There is no medium of expression that is equally suited for all learners or for all kinds of communication. On the contrary, there are media, which seem poorly suited for some kinds of expression, and for some kinds of learning. While a learner with dyslexia may excel at story-telling in conversation, he may falter when telling that same story in writing. It is important to provide alternative modalities for expression, both to level the playing field among learners and to allow the learner to appropriately (or easily) express knowledge, ideas and concepts in the learning environment.
Unless specific media and materials are critical to the goal (e.g., learning to paint specifically with oils, learning to hand write with calligraphy) it is important to provide alternative media for expression. Such alternatives reduce media-specific barriers to expression among learners with a variety of special needs, but also increases the opportunities for all learners to develop a wider range of expression in a media-rich world. For example, it is important for all learners to learn composition, not just writing, and to learn the optimal medium for any particular content of expression and audience.
Strategy | |
---|---|
Compose in multiple media |
|
Use physical manipulatives |
|
Use social media and interactive web tools |
|
Solve problems using a variety of strategies |
There is a tendency in schooling to focus on traditional tools rather than contemporary ones. This tendency has several liabilities: 1) it does not prepare learners for their future; 2) it limits the range of content and teaching methods that can be implemented; 3) it restricts learners ability to express knowledge about content (assessment); and, most importantly, 4) it constricts the kinds of learners who can be successful.
Strategy | |
---|---|
Provide spell checkers, grammar checkers, word prediction software. | |
Provide text-to-speech software (voice recognition), human dictation, recording. | |
Provide calculators, graphing calculators, geometric sketch-pads, or pre-formatted graph paper. | |
Provide sentence starters or sentence strips. | Sentence Frames: Sentence frames are effective for students who need support in developing academic language. For students who are repeating simple sentences (I was happy to...I was happy to…), a sentence frame (One thing I enjoyed about the park was…) can help introduce new sentence types. Sentence frames can also support students who struggle with syntax. For example, students who are struggling with word order (writing things like “I liked the whale gray because…”), they can receive a sentence frame that begins, “I liked the gray whale because…”. |
Use story webs, outlining tools, or concept mapping tools. | |
Provide Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), music notation (writing) software, or mathematical notation software. | |
Provide virtual or concrete mathematics manipulatives (e.g., base-10 blocks, algebra blocks). | |
Use web applications (e.g., wikis, animation, presentation). |
Learners must develop a variety of fluencies (e.g., visual, audio, mathematical, reading, etc.). This means that they often need multiple scaffolds to assist them as they practice and develop independence. Curricula should offer alternatives in the degrees of freedom available, with highly scaffolded and supported opportunities provided for some and wide degrees of freedom for others who are ready for independence. Fluency is also built through many opportunities for performance, be it in the form of an essay or a dramatic production. Performance helps learners because it allows them to synthesize their learning in personally relevant ways. Overall, it is important to provide options that build learners’ fluencies.
Strategy | |
---|---|
Provide differentiated models to emulate (i.e. models that demonstrate the same outcomes but use differing approaches, strategies, skills, etc.). |
|
Provide differentiated mentors (i.e., teachers/tutors who use different approaches to motivate, guide, feedback or inform). |
|
Provide scaffolds that can be gradually released with increasing independence and skills (e.g., embedded into digital reading and writing software). |
|
Provide differentiated feedback (e.g., feedback that is accessible because it can be customized to individual learners). | Private corrections/model correct language: Ensure that you are not overcorrecting the language of multilingual learners. In order to reduce the stress of being publicly corrected, ensure that language corrections are specific to the needs of the students and done privately. Teachers should model the correct language, not emphasize the correction. |
Provide multiple examples of novel solutions to authentic problem. |