As families and guardians seek to promote their child’s growth, questions arise as to what will sustain a lifelong of impactful learning. With a core precedent that each child needs different things, what are some of the key elements of equitable instruction for all students? What does this look like for students who learn differently than their context requires of them, have specific disabilities, are gifted, or are twice exceptional? Equitable instructional design must:
- Honor and center the unique way the child learns
- Utilize multisensory, differentiated, active and adaptive practices
- Be sequenced, structured, scaffolded, explicit and embedded
- Utilize diversified child centered data and clear goals directing meaningful interventions and progress tracking
- Celebrate authentic relationships and the messiness of the learning process
Differentiated instruction simply means that the approaches, methods, and means of meeting learning goals vary. Information can be presented and engaged with through diverse means. Students may learn by reading, discussing, drawing, writing, acting, observing, through games, or any number of activities. Highly differentiated instruction ensures students learn regardless of or with respect to learner variability. Similarly, multisensory learning means that all the senses are engaged, supported, and utilized as access points. Active learning means that students are participating and practicing the concepts to internalize and apply them. Students may require unique adjustments to highly differentiated universally designed instruction. Rather than consider access as an afterthought, learning cultures that actively integrate adaptive tools, activities, settings – foster the belonging, care, and access children need to succeed. An openness and willingness to innovate techniques centers student empowerment.
To personalize instruction, a child’s PLOP (Present Level of Performance) must be evaluated and identified. Assessment will look at a child’s learning preferences or style, interests, and strengths; Specific academic, cognitive, socioemotional, sensory, physical skills must be evaluated to identify the scope of competencies mastered or needing support. Concrete criterion-based assessments that evaluate a student’s specific skills will guide this, not comparison to standardized means. With that said, goal development must consider broader age, grade, vocational, or lifelong benchmarks. Data includes quantitative and qualitative facts such student observations, parent/guardian intake, work samples. Children should be invited into the conversation to report on their needs and co-create goals as the key stakeholder. We need to know a child in order propel progress and maximize growth.
Providers should proactively seek your perspective, integrating it as central to cultivating meaningful opportunities. They should also openly discuss their observations, trusting you with “professional knowledge” and be willing to differentiate the information for you as well. They must be willing to engage critically with external data or communications, avoiding disservices caused by replicating biases from inaccurate, incomplete, outdated information, or failures to employ proper assessment. Seek those dedicated to holistic growth models, not simply pathologizing what doesn’t fit into or results from enforcing school norms.
Similarly, progress evaluations must align with what was taught, scaffolds, and benchmarks. Differentiated assessments enable us to evaluate progress without creating barriers based on the construction of the assessment itself. Ongoing progress data should direct iterations of instructional design and implementation.
Goals and instructional choices are based on a child’s unique profile. As we identify ambitions, we need to clarify and define what they mean or look like. For example, if we want a child to exhibit “self-regulation,” we need to define self-regulation. This may include our socio-cultural as well as neurocognitive definitions. Is self-regulation modulating one’s actions to external punishment and rewards? Is it being mindful of one’s feelings? An active decisionmaker in one’s responses? An integrated set of skills to manage complex psychosocial contexts or educational challenges? If we are talking about literacy, do we want a child to spend extensive amounts of time guessing words based on surrounding words memorized? Or to be readily decode any words they see and combine them to infer meaning? The first step is to define the wider deeper long-term goals you have for yourself and your child(ren). Next, identify what goes into attaining them.
Learning opportunities start where the person is at. As such a child’s baseline is not necessarily “grade level.’ Interventions designed and implemented should be sequenced and structured thoughtfully so new knowledge is continually built upon prior content; Long term goals are built upon smaller steps. Sustainable learning is designed for continual evolution. The models respect the absolute importance of foundational skills as tools for next steps, without setting them as limits. Each intervention continually integrates applications into more advanced contexts, skills, or problems. With that said, learning is not always as clearly linear as imagined. “Spot treatment” of gap areas must integrate and maximize strengths; and where students have a “Swiss cheese” of skills and deficits that seem disconnected, connections must tie these ideas together while building them. Sustainable learning includes explicit clear learning and opportunities to practice, experience, and observe the new content in embedded ways. As such, instruction is highly planned and organized; it is also flexible and iterative to meet your child’s continued progress.
Most importantly, there must be some buy-in for learning. Authentic relationships, non-judgmental interactions, feeling understood and respected for how they learn best, having strength-based, and skill building opportunities makes it possible for learners to take necessary risks to grow. A culture that normalizes error, change, and possibility evokes patience and practice for the learner. Mindfulness from the practitioner must guide interactions. Safety evolves in combinations of empathy, kindness, structure, guidance, and joy. Opportunities to find joy in the process that is learning coincides with being empowered. Dynamic and impactful intervention strengthen possibilities, even in a child’s most pressing challenges. In turn, a child develops a positive relationship with themselves, and the efforts needed.
As we cultivate pathways for our child to develop as and into their best selves – seek out opportunities that encapsulate differentiation, child centered, and sustainable learning practices.
Dani Schechner’s the Director at Learners at the Center, leading innovation and impact in equity-by-design praxis. More information can be found at www.learnersatthecenter.weebly.com.
