What I'm Reading: Teaching Content to All

Teaching
Content to
All 

Teaching Content to All: Evidence-Based Inclusive Practices in Middle and Secondary Schools
by B. Keith Lenz & Donald D. Deshler
with Brenda R. Kissam

I mentioned in my last post that I have recently (read: yesterday) started my first graduate class. It is actually an undergraduate prerequisite course, but close enough. The class is "Teaching in Inclusive Secondary Settings" and as promised, it has already given me some things to think about. Our text book is Teaching Content to All and it's full of food for thought.

As I've been reading through the first chapter of Teaching Content to All, I've been taking notes on the subject matter and briefly recording my thoughts and concerns on certain points mentioned. Chapter One serves as an introduction to human diversity in a classroom setting. I appreciate the approach used, in that the authors recognize diversity beyond the commonly accepted lines of race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, disabilities, socioeconomic status, and other categories that lend themselves to lots of familiar stereotypes. Instead, they focus on diversity in general, as coming from each individual with their different experiences and needs. Within any one group defined by the previously mentioned lines of demarcation, there is infinite individual diversity; sometimes crossing other clear lines, sometime not.

When you pull 32 students and a teacher into a classroom, there are going to be differences. Chapter One reminds us to look at the previous experiences, both educational and otherwise, in order to find inclusive ways of reaching students on their own terms. Getting to know students individually is a natural requirement for such a goal, though this can be challenging when teaching 150 or more students throughout the day. Despite the numbers, adjusting styles and frames of reference to fit with the each student or group of students is essential to teaching. Students should not have to learn my frame of reference in order to learn the material being taught. Instead, it is my job as a teacher to present the material at hand in a manor that makes it readily accessible to students where they are.

Chapter One gives passing remarks on inclusive methods for teaching, especially for students requiring special accommodations for disabilities, and promises more on the topics later. Specifically, however, the authors discussed accommodation by alternative evaluation methods such as providing oral tests to students with limited reading abilities, or giving an alternative to essay tests (perhaps a portfolio system) for students who understand the material at hand, but have difficulty demonstrating their knowledge. If such drastic changes are required though, and depending on the subject matter, I am left wondering how practical their knowledge of the topic really is. Looking at this from a mathematical point of view, if you say you understand how to factor a polynomial, should you not be expected to demonstrate this ability by actually performing the operation to a correct end result? A future employer would surely expect so, thus I wonder if drastic accommodations are actually a severe disservice to students by not preparing them for "real world" scenarios. I look forward to revisiting this topic in class.

One other idea that surfaced repeatedly throughout the chapter (and I expect it will continue to do so throughout the entire text book) was that of learning skills and prior knowledge. All students come to class with a body of prior knowledge and a set of learning skills, however each student's skills are unique. It is important to teach to the skill level of the students in a class and not to teach "over their heads." But when some students are lacking essential skills, adaptation of the teaching style is necessary. Chapter One suggests adapting the critical content of the course to fit the skills of the students, but this seems to me to perpetuate the problem. If all material is adapted for a student who is a poor note taker such that note taking skills are not needed, then the student will never improve his note taking abilities. Wouldn't it be better to teach the skills needed so that students will be better equipped to handle a similar situation in the future?

I saw this problem manifested asked students to read from a history text book for an open-notes quiz the following day. The majority of students the classes of high school juniors were unable to discern important information from filler, thus their notes tended to resemble transcriptions more than outlines. I responded by given them specific topics to pay extra attention, then took the questions nearly word-for-word from the text. To me, this felt dirty and cheap because such guided regurgitation left them with little if any net-increase in understanding of the topic, whereas teaching the note taking skills required (while beyond my ability at the time) would have left them with a significant understanding of the topic and a very useful new skill to be applied again later.

Public education in general would probably benefit greatly from a required meta-course, a class on taking classes and study skills, somewhere around junior high age. Such a class could be taught with a focus on the skills required for learning, using the standard course material for supporting practice exercises. Done this way, students could be expected to learn both, and to learn the material better than if it were constantly being massaged to their present capabilities.