Ever wondered how the teachers in special school teach? Special schools, unlike normal school, have direct way of teaching.
In direct teaching, I mean to say that we have to be very specific in everything that we do to ensure that student is learning. This is one of those ‘good for all but essential for some’ strategies. The emphasis is shifted from teaching to learning. We have to ensure that our lesson maximize student learning outcome.
First of all, we have to know our ‘big idea’ or main essential outcome. We should be able to state very precisely what our lesson outcome will be and try to understand whether the child who is learning, is ready for this learning outcome. That is why, we have to give individual training because each child is at different level of understanding and the same idea is grasped at different levels. We have first to tap into prior learning and prepare our sequencing.
As a teacher, it becomes our responsibility, to teach in such a way that the knowledge is understood and retained for a longer time. It is important to explore where the need will be and then to address them. A special child needs one-to-one approach and has to be repeatedly taught the same thing, over and over again, to bring home the point.
We must make sure that the instructions are given in limited numbers (not more than two things at a time), we have to make the introduction as simple as possible, giving direction verbally, clearly, keeping an eye contact. Sometimes we may need to ask student to repeat the instruction or direction to ensure that understanding has occurred. We have to keep checking by recap to ensure that he/she has not forgotten.
For special children, the assignment has to be simplified to match his ability, or the child might get frustrated if he is not able to cope with a difficult assignment.
It is better to use the concrete methods than an abstract. A visual teaching aid helps the child to remember for a longer time. If he is given counters or objects to do the actual counting for adding and subtraction, it is retained for a longer time. A child can be given a tape recorder to record a poem and hear and sing repeatedly. A child likes a story to be read to him with expressions and sounds because then, they can interact and identify with the story characters.
Tests should be done orally if need be. We could have an assistant to help with evaluation situations. We have to keep in mind that children have short attention span, and the test may be required to be done in small sessions instead of one long one.
While planning a lesson, we have to plan step by step procedure, from known to unknown and find out different ways to make the lesson concrete by taking into account all the resources that we might need. Sometimes we have to take these children to actual places to give them the concrete knowledge of what they are learning. It is not what we teach but what they have arrived after learning to a conclusion.
We have to take into account about how the skill can be modeled, what examples should look like, what prompts we can use. We have to allow time for guided practice and we make a progress chart where we chalk down the progress and the weakness to understand which area of skill can be concentrated in the next lesson plan.
Checking for understanding is essential, it lets us know if our instruction works or if additional intervention or remediation or re-teaching is required.
We check whether the learning outcome has been mastered by questioning them or by using ‘show me’ approach. Sometimes a simple observation also helps.
Many students with special needs have difficulty with self-monitoring therefore we have to allow some opportunity for independence. The goal is to ensure all learners become independent, self-monitoring may require appropriate prompts from us. We have to do follow ups and find out the ways of how we can give feedback to students.
Sometimes we may need to involve parents or professionals for additional support. It is better to involve the parents in their learning experience so that consistency of ideas can be maintained and there is no contradiction in presenting the facts and confusing the child. Home work can also be given to those children who need extra help for additional follow up.
A thing to remember is that every special child is different and same method of teaching cannot be used for every child. A customized teaching method for every child brings better results.
Thus, simply put, we are sure of our effective teaching/instruction when that learning has taken place.
