Strategies Address One Classroom Challenge...But Benefit Many Students

For example, PACING.

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Adapted from Project Access/ClassACT, Sue Foster & Gary Long

One classroom challenge concerns the cognitive load of information coming in from more than one physical and perceptual space at once. Some students depend heavily on visual sources of input vs. auditory sources, they must visually attend to multiple sources of input which co-occur in different classroom locations.

Consider: For example, a statistics faculty member may demonstrating how to solve a problem by drawing and writing on a white board, while narrating at the same time. There is also a real-time speech-to-text captionist in the classroom for some students - they have an iPad screen on their desk with the captioned speech stream of classroom talk. This student must watch at least three sources of input to follow the faculty member’s points. 

Strategy: The faculty member pauses from spoken narrative while writing anything on the board. 

Pedagogical Benefits: 

Reduced cognitive load for all students.

Or, GROUP WORK with WHITE BOARDS

Adapted from:  Carol Marchetti, Project Access/ClassACT

One classroom challenge is ensuring that students with different language experiences and preferences have equal opportunity to be fully engaged in class discussions.

Consider:  A statistics faculty member lectures for 5-10 minutes at the start of class, and then hands out a group problem solving activity for the rest of class. Students are in groups of four, some use ASL/English interpreters (they are deaf or hard of hearing), some are non-native English speakers, and some are typical college students. Groups are at their own table (four students each), and each table has a large free-standing whiteboard. The faculty member has one rule: each group must use a whiteboard during their problem-solving.

    Whiteboard.jpg

    Pedagogical Benefits:

    This levels the communication playing field, adds options for interaction preferences, and adds a visual channel.

    And high-tech options:

    • Smart boards
    • White board apps on laptops, tablets, phones
    • Synchronous or asynchronous discussion spaces with drawing spaces

    There are low-tech options:

    • Large sticky "flip chart" paper
    • Flip chart pads
    • Portable white boards or black boards