Instructional Models and Strategies
In this section, we describe and link to two instructional models currently in use, which are designed to accommodate the needs of students with learning disabilities (and often, other kinds of special needs). These models utilize many of the instructional strategies referenced below.
Co-Teaching Model
This model pairs a content area teacher with a special education teacher in an inclusive classroom. In the case of a science class, the science teacher provides the content while the special education teacher provides support and specific learning strategies to those students who need it. A critical piece of this, of course, is joint planning time, so the special education and science teachers can adapt instruction, materials, and assessments to accommodate the needs of students with learning disabilities. These teachers also need professional development that supports their learning to work together.
EDC’s Good High Schools Project, featured in the fall 2005 edition of EDC’s Mosaic publication article “Inclusive Schools: Portraits of Excellence,” describes co-teaching as it is configured differently in different urban high schools: “The models of co-teaching are different in each school, but across all three the special education staffs successfully coordinate their efforts with the general education staffs. For instance, at Centreville, co-teaching by a general and special education team is standard practice. It occurs across all grade levels and disciplines, including mathematics and science. At Choctaw only the ninth and tenth grade English/language arts classes are co-taught.”
Follow the link below to read the full article:
http://main.edc.org/Mosaic/Mosaic10/inclusive.asp
Marilyn Friend, professor of education at the University of North Carolina
at Greensboro, has written several books, produced professional development
videos, and created a Web site called “Co-Teaching Connection,” dedicated
to co-teaching:
http://www.marilynfriend.com
Co-teaching appears to be an accepted model for serving the needs of
students with learning disabilities in the regular education classroom,
but Margaret Weiss, adjunct professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University, takes issue with it as a research-based practice
in her article “Co-Teaching
as Science in the Schoolhouse: More Questions Than Answers.”
Weiss, M. (2004, May/June). Co-teaching as science
in the schoolhouse. More questions than answers. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 37(3),
218-223.
She notes that, “co-teaching is an example of a practice that is used frequently to meet the needs of students with LD, but there is little evidence (from both practice and research) to suggest that it does meet those needs. In fact, there is little consistent evidence to describe exactly what co-teaching means in terms of instructional actions or teacher responsibilities.” Weiss calls for further research to examine what is actually happening, instructionally, in co-taught classrooms.
Supported-Inclusion Model
This model is a service-delivery
system developed at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning
and described in detail in:
Deshler, D. D., Schumaker, J. B., Bulgren, J. A.,
Hock, M. F., Knight, J., & Ehren,
B. (2001). “Ensuring content-area learning by secondary students
with learning disabilities.” Learning Disabilities Research & Practice,
16(2), 96–108.
This system proposes a comprehensive support system to students with learning disabilities mainstreamed in general education classrooms, based on the following rationale:
“The types of support services that are most frequently made available to students with LD come in the form of (1) consultation with the general education teacher by a special educator; (2) co-teaching between a general and a special educator in the general education classroom and; and (3) various accommodations or adaptations of the general education curriculum and assessments. Each of these services is aimed at helping students with LD to make it through the general education curriculum and pass the course. While there is a place for each of these services or accommodations, they are grossly inadequate for many students with LD. …For students with LD to succeed in learning subject-area content, they must have a broad array of services available to them similar to the ones described in this article. Accommodations in the organization and presentation of the general education curriculum will not be sufficient to enable most students with LD to successfully master the content in rigorous general education classes. Many students with LD need direct, intensive, systematic instruction to teach them the necessary skills and strategies (and in some instances, foundational language competencies) that they lack. The magnitude of their deficiencies in these areas demand a type of instruction that simply cannot be provided in the general education classroom….”
The support system proposed in this model includes instructional support within the general education classroom, instructional support outside the classroom, professional development for the regular and special educators who work with these students, and administrative leadership to coordinate and support the whole system.
For information on where this model can be seen in practice, the model’s developers recommend contacting the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning at mkatz@ku.edu.
Instructional Strategies
The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics
and Science Education (ENC) and the Eisenhower Regional Consortia Network have produced a CD-ROM, Making
Schools Work for Every Child, 2nd edition, that contains a wealth
of resources on instructional strategies for supporting students with
special needs in science (as well as mathematics) classrooms. While the
strategies are not necessarily particular to either science or high school,
or even to learning disabilities, there are many strategies and supports
that are applicable to this population in this context. The CD is browsable
in a number of pathways including by mathematics/science strategy and
by group of learner. In addition, the resource provides professional
development activities for teachers of special needs students in the
classroom, as well as articles on current research and policy initiatives.
To view the Web-based version of this compendium, you can purchase a subscription on the ENC Web site at http://www.goenc.com/
West Virginia University has also developed a Web site of teaching strategies and resources called Inclusion in Science Education for Students with Disabilities. Organized by disability, the site includes descriptions of and/or links to teaching strategies, learning environments, and assistive/adaptive technologies.
Strategies are presented across six science teaching methods: teacher presentation, laboratory, field work, reading, discussion, and research. The strategies presented for teaching students with learning disabilities are in both English and Spanish. Other resources are offered as well.
http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/
Most of the Web resources collected on these pages are not affiliated with or sponsored by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). EDC is merely providing those Web resources for informational purposes. EDC cannot guarantee that those Web resources are active or that the content is accurate. As with all Web-based information, links change from time to time. To our knowledge, all links were functional as of July 2006. Please notify Kerry Ouellet at kouellet@edc.org if you experience any problems.
