FAIR IS NOT ALWAYS EQUAL

Last fall, we created a little poster that took off in a big way. Maybe you’ve seen it on social media:

We watched in amazement as the poster caught fire—by November, it had racked up nearly 30,000 Facebook shares. Teachers shared it with teachers who co-signed the “fair is not always equal” philosophy. Educators working hard to make this principle a reality chimed in with inspiring comments.

And some teachers asked the tough question this poster prompts:

Realistically, how do we tailor our teaching for 30 different students in the course of one school day?

. . . NOW WHAT?

For busy teachers, meeting the diverse learning needs of all their students is a tall order.

Classrooms are crowded, time is short, and standardized-testing pressures are high. With so many responsibilities clamoring for attention, how can you ensure that all students are getting the supports they need? How can you use the most effective approaches to teach and reach all kids and make your job easier?

We can’t offer you magic formulas—but over the past few months, we’ve focused on bringing you practical blog posts with advice from some of today’s most passionate and respected advocates of inclusive education. Real-life educators weighed in on how to differentiate instruction, implement universal design for learning, and make inclusion work. Our expert authors contributed tips, teaching strategies, and answers to pressing questions about UDL, co-teaching, peer supports, and more.

This toolkit is your handy guide to the strategies and success stories we’ve posted on the Brookes Inclusion Lab since January 2016. We thought you might like to have the highlights and links to all the posts in one convenient place—and for anyone who hasn’t been following along on the blog this year, this is a great quick-guide to what you might have missed. Keep it on hand and share it with your fellow educators, and be sure to let us know what other topics you’d love to see covered on the blog when we start the 2016-2017 school year together.

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING (UDL)

Helpful tips to get you started!

Q&A

EXCERPT!

“Start Small”

Expert Advice from Loui Lord Nelson

The author of the bestselling UDL primer Design and Deliver shared these real-world tips for getting started with UDL.

LOW-TECH EXAMPLE:

Your school doesn’t have a lot of technology. You use your overhead projector each day to provide your students with their lecture notes. You normally write with a black marker. Today, you decide to use different colors to emphasize different points and you provide your students with colored pencils so they can do the same on their papers.

HIGH-TECH EXAMPLE:

Your school has an interactive white board in each classroom. Every day, you project information on it and you’ve recently become more comfortable in using the pens to underline information that’s projected.

Loui answered more UDL questions!

Read the whole Q&A at http://bit.ly/QANelson

6 Steps to Planning UDL Lessons

Define flexible, clear SMART goals

• Ask yourself, “What is the goal of this lesson?”
• Effective learning goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time bound.

Consider learner variability

• Assess the readiness levels, skills, and needs of your learners and the challenges of the learning environment.

Determine appropriate assessments

• Choose assessments that provide meaningful information, are flexible, and assess individual student growth.

Select methods, materials, and media

• Consider the types of assistance you need to include in order to address learner variability: scaffolds? Supports? Accommodations and modifications?

Teach and assess learning

• Put it all together and deliver your UDL lesson.

Refine educator learning through self-reflection

• Review the data you collected through your assessments.

See how 3 educators implemented these steps in their lesson planning! Read the full post at http://bit.ly/6StepsUDL

DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION

How-tos for helping all kids learn!

Differentiated Instruction

4 Key Principles and How-Tos

1. Create a “working-with” learning environment where students take an active role in their own learning.

2. Expand your instructional repertoire and create multiple pathways for learning to meet the diverse needs of students.

3. Assess throughout your instruction—be creative, think inclusively, and ask students how they can best demonstrate what they’ve learned.

4. Be engaging and use technology when appropriate.

DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION FOR 8 TYPES OF INTELLIGENCE

HOWARD GARDNER’S EIGHT INTELLIGENCES

INTELLIGENCE TYPE THIS TYPE OF LEARNER OFTEN...

• Learns best with visual icons VISUAL-SPATIAL

• Is artistic VERBAL-LINGUISTIC

• Can process academic lectures effectively.
  LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL

• Is good with math and numbers
  BODILY KINESTHETIC

• Benefits from concrete, hands-on learning activities. INTERPERSONAL

• Needs to interact with others to process information. INTRAPERSONAL

• Processes information best by working alone.
  NATURALISTIC

CO-TEACHING

Great teacher teamwork is a win for everyone!

Q&A with Elizabeth Potts and Lori Howard

Q: What are the benefits of co-teaching?

A: Co-teaching gives teachers a colleague in the classroom, allowing two brains to work together to teach.

Q: What typically are the challenges of co-teaching?

A: The general ed teacher must share their students and classroom.

Q: What are the essential principles of effective co-teaching?

A: 1. respect perspectives
2. focus on classroom teaching
3. build student success
4. improve and reflect on relationships.

ACCOMMODATIONS & MODIFICATIONS

Simple changes to help meet the needs of all kids!

ACCOMMODATIONS

• Greet students at the door each morning.
• Assign hooks to hang backpacks to minimize distractions during busy times.
• Use a modified program for English Language Arts, including interlined paper for legible responses.

Get more tips from Nicole—read the full Q&A at http://bit.ly/AccomQA

PEER SUPPORTS

How classmates can help each other learn!

PEER SUPPORT APPROACHES

1. Peer modeling—demonstration of social skills.
2. Peer buddy systems—teaching during non-structured activities.
3. Friendship groups—designed to bring students together for socialization.
4. Cooperative learning—supporting each other’s learning in small, mixed-ability groups.
5. Peer tutoring—one-to-one instruction from peers.

Expert Q&A with Carolyn Hughes

Q: How do peer buddy programs benefit students?

A: They benefit all students involved—both with and without disabilities.

Q: What are some hallmarks of an effective peer buddy program?

A students with disabilities participating in the full spectrum of activities that comprise a typical school day.