommodations

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Virtual learning certainly has its challenges, especially when it comes to differentiating in the virtual classroom. For students with special education accommodations, teachers will need to get creative in order to account for every student’s unique needs and optimize learning opportunities. Thankfully, there are strategies and methods for providing special education accommodations in Zoom—we just need to think outside the box and modify what each accommodation looks like in the virtual realm.

Zoom Chat: Since we are no longer physically in the classroom, proximity, prompting, and cueing accommodations pose a bit of a challenge for instructors. Yet, nothing has changed in terms of the student’s needs. In fact, students who struggle to focus and/or stay on task may need the prompting and proximity accommodations even more now that they are sitting in front of a screen. Online learning does not allow for physical proximity; however, teachers can utilize the chat function to maximize student engagement and provide an alternative form of proximity, prompting, and cueing.

  • Reaching out: The Zoom chat can be used to individually reach out to specific students with prompting accommodations to spur participation and to rephrase a question when necessary.
  • Clarifying: The chat also allows teachers to check for understanding by providing a platform for asking clarifying questions, follow-up questions, etc.
  • Advocating: Teachers should remind students of their chatting capabilities so that students with accommodations can advocate for themselves and speak up when they need assistance.
  • Tracking: The chat also acts as a data tracker; teachers can modify their settings in Zoom so that chats are saved. This allows for teachers to review correspondence with students and share questions and check-ins with parents. Teachers can also use saved chats to track the number of times a student initiates a task, asks clarifying questions, responds to polls or exit responses, etc.
  • Reminding: Teachers can use the Zoom chat as a method for reminding students of their extended time or reduced workload accommodations as well. This allows teachers to discreetly remind a certain student that his due date is extended without drawing attention to the student’s accommodations in front of the whole class. **Just be certain that, when chatting with specific students about these accommodations, you have selected the student’s name from the dropdown so that the chat remains a private, 1:1 conversation.

Breakout Rooms: The grouping function in Zoom can also be beneficial when ensuring certain special education accommodations are offered. Teachers have the option to manually assign groups, which means that students with special education services can be grouped with a para educator or with other students who have the same accommodations.

  • Variance: Teachers should try to avoid always grouping special education students together, however, as to avoid drawing attention to certain small groups or stigmatizing students who need additional support.
  • Oversight: Teachers can randomly assign groups using the “automatic” option when creating breakout rooms. Then, while students work, the “host” can pop in and out of groups to act as a “check-in” for students with that accommodation.
  • Mobility: Teachers can also move the para educator from group to group during breakout room sessions so that every student receives supports throughout the collaborative activity.
  • Discretion: Breakout rooms also offer opportunities for differentiation. Teachers can modify assignments and link adapted materials in the chat to send to specific breakout rooms. From the chat link, students can click on the shared Google doc to access the modified material. This function can provide students with resources such as word banks, sentence starters, outlines, graphic organizers, glossaries, etc. The key is that each student who receives these accommodations will have access in a discreet manner and can choose to use the materials as needed.

Breakout Room Benefits for Teachers, Part II

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In part one, we shared the many ways in which breakout rooms during a Zoom class session can be helpful. Logistically speaking, small groups allow for more intimate collaboration among students and provide a more manageable platform for discussion. Now we want to explore additional ideas that show how to use breakout rooms for various instructional benefits. Below are creative ways for educators to utilize breakout rooms in Zoom.

 

Accountability techniques: Feedback that I have already been receiving from several students involves the lack of full participation, even during small group activities in breakout rooms. As is typical in the brick and mortar classroom as well, some students feel as though they are carrying the entire team and shouldering the workload themselves. Here’s how to account for this issue in breakout rooms:

 

  • Create a Google document with directions, prompts, discussion questions, and anything else you would like students to collaborate on in groups.
  • Specify different text boxes or spaces on the document where different groups should respond. (Breakout rooms are numbered, so you can keep it simple by designating response spaces for group 1, group 2, group 3, etc.)
  • Share the link to the Google document in the Zoom chat prior to arranging breakout groups. **Make sure that participants with the link have editing access; this is manageable in your shared settings**
  • Ask students to open the document to ensure that everyone has access before opening breakout rooms.
  • Once in breakout rooms, students will need to discuss cooperatively, but respond individually on the Google doc. This allows teachers to track participants and identify if anyone has not contributed to their group’s notes on the Google document.

 

Listening practices: It is easy for us to zoom out (pun intended, sorry!) while participating in hours of Zoom classes every day. To spur engagement and meaningful conversations, teachers can use breakout rooms to set up 1:1 student interviews or chat sessions:

 

  • Review expectations and procedures for breakout room groups.
  • Introduce “accountable talk” stems of sentence starters for younger learners so that their conversations stay on track.
  • Assign interview questions on a shared Google document (as explained above) and ask students to “report back” with new information about his or her peer.
  • Remind students that they may paraphrase their partner’s information, so long as they are still accurately relaying what their partner said. This allows time for students to truly listen to one another.
  • This activity can be used for ice breakers or getting to know you activities, perspective taking, peer reviews, etc.

 

Reviewing class material: Another way to utilize breakout rooms is for important class review sessions or to debrief a whole group discussion or lesson:

 

  • Share a class Google document, as mentioned above, that includes key topics or important takeaways from the day or week’s lesson.
  • In breakout rooms, students should use the time to ask questions of the group about anything that they are confused about. This could include vocabulary/terms, questions about an assigned text, clarification on a certain topic, etc. The point is to use this time as an open forum to seek clarity and ask questions.
  • While discussing, prompt students to capture the questions and any possible answers/responses on the shared Google document.
  • The document will act as a free-flowing study guide, which students can access after class.
  • This document also allows teachers to address unclear concepts, lingering questions, and any material that they’d like to reteach before moving forward.

Social-emotional Learning

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With next year’s school schedule still very much up in the air, students around the United States are left with many “what ifs.” Combine this notion with the fact that many states are seeing a major resurgence of COVID-19 cases, and we’ll undoubtedly notice a sense of unease among young people.

 

The social-emotional impact of stressful times is something with which school counselors and psychologists are well-equipped to deal. However, these necessary services do not prove to be as effective when staff and students are working remotely. Because of this, parents are left, not only with the unknowns we’re all dealing with, but also with the task of meeting children’s social-emotional needs at home.

 

The school’s role

We often think of academic subject areas when discussing what students are learning in schools. However, beyond chemistry, English, world history, etc., schools also work to ensure that students learn social-emotional skills. Schools offer counselling programs, after-school activities, peer groups, family resources, testing and referrals, and many other resources to help students thrive socially and emotionally, as well as academically. Aside from these programs that are specifically targeting social-emotional welfare, school is an inherently social microcosm, one in which students are constantly and subconsciously adapting, reasoning, exploring, considering, and evolving. In this sense, school acts as a major contributor to one’s social-emotional well-being.

 

Stress and anxiety impede learning; counteract it with these strategies:

  • Parents can help children learn to deflect their nervous energy and anxiety by considering others. Ask kids, “Who needs more help than you do? And how can we help that person or persons?” These questions directly prompt children to check their own worries at the door and to look outside themselves in order to help others. This practice enables students to not only practice perspective-taking, but also encourage empathy—a central social-emotional skill.
  • In focusing on others in need, several things occur. First, these conversations allow families to take proactive steps to assist in the community. Also, a child’s own concerns are somewhat alleviated when they focus on someone else’s well being. Finally, by helping others, children and teens inadvertently gain their own new coping skills and strategies. Seeing resilience in others is an inspiration and benefit to all.
  • Another strategy that comes on the heels of helping others is to consider what actions kids can personally take to better their own current situation. In thinking like this, children take an active role in their stress or anxiety—they are no longer passively allowing the struggles to overwhelm them without doing anything about it. Kids need to understand that, while stress is caused by external or uncontrollable factors, it is an internal response—one that can be regulated with practice.
  • Parents can also help children build social-emotional skills by finding and reading texts that contain characters who are battling similar struggles. Whether fiction or nonfiction, texts have the unique ability to engage and instruct at the same time. When children see a character’s struggle, especially one that is similar to their own, they begin to see their situation from a different lens. They also get the opportunity to learn how the character or characters dealt with the problem and adjust accordingly. Literature also works to show children how their actions and decisions can directly affect others. Reading promotes this higher level of social-emotional thinking.

 

Finally, a common practice used in school counseling departments is journaling or photojournalism. The practice of freely expressing one’s thoughts is not only therapeutic; it also helps children to center their thoughts, focus on the now, and reconcile their emotions in writing. Experts also discuss how the journal entries or photos of their experiences act as an archived collection of challenges and obstacles that they’ve overcome. By looking back or rereading journal entries, kids automatically reflect on their experiences with a new, more clear perspective.

Diversity and Summer Learning

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Research finds that diverse environments are greatly beneficial to students for many reasons. Experiencing diversity allows us to expand our worldview by seeing, hearing, and working alongside people from different backgrounds. Everyone we meet has a different story. Therefore, the more people, cultures, lifestyles and differences we encounter, the more enriched our own lives become. Diversity encourages creativity and innovative thinking as well. Because a diverse learning environment promotes others’ perspectives, students become better thinkers and problem solvers simply by collaborating with people from various backgrounds.

 

With schools currently out of session, young learners may not be confronted with diverse experiences. However, there are activities and resources for parents to utilize that encourage children to explore the world outside of themselves. Here are a few ideas of how to incorporate diversity into your summer learning activities.

 

“Read Across America”

Originally created by the National Education Association to encourage literacy while celebrating  the legacy of renowned storyteller Dr. Seuss, Read Across America has morphed into a year-long celebration of enriching young peoples’ lives through literature. The initiative encourages readers to dive into books that introduce characters from all over the country, which enables children to explore American culture in its many forms.

 

There are countless lists of recommended books for any reading level available online, but parents may want to curate their own list to ensure that children are discovering unfamiliar cultures, underrepresented communities, and unsung heroes across the United States.

 

Online Exhibits

Covid-19 has certainly thrown a wrench into many summer plans and activities. Museums, however, have done a wonderful job of creating digital exhibits and online experiences for learners of all ages. One great way to learn about other cultures is by exploring their origins.

 

  • Teens can explore the vast history of WWII and Jewish culture by “touring” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  • The National Museum of Natural History allows explorers to tour every exhibit, room by room.
  • The National Women’s History Museum provides online exhibitions, as well as oral histories of notable women throughout history.
  • The National Museum of African American History and Culture provides interactive guides and resources for visitors to digitally explore the countless artifacts, historical moments, personal histories, and much, much more.
  • The National Museum of the American Indian also allows visitors to take a look at the true story of Pocohontas, view tribal wear and hundreds of artifacts, listen to firsthand accounts of the Native American experience, and explore plenty of other historical moments before the United States was established.

 

Celebrate the Arts

Exploring and celebrating diverse cultures means experiencing other communities on many different levels—from art, music, dance, to food and more! An easy way to introduce children to other parts of the world is by bringing their traditions into your home. Consider using one night per week to “taste your way” through an unfamiliar part of the world.

 

As a family, you can research traditional ingredients and methods of cooking, learn about the type of clothing children typically wear to school or at home, read up on the various utensils and table settings, and listen to traditional or popular music. Another idea is to have children select a country on a world map and have them be the experts of that country. The best way to test your knowledge of something is by teaching someone else! Help them with the initial exploration by providing guiding questions such as:

 

  • What do children from this area or community do for school lunch?
  • What is a typical “birthday treat” in this city or community?
  • What type of music is played at a family celebration?
  • What produce is native to this area? How do they prepare it?
  • What similarities/differences do you notice between your favorite American foods and their customary cuisine?

 

During this time when physical travel is limited, make it a point to experience the world with your children through reading, research, and new recipes!

 

Zoom Fatigue Part II

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Thanks to quarantining and social distancing, we now have a new term to describe the effects of continuous online interaction. Zoom fatigue, as we discussed in part I of this series, is a very real condition, despite its silly name. With nearly 100% of teaching and learning now occurring primarily on online platforms, such as Zoom, the fatigue associated with these digital conferencing tools has become an important consideration for children, parents, and educators alike.

 

How to combat Zoom fatigue

  • If possible, limit Zoom meetings to 1-2 per day. If parents are finding that their children are attending Zoom meetings consistently throughout the day, it’s time to step in. As a guideline, teachers have been instructed to provide 1-2 hours of “live instruction,” aka Zoom meetings consisting of instructional content, per week. This means that I personally am “live teaching” for two, 30-minute sessions per week. If teachers follow this expectation, students will be spending more time with hands-on, experiential learning as suggested, and less time honed in on a screen or video chat.
  • Parents who notice that Zoom meetings are occurring back-to-back or for prolonged periods of time should reach out directly to teachers and copy administration if necessary.
  • Parents can also suggest that their child only spend as much time as necessary in the Zoom meeting to gain clarity, ask questions, and receive feedback.
  • Similarly, teachers should set the expectation that Zoom participation, while strongly encouraged, is not required for the entire session. This means that students should feel comfortable signing in and logging out as they please.
  • A good suggestion for teachers to make every so often during a Zoom meeting is to remind students that, if they don’t have any questions about the assignment or content being discussed, they shouldn’t feel as though they have to stay in the Zoom meeting. Keeping things fluid allows students to advocate for their needs, while ensuring that time on digital platforms is minimized when possible.
  • To spur engagement during Zoom instruction, teachers should suggest that students take free-flowing, unstructured notes while the teacher is reviewing material or answering questions. These notes, in the form of free writing, have several benefits:
    • Note-taking ensures that students are actively listening and grasping important concepts.
    • Note-taking also helps solidify important information into memory.
    • Students are able to hold themselves accountable with their notes; if the page is bare, they know that they weren’t paying attention.
    • Jotting down rough thoughts or questions during an instructional session allows students to keep track of questions that they want to ask or concepts that require more clarity.

Teachers and tutors can also encourage engagement by enlisting an old classroom technique—random calling. Just as we would in the classroom, teachers can reach out for student comments and responses throughout the session to keep students on their toes and to check for understanding. Teachers should be sure to provide wait time for student answers and then open the question up to the group if a student falls silent. The point of random calling is to get and hold students’ attention, not to embarrass anyone or put them on the spot with a tricky question.

Zoom Fatigue

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Distance learning is now the norm, at least for the remainder of this school year and for summer school. Now that many students, teachers, and communities have somewhat adapted to this “new normal,” we find ourselves engaging with screens and virtual platforms much more than we would have ever anticipated. Cue the new symptom or side effect of our post-pandemic circumstances—Zoom fatigue.

 

How is this real?

While it may sound melodramatic, this new form of lethargy can be scientifically explained. Zoom fatigue, as experts are calling it, happens when our day-to-day communications, whether they be for work, learning, or leisure, exist primarily in front of a screen and/or camera. These extended conversations and engagements on screen may seem like a passive form of communication. However, video chats, no matter what the purpose, involve much more than simply sitting in front of the screen.

 

What causes the fatigue?

Believe it or not, the “face time” can become exhausting. Consider this: In normal social settings and conversations, we do not maintain 100% front-facing, continuous eye contact. As social beings, even when attending a lecture or work conference, we have a tendency to glance around, examine the surroundings, check in and out of the speaker’s presence, whisper to our neighbor for clarification, take notes, etc. We are actively engaged and listening attentively, even when our gaze is elsewhere.

 

However, with Zoom and other video conferencing platforms, the camera holds our gaze captive. Participants, with a desire to appear 100% engaged, overcompensate while on camera. Am I sitting up straight? Was that a joke? Should I be laughing? Can people see my half-eaten lunch? Are my kids screaming in the background? 

 

Furthermore, since we are able to see ourselves during these calls, we become acutely aware of where we are looking, how we are looking, and how others are seeing us. It becomes a very inorganic way of communicating that consumes us with this idea that we are broadcasting ourselves in some sense. It is no different for students, either.

 

In addition to the overwhelming sense of engagement that kids might feel compelled to present, Zoom fatigue is also caused by the multi-tasking nature that the platform affords. While semi-focusing on the teacher’s explanation or instructions, students are likely scrolling through email, responding to texts, chatting in the Zoom chat, eating a snack, and/or listening to the television in the background. This level of stimuli makes it nearly impossible for kids to be active listeners. They may be sitting in the camera frame, but their minds are elsewhere. This is especially the case when Zoom meetings run long or when students sit through multiple Zoom calls throughout the day.

Because of the tendency for students and teachers to experience Zoom fatigue while attempting instruction and learning, its use requires a bit of strategizing in order to ensure full engagement. So what are we to do? Check out part II, where we will discuss strategies for warding off Zoom fatigue. We will also provide instructors and tutors with tips for checking for and maintaining engagement throughout classes and tutoring sessions.

Distance Learning with Multiple Children at Home

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Distance learning is tedious enough. Between the emails, Zoom meetings, various portals teachers utilize, and workloads from each class, juggling at-home learning during this new “virtual school day” can be a tall order. Even more difficult, though, is this juggling act when there is more than one school-aged child in the home. How can parents possibly manage distance learning for two or more kids? Obviously, this is new territory for everyone. To ease the stress and confusion, we’ve compiled suggestions and strategies to assist families who are learning at home with multiple school-aged children.

 

Designated work areas

One major hurdle when it comes to remote teaching and learning is organization. It should come as no shock that organizing a learning space is paramount to ensuring continuity of learning now that the usual classroom routines and structures have been thrown out the window. Students need to have a designated quiet place to focus, read, correspond, and create. While this seems obvious, many families are struggling to get children to focus on their remote classwork simply because the environment is not conducive for concentration. While the kitchen counter or a child’s bedroom may have previously been the homework area of choice, times have certainly changed—we’re no longer talking about rushed homework tasks in between soccer practice and dinner time.

 

If teachers and parents expect children to sit and focus for an extended amount of time, they need to provide a comfortable space, free of distractions. When siblings are working in close proximity, distractions are bound to emerge. Therefore, it is important that each child has his or her own private work space, equipped with comfortable seating, a laptop or other device, necessary school materials, and some form of desk or surface on which to work. If space is an issue, parents should consider lap desks as an alternative to bulky furniture desks.

 

Headphones 

Headphones are a true lifesaver when it comes to remote learning. Since many teachers are utilizing Zoom calls and other video tools to conduct teaching and learning, students would benefit from noise-cancelling headphones that allow them to focus solely on the instruction. Headphones also spare other house members the headache of trying to block out the instructional videos and video chats.

 

Individual check-in times

Many parents are finding that, on top of their own jobs working from home, they have now suddenly become homeschool teachers of multiple grades levels and content areas—as if everyone doesn’t have enough to deal with right now! To avoid being stretched too thin, parents should consider designating certain time(s) of the day for each child to check-in, seek help, review work, etc. Limit this form of “parental assistance” to a half hour per child if possible. If parents find that a child needs more support, they should communicate with the school and specific teachers about classes and assignments that are becoming unmanageable. To stick to the 30-minute check-in period, children should be encouraged to jot down their necessary questions ahead of time and be prepared to articulate where and how they need assistance. Set a timer so that children know that they are “on the clock” for only a specific amount of time. Whatever questions or issues that they are still having after check-in time has expired should be directed to their teacher.

 

Coordinate brain breaks and snack times

With multiple kids in the house, coordination is key to productive distance learning. Depending on each child’s age and learning needs, siblings may need more or less time for movement, screen-free learning, “brain breaks,” etc. As much as possible, try to establish universal times throughout the day when children break from learning to keep motivation, focus, and energy levels up and running.

 

It is important to move, converse, socialize, play, and create throughout the day to interrupt the monotony of virtual learning; however, if one child is playing outside while the other is concentrating on school work, parents may want to rethink the learning schedule. Allowing simultaneous break times ensures that kids aren’t being distracted by siblings during work sessions. There is no jealousy or “unfairness” factor if siblings are getting a break at the same time. Be consistent with breaks as much as possible; use a timer if necessary to set limits for learning versus playing.

Motivation During Distance Learning

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Staying motivated during distance learning is no small feat. At this point, students all over the country are tasked with adapting to a new normal when it comes to their education. Gone are the days when students have the constant support and guidance of their teachers—for now, at least. The face-to-face instruction has dwindled, as has feedback in real time and the opportunities to collaborate with peers in the classroom setting to which students have grown accustomed. To throw an even bigger wrench into the mix, many schools are utilizing a pass/fail grading policy for the remainder of the school year. Some students, primarily those in elementary school, are not receiving any grades for the work that they complete during the fourth quarter.

 

For many students, grades are the reason that they show up to learn; grades reflect their abilities, knowledge, skills, and academic development. Without the specific evaluative piece, what is the motivation for putting forth their best effort? How can students be motivated when there is no distinction between an A and a C? If there is no difference between earning 100% and 70%, who is going to strive for excellence?

 

But fear not, we’ve got some ideas to establish motivation during these most unmotivating times!

 

  • One way to motivate students without using percentages, grade point averages, and grading scales is to change the goal of classroom teaching and learning. Instead of placing emphasis on scores and mastery of a skill, teachers can shift the narrative to encourage students to focus on exploration, curiosity, creativity, and ingenuity. If we educators design virtual learning activities that promote open-ended conversations, creative problem-solving, and tasks that translate academic skills into real-world applications, students begin to see the value in what they’re learning, not just the score that they receive at the end of the unit. Essentially, we have to provide student choice so that kids engage in the learning for the sake of learning, as opposed to the eventual grade. When the grade is removed as the “end goal,” students begin to see themselves as continuous learners. They begin to recognize what truly interests them and how they best approach problems and utilize certain skills. Gradeless learning means that students can focus more on how they learn.
  • With pass/fail grading, teachers and parents should solidify the message to students that, instead of focusing on grades and accumulating points, this time will be spent providing specific feedback and assisting students with clarifications and revisions, whether that be in algebra, history, English, etc. Since teachers now have a simpler means of grading, they can spend more time helping students to analyze and improve upon their errors or missteps. Feedback-focused scoring provides the best guidance for students to improve and removes the stress of the grade by placing the emphasis on improvement and growth, thus increasing the motivation to do better next time.
  • Show students how, by removing specific grades, they become more active learners. Their role becomes much more present and less passive because they are no longer just the recipient of the grade. By adopting this mindset, students become intrinsically motivated, as opposed to being motivated by the extrinsic focus placed on the grade.
  • Motivate students by comparing the brain to a muscle. Muscles are only strengthened by exercising them. Similarly, the brain needs to be challenged regularly to ensure that neural pathways are created and strengthened. Think of learning as a workout so that students see how skipping the “gym” only sets them back further in their learning.
  • Parents can help to challenge kids by asking them to assign their own quantitative score once their teacher has determined if they’ve passed or failed a certain task. Using a teacher-derived rubric, students can take the role of assessing their own work based on the specific criteria laid out. Grading their own work provides them the opportunity to take an objective look at what they have submitted—again, this is about growth and improvement for next time.

Making Remote Education Work for Students with Special Education Needs

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It is increasingly remarkable to think that just a few weeks ago, students and teachers were still in class, working towards end-of-quarter goals. So much has changed as Covid-19 has spread across the nation, shuttering schools indefinitely and leading students, parents, teachers and administrators to ask: What do we do now?

 

Learning never stops—it just changes course.

Many students were sent home with assignments to complete and deadlines to meet. Others are accessing online materials and connecting remotely with instructors. In some places, students are even taking a short break from the standard curriculum to explore educational videos, podcasts, interactive games and virtual museum tours.

 

The remote education opportunities are seemingly endless—that is, until special learning needs are added to the mix. Then navigating this “new normal” can seem downright impossible.

Although federal law mandates that school systems provide equal access to education for students with learning disabilities, no one seems to know what that means in our current situation. Across the nation, school districts are grappling with how to provide remote education to as many of the seven million impacted students as possible, without defying the law and potentially losing critical funding. Yet, with mere weeks to prepare, how can schools possibly replicate the services of diverse therapists—occupational, learning, behavioral, speech, physical and vision—as well as adaptive specialists and aides? It is not feasible.

 

Learning Essentials is here to help.

With our team of certified, advanced-degreed tutors, Learning Essentials is the premier special education tutoring company in the DC Metro area. We “get” these students and their diverse needs. We have the education and experience to assist students with learning disabilities and differences during this massive transition. Our learning strategies and multi-sensory methods are proven, and our team is equipped to offer fully online support for all learners.

 

As administrators, teachers, and parents struggle to create and implement in-home supports for special needs students, Learning Essentials is ready to step in with solutions. We can suggest modifications to learning content, accommodations for optimal learning environments, and techniques that can guide parents and support students in accessing the curriculum in these unprecedented circumstances.

 

Ready for help? Contact Learning Essentials today for a free consultation. Let us set the best course to keep special needs students on the path to learning.