Week Seven:Accessing the Curriculum

March 20, 2007

A-117: Implementing Inclusive Education

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Dr. Thomas Hehir

Week 1: Historical Context Societal response to disability is deeply ingrained in the culture.

Policy reflects culture and has been both abusive and benevolent.

People matter.

Week 2: Parents, the Disability Community, and Inclusive Education“…I give my parents high marks. They did not deny that I was blind, and did

not ask me to pretend that everything about my life was fine. They rarely sheltered. They worked to help me behave and look the way others did without giving me the sense to be blind-different- was shameful. They fought for me, and then with me, to ensure that I lived as full and rich a life as I could. For them and consequently for me, my blindness was a fact, not a tragedy. It affected them but did not dominate their lives. Nor did it dominate mine.” (Asch)

“My disability, with my different walk and talk and my involuntary movements, having been with me all my life, was part of me, part of my identity. With my disability features, I felt whole. My mother’s attempt to change my walk, strange as it may seem, felt like an assault on myself, an incomplete acceptance of all of me, an attempt to make me over.”

(Rousso)

Week 3: Principles of Inclusive Education

1. Minimize Impact

of Disability

What does that mean?

Would this differ by type of disability?

Would this vary by age level?

2. Maximize opportunity to participate

Are these roles conflicting?

Week 4: Principles of Inclusive Education cont’d.“…it advances the bolder, more encompassing thesis:

that the only place where students with disabilities can learn to lead a productive adult life is the general education classroom and that inclusion benefits the entire school community.”

(Shapiro-Barnard in Jorgensen)

“Unfortunately, students who are severely intellectually disabled cannot learn to function acceptably in

integrated community environments when instruction is confined to regular education environments.” (Sailor in Brown et al.)

Week 5: Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) (The Law)Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)§300.550 General LRE requirements. (a) Except as provided in §300.311(b) and (c), a State shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Secretary that the State has in effect policies and procedures to ensure that it meets the requirements of §§300.550-300.556.

(b) Each public agency shall ensure—(1) That to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are nondisabled; and

(2) That special classes, separate schooling or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only if the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(5))

Week 6: Research “ The positive nature of this relationship is particularly

interesting, given how difficult some regular education courses were. Regular education courses exposed students to significant academic risk, yet the students who took more of them did better in adulthood—if they managed to graduate from high school. At the very least, these analyses suggest that regular education classes did not have lasting negative effects. Across a number of analyses of postschool outcomes, the message was the same: those who spent more time in regular education classes experienced better outcomes after high school. Before we can draw policy or educational implications from this finding, however, we need to understand more about why it occurred”

(Hebbler, 1993, p. 6-13).

Shaywitz Title a bit inappropriate Interventions have yet to be demonstrated that

eliminate impact of dyslexia Interventions can lessen impact and prevent

avoidable development of reading disability Nascent research based on MRIs provide a

more in-depth understanding of the disability; that has educational implications now

Historical Roots As far back as 1676 researchers have

chronicled phenomenon 1887 term Dyslexia first used (Berlin) Acquired and congenital forms identified by

turn of century (Hinshelwood) Heritability of “word-blindness”

Historical Roots“It is a matter of the highest importance to recognise as early as possible

the true nature of this defect, when it is met with in a child. It may prevent much waste of valuable time and may save the child

from suffering and cruel treatment. When a child manifests great difficulty in learning to read

and is unable to keep up in progress with its fellows, the cause is generally assigned to stupidity or laziness,

and no systematised method is directed to the training of such a child. A little knowledge and carefully analysis of the child’s case would soon

make it clear that the difficulty experienced was due to a defect in the visual memory of words and letters; the child would then be regarded in the proper light

as one with a congenital defect in a particular area of the brain, a defect which, however, can often be remedied

by persevering and persistent training. The sooner the true nature of the defect is recognised, the better are the chances of the child’s improvement.”

- Hinshelwood (in Shaywitz, pp. 21-22)

The Big Picture 1987 NIH studies Connecticut longitudinal study Is dyslexia something people have? Dimensional not categorical disorder NAEP – 38% of eighth graders below basic Connecticut – 1 in 5 Are boys more apt to be dyslexic? Chronic condition “Band-aid approach to a gushing wound.”

(Shaywitz)

Reading: An Unnatural Act Phonological (low level) language problem

-Phonemes are building blocks of words/language

-Particulate principle and short term memory

-Co-articulation: The ability to overlap several phomemes while maintaining integrity of each

-Readers must convert printed characters to phomemic code

-Reading is converse of speaking

Example of CAT

K-AAAA-T

Reading: An Unnatural Act Evidence can be seen in:

Word substitutions Rhyming difficulties Significant trouble in early reading As children get older: continued poor oral

reading, development of compensatory mechanisms, poor spelling, labored reading rates, big picture thinkers

The Paradox of Dyslexia

READINGDecoding Comprehension

DYSLEXIA

Language System Reading

Discourse

Syntax

Semantics

Comprehension

Phonology DecodingShaywitz, p. 52

Word Identification Meaning

The Brain and Dyslexia Parieto-temporal and frontal region – novice readers and

dyslexics, slow analytical Occipito-temporal skilled readers Dyslexics show underactivation of back region Changes with age, activation of Broca region, compensation

with vocalization results in very slow reading rates Can these patterns be changed? Is the question of causation versus correlation relevant here? What does this mean for educators? Access to the curriculum?

Understanding the Curriculum The general curriculum includes the full range of courses,

activities, lessons, and materials used routinely by the general population of a school.

The intended curriculum is the official or adopted curriculum, often contained in state or district policy. This is the body of content that students are expected to learn as a result of their school experiences.

The taught curriculum is the minute-to-minute, day-to-day, and week-to-week events that actually occur in the classroom. It includes teacher instructional behaviors such as questioning or lecturing as well as the curriculum used in a classroom.

The learned curriculum is what students actually learn as a result of being in the classroom with the intended and taught curricula.

- Nolet and McLaughlin, pp. 29-30

Understanding the Curriculum The purpose of the curriculum is to bring about desired outcomes. These

outcomes may take the form of short-term goals or long-term expectations, Specification of the curriculum domain defines the limits of what is and

what is not part of the curriculum. The information contained in curriculum takes on various forms that each require different instructional considerations.

Time allocation is an indication of curriculum priorities. Sufficient time must be allocated to provide students with an adequate opportunity to learn the content contained in the curriculum.

Decisions about what to include or exclude from curriculum must take into account the sequencing strategy that underlies the curriculum. False assumptions that a particular topic will be taught later on in the curriculum can lead to curriculum omissions. Overemphasis of “readiness skills” will lead to the “ready means never” dilemma.

- Nolet and McLaughlin, pp. 29-30