Differentiating Instruction

While most everyone can identify with a traditional classroom setting with metal desks in rows, textbook or e-book assignments, and scheduled testing, there are often times when this one-size-fits-all approach requires modification. Students present in a variety of shapes and sizes, intellectual strengths, physical abilities, and challenges. It is key that educators adapt their instructional deliveries and physical layout to ensure that all the students are able to equally engage and benefit from the daily lessons. This often requires only minimal modification to ensure that each student can be actively involved. However, it is paramount that educators remain cognizant that those students with unique abilities and/ or challenges not only can be included in the learning environment but, more importantly, that they are legally entitled to accommodation. Specifically, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures that all students are fully supported in their learning environments in order to maximize their learning and academic outcomes.

Sometimes modifications require “specially designed instruction” defined by the IDEA as “adapting, as appropriate to the needs of an eligible student under this part, the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction…to address the unique needs of the student resulting from the disability and to ensure that the student can meet the educational standards that apply to students.” Furthermore, sometimes adjustments can be made to impact not only what he or she is taught but how that instruction is delivered. For example, a child with learning disabilities in reading may be given shorter reading passages at a lower Lexile than his or her same aged peers. Furthermore, the number and complexity of the tasks required on a worksheet, for example, can be altered and/or reduced depending on the reasonable level of challenge to be established for the learner. There may be extra time allocated for tasks and or segmented tasks to allow for completion over time.

There are also adaptations that can be made to the materials used in class. From providing tools to help the student process the content or sharing the lecture notes, it is imperative that the educator translate the material in a manner that the student is able to equitably access. This may even involve physical changes to the environment to allow the student to process the information on pace with his or her peers; regular examples involve using a communication or translation device to ensure understanding. While detailing the accommodations for each disability varies as widely as the individuals within a population, some of the more common related services include, but are not limited to the following:

• speech-language pathology and audiology services

• interpreting and/or psychological services

• physical and/or occupational therapy

• recreational therapy • counseling services • orientation and mobility services

• nursing services

While traditional parameters and instructional delivery work for a majority of the students, there are regularly times when students require modifications to ensure that they are able to fully access and interact with the material to maximize their understanding in their quest to become successful students and engaged citizens. To further enunciate the value added to both the student needing assistance and the larger world benefit, one may recall that brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking suffered from a rare motor neuron disease and required a variety of supports including a synthetic voice device. In an interview with “New York Times” he shared “My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on the things your disability doesn’t prevent.” In a Facebook chat, Daniel Radcliffe, of “Harry Potter” fame said of his dyspraxia which interferes with a number of cognitive skills, “Do not let it stop you. It has never held me back…it will make you more determined, harder working and more imaginative in the solutions to find to problems.”