Instructional Adaptations for Students With Learning Disabilities: An Action Research Project.

It is generally agreed upon that general educators need to have an increasingly large repertoire of instructional strategies to effectively meet the needs of students with learning disabilities (DeBettencourt, 1999). Teachers sometimes allow the curriculum to become their instructional strategy. In other words, the textbook containing the information students are supposed to learn is the instructional tool. As such, curriculum is confused with instruction. Curriculum is the "what," or content, and instruction is the "how," or method of conveying the content. The role of special educators is to assist regular educators as they make instructional adaptations for students with learning disabilities (Welch, 1997). With the increasing diversity and numbers of students with special needs served in the general education classrooms, teachers need more knowledge about these children and more training in skills that have shown to be effective with such populations (DeBettencourt, 1999). In her research, DeBettencourt (1999) found that teachers felt no strong commitment to the concept of mainstreaming and did not feel that it had been successful in their school. Research suggests that many general educators question their knowledge and skills for adequately planning for and instructing students with special needs in their classrooms (Schumm & Vaughn, 1994; Welch, 1997). It is believed that educators at the middle and high school level may not have positive attitudes toward students with learning disabilities who require instructional alterations (Schumm & Vaughn, 1994). The implications from research for best practices imply that all educators, both general and special, need to learn better skills in strategy training and collaboration (DeBettencourt, 1999). 

Purpose 

The purpose of this study was to determine what learning strategies teachers were using with students and to support educators with two learning strategies that they could implement in their classes. Effective strategies were, and continue to be, important tools for general educators to have in their repertoire to best serve students with learning disabilities. This study explored the possibility that in regular education teachers were confused between strategies and modifications. The study's purpose was to determine if these educators used specific learning strategies to help students with learning disabilities. Finally, educators' opinions in regard to the use of specific learning strategies were gathered. 

Method 

The participants in the study were six middle school teachers in a suburban setting. The teachers had a variety of teaching experiences, ranging from 0.5 years, the newest, to the most experienced with 13 years in the general education setting. At the time of the study, they were teaching a variety of subjects: science, math, history, and English. 

Teachers completed a survey answering five questions concerning experience, knowledge, and strategy use in their classes. Questions were designed to determine the educators' self-reported knowledge and use of specific strategies with students. The educators were also asked what strategies they used on an ongoing basis when working with students having learning disabilities. 

After the initial data collection, the educators were taught two specific learning strategies: KWL, which was created by Ogle (1986), and a simple web, both used to build organizational skills. The KWL method relies on students' prior knowledge and future goals of learning. A simple web offers students a way to organize previously learned information. The teachers used these strategies over a 4-week period. They were told that if any problems, questions, or concerns arose while using these strategies that they were to discuss them with the researcher. 

The educators used the strategies in their classes and then completed a follow-up survey that examined their understanding of using specific learning strategies in the classroom and beliefs concerning the effectiveness of these strategies in working with students with learning disabilities. 

Results 

Keeping in mind the difference between strategies (techniques that enable a student to solve problems and complete tasks independently) and accommodations (a change in course materials or standards that provide access for a student), the initial questionnaire asked the educators to name all the specific strategies that they knew and those they used in their classrooms on a regular basis. The educators gave 40 total responses to these two questions of which only one was a teaching strategy; the other responses were about accommodations for students with learning disabilities. 

The teachers were also asked to rank their knowledge of specific strategies for working with students with learning disabilities. The average of the respondents was 2.6 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = little knowledge and 5 = highly knowledgeable). Only one of the educators gave a response above 3. Three of the educators gave responses of 2. 

The follow-up questionnaire and reflection sessions held with the educators resulted in what we believed was growth for the educators and their knowledge concerning specific learning strategies. When asked how effective the educators thought these two specific learning strategies were in helping students, the average response was 4. 

One educator stated that she had just completed a unit of study before beginning to use the strategies with the class period chosen. After 4 weeks of using these two strategies, she reported that the class average for the following unit was up 4 points. She also reported that she had introduced how to use these specific learning strategies to all classes throughout the day. 

In using the KWL in a math class, one participant reported that it was a "great way for students to organize their understanding." He stated that it made it easier for his students with learning disabilities to ask questions in class and to ask for help. There seemed to be two distinct reasons for this: (a) the students were not as embarrassed to ask questions that would make them "look stupid" in front of the class because other students were asking questions and (b) the students had not forgotten their questions because they had them written down. This educator also felt that the KWL was a great wrap-up activity for teachers to use daily that would help them to meet the challenge looked for on the P.D.A.S. Finally, this teacher reflected on the educational gain for his students; he felt that the students benefited greatly from the use of the KWL in math class. 

The other issue that came up for several of the educators was how to get the students to use the strategies independently. Two of the six educators commented that the students needed to be "trained" in using the strategies. They stated that when they modeled the strategy it worked very well for the students, but when they asked the students to use the strategy on their own they "struggled." I asked the educators if they had taken time to explain the strategy and purpose to the students, but they had not, with the exception of showing them through modeling during the first few weeks. It was decided that it would be most effective for students if the purpose was explained and modeling occurred on a daily basis until the students were secure in using a new strategy. 

Finally, in reflections with each educator, they all stated that they had heard of both of these learning strategies at some point in their educational careers but had never used them. The English teacher occasionally used the webbing strategy for "some classes at times." The only strategy that was named by four of the six teachers was peer tutoring, which had been an in-service that these four teachers had attended the week before completing the first survey. Each teacher, with the one exception noted above, stated they had never used these strategies in their classes. Four of the educators said they had forgotten about them; the other two never used the strategies due to a lack of confidence on their part. 

Reflection 

This action research project has been informative to me and to the educators. The initial learning for me was the confirmation that teachers were confused about what specific learning strategies are, and this confusion generated from the idea that accommodations are learning strategies. These knowledgeable and competent professionals mirror the confusion that most educators seem to possess in this area. 

Effective learning strategies are an important tool for educators to use in the classroom for all students, in particular those with learning disabilities. Usage would help to promote ownership of information and lead to better educational outcomes for students. I now understand how important it is for educators to teach, model, and follow up in using the strategies in the classroom. 

Recommendations 

1. Provide educators inservice trainings in the use and purpose of specific learning strategies that can be used in an inclusive setting with students with learning disabilities; 

2. Furnish educators inservice trainings in the purpose of accommodations or specific learning strategies to ensure proper use and understanding in the classroom; 

3. Ensure specific learning strategies be taught and used across the curriculum to promote generalization; and 

4. Maximize inservice trainings to ensure that students gain maximum benefits from these sessions. 

Summary 

This study focused on the knowledge and use of specific learning strategies by general education teachers when working in the inclusive setting with students with learning disabilities. These educators were confused about accommodations versus learning strategies. They were also willing to learn anything that would possibly help the students. 

Educators need to have inservice trainings in the use and purpose of specific learning strategies that can be used in an inclusive setting with students with learning disabilities. These strategies need to be taught to the students as well and used across the curriculum to promote generalization. The educators need to model the use of these strategies and incorporate them into the normal daily activities of their classrooms. Using specific learning strategies in an inclusive setting is a positive tool for both students with learning disabilities and educators. 

A Collection of Action Research Resources

http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arhome.html

A Methodological Approach to Action Research

What is Action Research?

Action research is known by many other names, including participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, and contextural action research, but all are variations on a theme. Put simply, action research is “learning by doing” - a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again.  While this is the essence of the approach, there are other key attributes of action research that differentiate it from common problem-solving activities that we all engage in every day.  A more succinct definition is,

 

"Action research...aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to further the goals of social science simultaneously.  Thus, there is a dual commitment in action research to study a system and concurrently to collaborate with members of the system in changing it in what is together regarded as a desirable direction.  Accomplishing this twin goal requires the active collaboration of researcher and client, and thus it stresses the importance of co-learning as a primary aspect of the research process."

See more at:

http://www.web.net/~robrien/papers/arfinal.html

What Is Action Research?

Action research is one of those terms that we hear quite often in today’s educational circles. But just what does it mean? If you ask three people to define action research, you may find yourself with three different responses. Typically, action research is undertaken in a school setting. 

It is a reflective process that allows for inquiry and discussion as components of the “research.” Often, action research is a collaborative activity among colleagues searching for solutions to everyday, real problems experienced in schools, or looking for ways to improve instruction and increase student achievement. Rather than dealing with the theoretical, action research allows practitioners to address those concerns that are closest to them, ones over which they can exhibit some influence and make change. Practitioners are responsible for making more and more decisions in the operations of schools, and they are being held publicly accountable for student achievement results. The process of action research assists educators in assessing needs, documenting the steps of inquiry, analyzing data, and making informed decisions that can lead to desired outcomes. 

Action research is a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research. It is based on the following assumptions: 

•Teachers and principals work best on problems they have identified for themselves 

•Teachers and principals become more effective when encouraged to examine and assess their 

own work and then consider ways of working differently 

•Teachers and principals help each other by working collaboratively 

•Working with colleagues helps teachers and principals in their professional development 

(Watts, 1985, p. 118)

http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/themes_ed/act_research.pdf

The Pale Blue Dot

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 from a record distance of 4 billion miles. In this video, Carl Sagan relates his thoughts on a deeper meaning of the photograph.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Review Keynote 08

Presentation software adds path motion, time-saving features

by Franklin N. Tessler

In the four-and-a-half years since its launch, Keynote has matured from a promising but flawed program into a strong performer that outshines Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 (  ) in most areas. Even so, Keynote 3 (  ) suffered from a few surprising omissions, such as tiny thumbnails in the Light Table and lack of support for QuickTime VR. Although Keynote ’08 doesn’t address all my complaints, it’s a must-have for anyone who’s using an earlier version and more compelling than ever for new users.

Smoother workflow

The new version of Keynote retains an uncluttered interface that makes it easy to put together polished presentations with a minimum of fuss, while introducing features that boost efficiency. For example, the Format Bar, an optional ribbon that appears just below the toolbar, lets you adjust fonts, color, shadows, opacity, and more. It’s a simple addition (and one that spans all three iWork programs), but it means less shuffling through Inspector tabs to tweak the look of objects on a slide.

The new Smart Build feature is another huge time-saver that lets you show a series of images without putting them on separate frames or using builds to display them one-by-one. When you set up a Smart Build, a resizable placeholder and a translucent overlay appear on the slide. The overlay, similar to Keynote’s image adjustment window, has a space for you to drag and drop the images that you want to present from the Media Browser or Finder, along with thumbnails of the ones that you’ve chosen so far. When you’re done, Keynote displays the pictures using one of ten special effects, including a turntable that rotates to bring succeeding images into view and another that shows pictures on a spinning cube.

Alas, although you can insert a Smart Build onto a master slide, it won’t function as a placeholder on slides that use that master—if you want to use the same Smart Build effect on several slides, you have to create the builds separately or design the first slide and then duplicate it.

New Auto Correction options, which you activate via Keynote’s preferences, also let you work more quickly by automatically capitalizing words at the beginning of sentences, building bulleted and numbered lists, and replacing text as you type. Although the last feature is mostly intended to perform character substitutions (such as replacing “(r)” with “®”), you can also customize the list of replacements to correct common mistakes (“the” for “hte”) or expand shortcuts into preferred phrases.

Another feature lets people with less than perfect vision choose from one of three magnification levels for the slide thumbnails in the Navigator and Light Table views. Although it’s not as flexible as the variable slider I would have preferred, it’s a welcome addition that saves time by letting you read slides without having to look at them in the Slide Only or Navigator view.

Objects in motion

Despite an impressive roster of motion builds and other effects, animation previously wasn’t Keynote’s strongest suit, requiring cumbersome workarounds or separate programs like Adobe Flash to simulate even simple actions like moving a ball across a floor. Keynote’s support for path-based animation puts an end to that by letting you define exactly how objects move. And that’s not all: in addition to controlling an object’s position, you can specify actions that change its size, rotation, or opacity at any point in time to, for example, simulate a spaceship that grows as it approaches the viewer from a distance.

You create animation paths by building them from straight lines or Bézier curves, one section at a time. Although this approach works well for many applications, plotting out motion along a circle or ellipse means stringing together several Bézier curves. It would be far simpler if you could designate circles and other graphic outlines as motion paths. And, because you have to use Keynote’s fixed-size build drawer to set up the order and timing of movements and other effects, it’s difficult to choreograph multiple objects. So, along with additional options for defining motion paths, a timeline for setting up builds and other effects tops my wish list for a future update to Keynote.

Picture perfect

Other enhancements build on Keynote’s considerable graphics prowess. Picture Frame, a new stroke option in the Graphic Inspector, draws a border around any text or graphic object. You have 12 frame styles to choose from, ranging from simple lines to shadowed borders that are similar to the picture cutouts in some of Keynote’s older themes. Unlike cutouts, which are challenging to produce, you can add or tweak frames with only a few mouse clicks. And, now that Keynote lets you define pictures on master slides as media placeholders, it’s easier than ever to design your own themes.

Another new feature, Instant Alpha, lets you make backgrounds transparent without having to use an external image editor, such as Photoshop. The process works best on pictures with foreground objects that stand out from the background, such as a red company logo set against a white backdrop. When you click on the background, contiguous pixels with similar colors turn purple. As you drag, the range of selected colors shrinks or grows. When you’re satisfied with your selection, press return and the background disappears, leaving the rest of the picture intact. Instant Alpha is no substitute for Photoshop masking, but it performs remarkably well with some images.

Of course, no Keynote update would be complete without a few cool themes and special effects. New build effects include Flame, which makes objects appear or disappear in a blaze, and Confetti, which makes objects self-assemble from or explode into a cloud of specks. (Confetti also makes an appearance as a new transition effect.) The new version also sports nine new themes.

Sight and sound: a mixed bag

Keynote’s support for video is improved, but it’s still imperfect. For example, Keynote no longer automatically begins to play movies the instant they appear, and you can adjust a movie’s start and stop points in the QuickTime Inspector. You can also publish Keynote presentations directly on YouTube. Another new export option lets you save your slideshow in an iPod- or iPhone-compatible format, but you’re limited to fixed or recorded timing, so it’s of limited value if you want to practice a presentation on the go. And Keynote still doesn’t let you interact with QuickTime VR movies during a presentation.

Keynote’s audio features, although better than before, also don’t go far enough. For the first time, you can record a narration for your presentation in Keynote as you watch the slideshow, and most audio remains intact when you export a presentation to Flash. But you still can’t add audio tracks that span only a subset of slides, a feature that makes it challenging to create background music tracks that include several songs.

Macworld’s buying advice

Despite a few rough edges, Keynote ’08 is more impressive than ever. With PowerPoint 2008 slated for release early next year, I’m hoping that the competition will compel Apple to address Keynote’s remaining shortcomings before then.

http://www.macworld.com/article/59529/2007/08/keynote08.html

Microsoft PowerPoint 2008

Presentation software edges closer to the competition

by Franklin N. Tessler

Few products enjoy the market dominance that PowerPoint for Windows does—for most of the world, the words “PowerPoint” and “presentation” are interchangeable. But Mac presenters have had an alternative since January of 2003, when Apple unveiled Keynote (). Although the initial release lagged in a few critical respects, three subsequent updates addressed most of Keynote’s shortcomings and established it as the clear presentation leader for the Mac. Sporting an improved interface and beefed-up graphics capabilities, PowerPoint 2008 catches up to Keynote in a few areas and even exceeds it in some. While it’s still not Keynote’s equal, PowerPoint is sometimes a better practical choice.

PowerPoint’s new look

Many changes to PowerPoint’s user interface are recognizable instantly. The standard toolbar is now built in, and you can opt to display all the toolbars docked or undocked— except the Drawing toolbar, which cannot be docked. When docked, the toolbars are integrated into the main window, resulting in a much cleaner appearance than in PowerPoint 2004. You can also customize any of the toolbars to suit your workflow by dragging commands into or out of them.

In PowerPoint 2008, the dedicated Slide and Outline views are gone, replaced by a three-part Normal View that shows the current slide on a light grey backdrop and speaker’s notes on the bottom. A new pane on the left replaces the old Outline view with a more versatile one that lets you toggle between outline and thumbnail representations of the presentation. Like Keynote’s Navigator, the Slide pane makes it easy to see the current slide in the context of the ones around it, and you can duplicate, delete, or rearrange selected slides. However, there’s no way to arrange the slides hierarchically or hide subgroups of slides the way you can with Keynote.

The Elements Gallery, another new feature, augments PowerPoint more than it does either of the other two Office applications that feature it. Gallery tabs let you insert or make changes to slide themes, layouts, transitions, table styles, charts, SmartArt Graphics, and WordArt. The Layouts gallery is especially helpful, since you can use it to either change the layout of an existing slide or add a new slide with the selected layout. SmartArt Graphics, which convert text bullets to eye-catching graphics, are an effective way to explain complex relationships, although they can detract from a presentation if they’re overused.

Your master’s slides

Nowhere is the difference in design philosophy between PowerPoint and Keynote more apparent than in each program’s implementation of themes, master slides, and layouts. Instead of separate title and slide masters, PowerPoint 2008 supports a single master slide that determines the appearance of background elements and placeholders on all the slide layouts. Set the title text on the master slide to Arial yellow bold, say, and the corresponding text on all the individual slide layouts changes too. Themes, on the other hand, let you specify the background and attributes of all the placeholders on any subset of slides, and provide a way to maintain design consistency.

Keynote, by contrast, doesn’t separate masters and layouts. You can have as many masters as you wish, each with its own background and arrangement of text, graphics elements, and placeholders. (As in PowerPoint, you can apply themes to change the look of an entire presentation in one step.) Although PowerPoint 2008’s model provides considerable flexibility, it’s not as straightforward as Keynote’s approach, and will probably confuse novices and experienced users alike.

A better Toolbox

PowerPoint 2004’s Formatting Palette simplified PowerPoint’s interface by consolidating many commands in one accessible location. In PowerPoint 2008, the revamped Toolbox continues along the same path by further centralizing functions and grouping them more logically. In addition to a Formatting palette with sections that change to let you adjust the attributes of the currently selected object, the Toolbox sports a separate Object palette that lets you insert shapes, symbols, clip art, or pictures onto a slide.

PowerPoint 2008’s clip art library includes the cheesy drawings that are a staple of bad presentations everywhere, but thankfully adds more than 100 photographs with transparent backgrounds. Animation controls get their own Toolbox palette, as do Reference Tools, which let you look up dictionary definitions, thesaurus entries, translations, and more. The remaining palettes let you access PowerPoint’s Scrapbook and Compatibility Report, which were housed separately in PowerPoint 2004’s Toolbox.

But Microsoft’s attempt to pack so many different commands into a relatively compact window results in an ever-changing interface, and the dynamic resizing that occurs as you switch between tabs is sometimes jarring. In addition, many Toolbox buttons—picture formatting and animation effects, for example—open separate dialog boxes with their own varied interfaces and quirks. In comparison, Keynote’s Inspector windows encompass a narrower range of functions but have a more consistent user interface, so they’re easier to deal with. And, in contrast with the Toolbox, you can open multiple instances of Keynote’s Inspector to work with different object attributes at the same time.

The Keynote look

It’s always been easy to spot Keynote slideshows—even if they don’t use Apple themes, presentations crafted with Keynote often have a distinctive look. PowerPoint 2008 narrows the gap by adopting more of the graphics capabilities built into OS X. In addition to adjustable soft drop shadows and object transparency, first introduced in Office 2004, PowerPoint 2008 supports reflections. Unlike Keynote’s reflection feature, which only works with images, PowerPoint lets you reflect any picture, shape, or text object onto whatever lies behind it on the slide. You can even alter the reflection’s vertical extent and adjust the separation between it and the original object.

PowerPoint also sports a greatly expanded repertoire of picture formatting options and special effects that go beyond Keynote’s image adjustments. The roster of 34 effects range from artistic (such as stained glass and bump distortion) to practical (unsharp mask and gamma correction). But, although it’s helpful to adjust images without having to launch an image editor, doing so can significantly increase the size of the presentation file, as is also true in Keynote.

Missed opportunities and glitches

Noteworthy additions in Keynote ‘08 included Smart Builds, which let you display a series of images using one of ten animation effects, and path motion, which lets you move slide objects from one point to another along defined paths. Alas, similar features are absent from PowerPoint 2008. Its lack of support for path animation is particularly disappointing, since this feature has been available in the last two versions of PowerPoint for Windows. I was especially surprised when I created a presentation that contained motion paths in PowerPoint 2007 and then tried to open it in PowerPoint 2008 on my Mac. I expected some sort of compatibility error, but the animations played perfectly, meaning that the engine for displaying path motion exists in the program.

Some PowerPoint 2008 omissions are especially odd: for example, you can interact with QuickTime VR movies in a slideshow (something that Keynote still doesn’t let you do), but you can’t pause and then scrub back and forth through a movie during a presentation the way you can with Keynote. Unfortunately, that limits PowerPoint’s suitability for some educational applications.

PowerPoint’s continued reliance on external applications (Microsoft Graph in PowerPoint 2004 and Excel in PowerPoint 2008) to create charts and graphs is also a bit of a letdown. While PowerPoint and Excel together provide a more comprehensive library of styles and options than Keynote’s integrated chart editor does, editing the source data in a separate program still feels awkward.

As if to prove that they’re not above borrowing a good idea when they see one, Microsoft’s programmers have implemented a few tricks from Keynote’s playbook. For example, in addition to fixed guides, PowerPoint now provides Dynamic Guides that pop up as you move objects around, making it easier to center them on the slide or position them in relation to neighboring items. But PowerPoint’s guides are finicky, sometimes not appearing when you expect them to or forcing you to move objects very slowly to make them come into view.

Macworld’s buying advice

Despite many improvements, PowerPoint 2008 doesn’t feel as well thought out as Keynote, a legacy of its long heritage and its close ties to other Office applications. While you can duplicate almost all of Keynote’s dazzling effects in PowerPoint, it’s still faster to whip up a top-notch slideshow in Keynote. But that doesn’t mean that Keynote is always the best choice, especially if you can’t use a Mac to deliver your presentations. In many corporate, educational, and scientific venues, presenters have no choice but to use PowerPoint. (You can create a slideshow in Keynote and export it in PowerPoint format, but many of Keynote’s best effects are lost in translation.) When you factor in the common requirement to exchange presentations with PowerPoint for Windows users, it often makes more sense to just use PowerPoint.

Whether you’re using PowerPoint by necessity or choice, the latest version’s new additions are useful, and produce attractive results. Unfortunately, Mac users still miss out on capabilities available to Windows users and the intuitive interface of Keynote.

http://www.macworld.com/article/131597/2008/01/powerpoint2008.html