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A hybrid approach to teaching in the classrooms takes an approach inclusive practitioners have been advocating for years and modifies it to suit the 21st century technological world we live in. We as teacher must ask within each lesson “what is the learning objective of this lesson?” if the answer does not include “read without support” or “write answers into copy” then we should be looking at the amazing world of DEL and AT. The SETT Framework should be used at this point to help determine the appropriate tools to assist an individual child. Comprehension activities, story creation, poetry to name but a very few literacy topics can all be presented to children allowing them to respond to activities in different ways that take their ‘barriers’ away and let them use the creative minds in ways we know for e.g. children with dyslexia can do –oral responses to literacy tasks is a fantastic way of removing barriers for children with literacy difficulties. There are also fantastic advocators for inclusive education who have been stressing for years that these modification “for a few” would. In fact, providing an enriched learning activity for all – this is what was reiterated in this module. Children as a whole are more engaged when we encourage them to be creative and work together. The likes of edpuzzle, Kahoot and Flipgrid gave me a revitalised vision of what ‘group work’ and ‘collaboration’ can look like. I do not doubt that the time it will initially take to get DEL off the ground and become a whole school blended approach to teaching and learning will be time consuming and in a system that already demands a lot of time, I do envisage it being met with resistance, however there are always some who find technology easier and if they can come together (gather evidence) and demonstrate to others the excitement and ease at which a lot of these activities can be developed with practice for e.g. team teaching lessons or demonstration lessons, (followed by evaluation) while also offering support to less confident teachers, whole school blended learning initiatives could really take off (implementation).
A hybrid approach to teaching in the classrooms takes an approach inclusive practitioners have been advocating for years and modifies it suit the 21st century technological world we live in. We as teacher must ask within each lesson “what is the learning objective of this lesson?” if the answer does not include “read without support” or “write answers into copy” then we should be looking at the amazing world of DEL and AT. The SETT Framework should be used at this point to help determine the appropriate tools to assist an individual child. Comprehension activities, story creation, poetry to name but a very few literacy topics can all be presented to children allowing them to respond to activities in different ways that take their ‘barriers’ away and let them use the creative minds in ways we know for e.g. children with dyslexia can do –oral responses to literacy tasks is a fantastic way of removing barriers for children with literacy difficulties. There are also fantastic advocators for inclusive education who have been stressing for years that these modification “for a few” would. In fact, providing an enriched learning activity for all – this is what was reiterated in this module. Children as a whole are more engaged when we encourage them to be creative and work together. The likes of edpuzzle, Kahoot and Flipgrid gave me a revitalised vision of what ‘group work’ and ‘collaboration’ can look like. I do not doubt that the time it will initially take to get DEL off the ground and become a whole school blended approach to teaching and learning will be time consuming and in a system that already demands a lot of time, I do envisage it being met with resistance, however there are always some who find technology easier and if they can come together (gather evidence) and demonstrate to others the excitement and ease at which a lot of these activities can be developed with practice for e.g. team teaching lessons or demonstration lessons, (followed by evaluation) while also offering support to less confident teachers, whole school blended learning initiatives could really take off (implementation).
Our school focus for our SSE has been on the PLC with an additional focus on oral language and vocabulary across our classes. While our focus in Maths has been having a consistent rubric for problem solving that we use across every class.
Literacy and Numeracy strategies
I have been in SET for a number of years, I try to structure my lessons with as much active learning for the children as possible, whether that takes the from of ‘go fish’ for phonics sounds and trick words in infants or Boom with the children’s spelling sound for the given week in 5th class. For vocabulary I have found “guess what” an engaging game for the children. I have used iPads for research, specific spellings apps e.g. Squeebles spellings to reinforce HFW, and phonics play with the infants. The technology I have used has been more for the purpose of engagement and digital literacy as opposed to AT purposes.In Numeracy, I use a lot of hands of resources and manipulatives with the children. Similar to literacy, the apps and technology I use for math are more engagement purposes, I’ve uses a lot of the ixl links, squeebles times tables, rocket math.
Technology Enhanced Learning
I am excited about using the TEL the course has exposed me to with the children I support as a SET. I can see clear ways of supporting children’s independence in accessing the class level curriculum they are at and no longer feeling like they are “lost”, and most importantly that they will be able to access this support (once initially taught) independently. One of the tools I envisage being a game changer for the children is OfficeLens with Immersive reader and the picture dictionary.
A lot of the apps presented in this module provide great ideas for station teaching, The Write About This App provides the opportunity to work on the SSE are of Oral Language while also supporting many element of syntax for the children. While ABC mouse and ABC Kids Tracing would be a fantastic app for our younger classes. We have a number of children in our school supported for speech and language also, the Sensory Speak Up and Articulation Station apps will give great additional guidance and ideas to the SET working with these children.
I support a lot of children with Dyslexia diagnosis and I am excited about trialling the Learning Alley Audio book with them.
I already use LEGOWeDo2 and Scratch with children with ASD and they engage really well with these technology enhanced learning activities, the other app that I intend to incorporate into my support with this group is the Kloog App, which I feel will allow me to support the children’s social skills in a more engaging for the children.<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>Lesson synopsis – I considered a lesson based around novel work for children in a 4<span style=”vertical-align: super;”>th</span>class setting who have a diagnosis of dyslexia. In addition to scanning in and uploading the chapter to SharePoint for the parents who requested the ability to prepare children with new content before it’s taught in class. I would be present in the class for the novel and work with a group of my children using the <span style=”font-style: italic;”>alternative teaching </span>model of team teaching. The 6 children would all have access to an iPad and headphones. They would use Microsoft lens, followed by immersive reader to listen to the chapter of the story being covered (with the option of line focus and coloured background where appropriate for specific children’s needs). The picture dictionary function would be turned on for the children so they could check the definitions of any unfamiliar words. Following on from the reading of the extract, we would focus on key paragraphs and children would be asked to summarise the key point of the paragraph in 10 words. Having had an opportunity to <span style=”font-style: italic;”>Think, Pair </span>& <span style=”font-style: italic;”>Share </span>children would then use the dictate function in One Note to write their 10 word synopses. They would then listen back to the sentences ensuring they made sense. This group work would then support them to participate more confidently in the comprehension activities that would subsequently take place in the whole class setting. Another fun activity that would work for this lesson would be giving children the opportunity to create their own Flipgrid response to the selected paragraphs or to the comprehension questions. This could be through the original SharePoint link that was sent to parents. Flipgrid has the immersive reader function built in so if children have been set comprehension questions as a whole class, this would support their accessability too. What I felt children would most enjoy about this approach is the ability to add emojis, this would be particularly effective for inferencing how characters might feel or children’s own response to an event in the story.</p>
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<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>CPD and lifelong learning</p>
<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>Like all others have said, I too believe in the power and necessity of lifelong learning of teachers. The needs of our children are ever changing, the diagnostic criteria and suggested supports for our SEN children are ever changing, the world out children are growing up in is ever changing. If we are to provide an education that is appropriate to the ever changing needs of our children and the world they are growing up in, we too must be committed to continuously evolving our knowledge and practice. In one of the Dyslexia videos I watched as part of the module Keira Kneightly said of teachers CPD:</p>
<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>“It is absolutely vital because the world is changing and imagination is key to everything and there’s going to be a lot of kids whose potential are lost unless we train our teacher to effectively teach them”</p>
<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>This for me summarises the needs for committed to continuously evolving our knowledge and practice.</p><p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>My initial impression of Immersive Reader is the ease of accessibility of the AT tool. The number of programs that it is built into means that almost all school laptops will have it readily available for children to use. While the picture dictionary, translate options and the line focus options mean that it’s an AT tool that benefits a range of SEN. In my current SET role, I support a lot of children with dyslexia diagnosis and I can instantly how Immersive reader would be a game changer for immersive inclusion in the classroom. The nature of reading challenges associated with dyslexia very often means the written form of language that children with dyslexia are presented with, is not always consistent with the curriculum level that they are working at for e.g. other SESE subjects. This presents difficulties in vocabulary knowledge for the children when they are engaging with text in the classroom, the picture dictionary provides an instant visual for the children. This visual is particularly supportive for children with dyslexia as many of them have strengths in visual learning, the opposite of searing through a hard copy dictionary which requires a range of cognitive tasks to be completed in order to find the word!</p>
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<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>A major benefit of Dictate that I can envisage is the removal of spelling barriers for children with dyslexia. I have worked with children with dyslexia whose oral language and vocabulary were fantastic but when it came to writing, regardless of the encouragement given, they would only write what they felt they could spell and this definitely impacts the quality of writing they presents. Using Dictate would eliminate this barrier for the children. This reminds me of the benefit of using the ‘task’ table – detailed in the SETT framework in module one and the importance of being able to identify the <span style=”font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;”>key</span> barrier to children’s learning rather than choosing an AT tool for the sake of it!</p>
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<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>We are very fortunate in our school to have a very good working relationship with our student’s parents and we very much have an open door policy where our SET team liaison frequently with parents and parents wish to reinforce the work at home. Sharepoint offers great opportunities for teachers to show parents the work children have been completing in class. From a primary school perspective, this would be particularly helpful for Maths, where the feedback is very often “s/he won’t let me help because I don’t do it the same way as the teacher”. Sharepoint would provide the child with the opportunity to rewatch the teachers method at home when engaging with homework, while also showing the parents the way the computations are being worked out in class.</p>
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<p lang=”en-IE” style=”caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in; font-family: Cambria;”>While my focus has been on using the tools to support children with dyslexia, there are a vast number of benefits for children with EAL that extend across all the areas I mentioned, from in class immersive inclusion to home-school communications and reinforcements</p>Hi all,
I posted this above but the format wouldn’t work!
I’ve retyped it below;
What I’ve taken most from this module is how the DFL can be used to guide and direct teachers in how to plan using AT to support children with SEN. As others have adhered to, this is a guidance document with standards that unfortunately is not supported with regular training and up skilling for teachers to ensure the correct AT is being used which can result in interpretation of what AT looks like in the classroom (and very often results in the use of AT products instead of tools!) The SSE planning document could definitely support schools in providing a structure to limiting and preventing this from occurring. The video links that are provided on the PDST website do give some information suggestions on what support might look like in different situations.
The identified difference between AT tools and products was also interesting and will be particularly relevant where AfL is being used. This, together with the ‘task’ table – detailed in the SETT framework – conveyed very clearly how to break down a task to identify a student’s strengths and needs in a given task and thus identify the needs that require the AT targeted support. I saw very clearly with this module how children’s ability and attainment could be bridged when the correct AT is identified and provided. Of course, children would require direct instruction in building their independence with these skills.
As a SET teacher exploring the DLF, one of the standards this would fall under would be “The teacher selects and uses teaching approaches appropriate to the learning objective and to pupils’ learning needs.” This would be reflected in my practice through the “adaption <of> pedagogical strategies when using digital technologies to personalise and facilitate pupils’ ownership of their learning.” It similarly falls under the standard “The teacher responds to individual learning needs and differentiates teaching and learning activities as necessary” as it requires the teacher to “reflect on and enhance pupils’ active use of a range of Digital technologies based in their individual learning needs,” thus supporting the student to “achieve the stated learning objectives for the term and year.”
Clairemarie
