SISI - Standards and Indicators

Standard 3 - Academic Performance - Instruction
3.1a There is evidence that effective and varied instructional strategies are used in all classrooms.
3.1e There is evidence that teachers incorporate the use of technology in their classroom.

Scenario

The following scenario is a common one in Kentucky schools...

Imagine John, who began his school career with kindergarten at age 5.  John's birthday is in April, so he turned 6 near the end of the school year.  Despite being legally old enough to begin kindergarten, John was not developmentally up to speed with the girls and older boys in his class.  Even though this is physiologically normal according to research of the developing brain, his teachers saw this delay as significant enough to warrant a repeat of kindergarten.   In his little mind, however, he began to think that he was not good enough to go to first grade with his peers.  He did better that second year in kindergarten, but the seed of self-doubt had been planted in his mind. 

John continued primary school after repeating kindergarten.  But John, being a typical boy, was extremely physical and visual.  He struggled with reading and the fine motor skills required for writing.  Unfortunately, his teachers  typically  and  primarily delivered instruction in the verbal mode.  And so, John continued to struggle.  It was his school's policy that students could be retained once in primary and once in the intermediate years.

By the time John reached the end of the primary program, he had not attained skills listed in the exit criteria.  Suspecting a learning disability, his teachers requested that John spend that "extra year" sometimes needed in the primary program.  (The repeat of kindergarten didn't count as part of the primary program according to his school's SBDM policy.)  Fearing a learning disability, his parents agreed to the extra year and to having John evaluated. 

John went through a complete evaluation at the beginning of the next year, but did not qualify for special education services.  Sensing the lower expectations of both his teachers and parents, John stopped believing in himself.  Sometimes he tried, but it never paid off.  Eventually he stopped putting forth effort in his schoolwork, unless it really appealed to his interests.  Upon entering fourth grade, John was 11 and turned 12 before the end of that year.   

 By this time, John was quite a behavior problem in class.  His fourth grade teacher mentioned the possibility of ADHD to his parents.  Looking for an explanation for John's troubles, his parents took him to the doctor with this suggestion.  Medication was tried, but seemed to have no significant effect on John (since he really didn't have ADHD.)

To fast forward the story, John continued to struggle through his intermediate and middle school years and still tries to cover up his low-self image with acting-out behaviors.  That brings us to now, with John being 16 at the end of his 8th grade year.  And we ask, what is the likelihood that John will complete his high school education?  Since most retentions in Kentucky occur at the ninth grade level, the odds of John completing high school are pretty slim.  (http://www.whas11.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D7SKAJ401.html "Kentucky Dropout Rate Falls for Third Straight Year," Associated Press, 7/31/2003)

Typically, at the elementary level, we don't think about how retention directly affects the dropout rate since it is retention and not dropout that is included in the non-cognitive data that is averaged into our testing accountability at the elementary level.  The dropout rate is for high school teachers to worry about...right?  WRONG.  The worst damage is actually done in the elementary years.  How can we make elementary administrators and teachers aware of this fact and break this vicious cycle? 

Introduction

Dropout prevention studies show that after a child has been retained once, he/she is 60% more likely to drop out of school.  After two retentions, it becomes a near mathematical certainty that the student will become a dropout statistic.  While the Kentucky Primary Program encourages continuous progress, this initiative alone has not been enough.  Instead of using the option of retention, we must differentiate instruction to meet the needs of students, regardless of their grade levels. 

It has often been said that success breeds success. Learners of all ages must feel that they can accomplish the tasks they are given.  At the same time, teachers are held accountable for student performance on high-stakes tests that require covering content dictated by state and national standards.  Special needs students are held to the same high standards and must receive exposure to challenging curriculum. 

The only way to accomplish this myriad of tasks is to utilize available technologies to deliver instruction and assess student progress.  This, in turn, increases student motivation for learning and breeds success.   And so, for the remainder of this article, our "essential focus" is motivating students through technology.  The practice of using available technologies to meet the diverse needs of students is a practice formally referred to as Universal Design for Learning.

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Strategies

The elementary years represent the foundation for learning, yet huge growth and development is shown in the elementary continuum.  Therefore, strategies for both the primary and intermediate levels are provided in this section.

Technology as a motivational tool--Project-Based Learning

Primary

Motivate young students to create content-related slideshows using Kid Pix.  This program is so much more than a paint/slideshow program!  Students can create animated slideshows to present to the class as evidence of their learning or the entire class can collaborate on shows and share them with other classes.  This program also builds a nice foundation for young students in graphic art design.  Kids love it!

Intermediate

One option for project-based assessment with intermediate students is to give them the option of creating their own web pages to demonstrate learning within a particular unit of study.  This author's favorite method for offering this to students is through www.myschoolonline.com.  Signing up individual classrooms gives teachers the option of allowing students to serve as page authors for their own web pages.  Content of pages has to be approved by the classroom teacher before they go "live."  Since the service is Internet-based, students can work on their web pages anywhere they can connect to the Internet.

Technology as an instructional tool

Motivate students with the way you deliver instruction!

Research on brain differences in males and females give teachers a basis for delivering instruction in multiple ways.  At the very minimum, we must present our lessons both verbally and visually. The more senses and learning styles we can touch, the better. 

Primary

The primary years are the perfect time for doing extensive modeling of technology use.  The use of a SmartBoard or similar technology allows a young student to use his/her finger as the mouse.  This hands-on method of whole-class instruction and modeling is both visual and tactile and develops listening skills as students have to process directions given by the teacher.  Then, when students are ready to use particular software tools on their own, they know exactly what to do.

Intermediate

One of the most powerful pieces of instructional software that classroom teachers can use is Inspiration.  This concept-mapping software allows teachers to help students make connections between topics, identify similarities and differences, make summarizations and even develop drafts in the writing process.  (That's exactly how this author drafted this article!)  The Rapid-Fire button allows quick mapping of classroom or individual brainstorming sessions.  Clicking in the upper left corner handle of a chosen topic opens up a notes box for typing text.  With the click of a button, the concept web is then converted into outline form, complete with all typed notes text.  The outline can then easily be copied and pasted directly into any word processing program for editing and publishing.  This is handy not only for drafting in writing class, but for creating outline study guides.  Use of Inspiration fits best practice in that the process of creating concept maps is a both a visual and verbal process. 

Technology as an assessment tool

Primary students use technology as a way of assessment?  You bet!  The "big purpose" in getting kids to use technology in the first place is to encourage students to create products that demonstrate their learning.  Once they present these "products" to others, they have reached the peak in the teaching/learning pyramid.  Remember, any learner remembers 90% of what he/she teaches to others!  (David Sousa, How the Brain Learns)

Primary

Kidspiration, the "kiddie" version of Inspiration is a fantastic way to assess primary-aged students' understanding of concepts across subject areas.  It has built-in text-to-speech and dozens of templates that are ready-to-use in a lab or one-computer classroom.  Many of the templates involve selection of nonlinguistic representations (one of the nine research-based instructional strategies from Classroom Instruction That Works by Marzano, Pickering and Pollock), sorting and classifying objects.  The writing mode in Kidspiration is less intimidating than Inspiration’s formal outline format since it looks exactly like notebook paper!  For even the youngest students or older students with special needs, Kidspiration can be used in a completely visual way.  This piece of software is a MUST for every elementary classroom and computer lab.

Intermediate

Using technology for assessment in the intermediate grades not only includes project-based learning, but also more traditional forms of assessment, such as multiple choice tests.  Although other forms of assessment are encouraged, the traditional multiple choice test is still used in many settings.  In fact, many higher education and professional exams are given in multiple choice style in an online environment.  And with the CATS Online Testing option for students with special needs, the following strategy is great practice for ALL students and will prepare them for online testing situations for the rest of their lives.

Creating Online Tests

http://school.discovery.com/quizcenter/quizcenter.html

The Discovery Channel's Discovery School Site for teachers has a free Quiz Center.  Simply sign-up for a free Custom Classroom Account and begin utilizing this free resource.

http://www.quizlab.com/

This author/teacher recommends Quizlab for developing online tests.  Although there is a modest yearly subscription fee ($29.95 for a single teacher and less for bulk subscriptions), this service is dependable and offers some super features that just aren't available with the free services.  Try it out with a free thirty-day trial.

Technology as a learning tool

In his book Boys and Girls Learn Differently, Michael Gurian actually cautions the use of computers before approximately third grade; however, what he is cautioning here is overuse.  Just like television viewing, computer overuse can have a negative impact on student achievement.  For this age level, thirty minutes of computer utilization per day is not too much.  Giving students time to work on computers with a well-defined purpose can have wonderful benefits for young children, including development of hand-eye coordination and an extreme sense of pride in operating the computer independently. 

After the developmental years, computer use can certainly increase, keeping in mind that there needs to be a balance of computer use for academic and personal entertainment.

Primary

For primary-aged students, Living Books bring stories to life!  Young students can let the program read the story to them.  Literacy skills such as page orientation, left-to-right and top-to-bottom sequencing and visual matching are built in as the words are highlighted in time with the reading.  As students become more familiar with the Living Books format, they can choose the "Let Me Play" mode.  In this mode, students must turn the virtual pages of the book, click on words they want to explore and click on interactive graphics.  Living Books are books that students will want to read again and again and again...

Intermediate

For intermediate aged-students who have previously had little success in school or who have been formally identified as qualifying for special education services and related modifications, textHELP! has developed a wonderful package of literacy applications called Read & Write Gold that work in conjunction with almost any Windows-based software.  The applications are house in a special toolbar that can float on top of open windows or can be docked on the edge of the screen.  The package includes:  text-to-speech, phonetic-based spell check, homophone support, word prediction, dictionary, word wizard, scanning, teacher's toolkit, simple and scientific calculators, speechmaker, pronunciation tutor, fact folder, fact finder and speech input.

While all of these tools are helpful for special needs students, several are helpful for all students.  Teachers can set which features individual students have access to.  Since the entire class can use the program, it makes modifications for individual students unnoticeable. 

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Barriers

Cost

At the school level, the bottom line is almost always cost of implementation.  Many companies, like the manufacturers of the SmartBoard, offer grant opportunities.  Read & Write Gold software is offered to Kentucky schools and parents at a discounted rate.  The software and online services recommended in the strategies section are all cheaper when purchased in bulk quantities.  Check out the free trials and select one that fits your most immediate needs and go from there.

Educating Teachers

The best teachers are always looking for new and exciting ways to motivate their students.  Usually, all it takes to inspire is one educator sharing a success story with another.  Check out www.teachingforlife.org for tried-and-true technology implementation ideas for the elementary classroom.

Educating Parents

Concerned parents want the best tools for their children.  Software like Kidspiration, Inspiration and especially Read & Write Gold can have an incredible impact on student motivation, confidence and achievement.  When your school employs these initiatives, volunteer to hold a demonstration in the school lab to inform parents of your available resources and how they can give these same resources to their children at home.

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Resources

Kentucky Resources

Universal Design for Learning

http://www.kyschools.org/KDE/Instructional+Resources/Technology/Teacher+Resources/Universal+Design+for+Learning/default.htm

Student Technology Leadership Program

http://www.kyschools.org/KDE/Instructional+Resources/Technology/Student+Initiatives/STLP+Student+Technology+Leadership+Program/default.htm

University of Louisville UDL site (Ky State Improvement Grant)

http://kysig.louisville.edu/udl/

Assistive Technology Centers in Kentucky

http://kysig.louisville.edu/matrix/atctrs.htm

Electronic Text Sources

http://kysig.louisville.edu/udl/links.htm

Other Resources

Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Michael Gurian, http://www.michael-gurian.com/

Classroom Instruction That Works by Marzano, Pickering and Pollock, http://shop.ascd.org/ProductDisplay.cfm?ProductID=101010

Center for Applied Special Technology--Universal Design for Learning http://www.cast.org/udl/

How the Brain Learns, How the Special Needs Brain Learns and How the Gifted Brain Learns, by David Sousa, Copyright 2000, Corwin Press

Inspiration and Kidspiration software

http://www.inspiration.com/home.cfm

Kid Pix and Living Books

http://www.riverdeep.net/products/brands/index.jhtml

National Dropout Prevention Center/Network

http://www.dropoutprevention.org

SmartBoard

http://www.smarttech.com/

textHELP! Read & Write Gold software:

http://www.texthelp.com/readwriteg.asp?section=product

The Schools our Children Deserve:  Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards” by Alfie Kohn, Copyright 2000, by Mariner Books

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Comments

The National Dropout Prevention Center/Network has an excellent policy on student grade retention.  In a nutshell, it calls for continuous student progress via differentiation of instruction as opposed to "holding students back."

You can view this policy online at:  http://www.dropoutprevention.org/retent_policy/retent_policy.htm

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Key Words

instructional technology, technology, elementary, intermediate, UDL, universal design for learning, student motivation, brain research

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