TECHnology and literacy for adolescents with disabilities

King-Sears, Margaret Elaine, Swanson, Christopher, & Mainzer, Lynne. (2011). TECHnology and literacy for adolescents with disabilities. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 569-578.



At first, I thought to myself, “Uh-oh. Here comes another article describing a decision making model with a cute acronym.” With that in mind, the article started slowly for me as the acronym’s four steps (the letters in TECH stand for Target, Examine, Create, and Handle) were outlined and described. Up to that point, I was still thinking, “Yeah, yeah, another acronym, another model.” Then I got to the good part (luckily in this journal length restrictions keep that from happening too late in most cases!). The authors made the TECH model come to life by taking readers through not one but two authentic examples of how the model was used to make decisions about what technologies to use with specific students and how to use those technologies. The two examples are both interesting, and are quite different from each other. The first case is a male seventh grader with a written language disability; the second is a female tenth grade with Asperger’s syndrome. These two cases are similar to those that many teachers encounter every day. For both cases, the authors work their way meticulously through the four TECH steps, and in the process, share the real-life stories of these two young people and the teachers who worked with them. Then after the cases, which are the heart of the article, we get to the gravy: Table 1. That table provides a short list of eight types of assistive technology. Then for each type, we get actual names of products, and even web sites we can visit to find out more. I’m definitely going to visit some of those sites. This table will definitely become dated in a year or two as even newer technologies become available, some of which we probably cannot even imagine now. For now though, I plan to share this table with my students and colleagues (and hopefully the whole article with some). It can provide a beginning for our thinking about how we can use technology to adapt instruction to better meet students’ needs.



A final note: I fully appreciate the authors’ clear and complete discussion of what makes a technology choice an “assistive technology” and when something is simply “classroom technology”. Along with that, I appreciated the authors’ sensitivity to the issues raised when certain technology is used only with “special needs” students. In both cases given here, the desire not to be embarrassed by conspicuous use of assistive technology was an issue for the students. Not only that, it is probably desirable to make such technology available to ALL students if we possibly can. Multiple ways of “reading” and “writing” for all students would seem valuable in any classroom, whether they qualify as “assistive technology” or not.



Discussion Prompts:



1. What do the authors mean by “multimodal teaching and assessment” (p. 569)? How would that be different from the kind of instruction that is typically seen in K-12 classrooms?



2. What are some arguments that people might make against using some of the technological tools described in this article in the classroom? How might you answer those arguments?



3. The authors make a distinction between assistive technology and classroom technology. What is that distinction, and how would such a distinction mean in practical terms in a classroom?



4. What factors will affect whether or not technology is used in a productive way in the classroom?



5. Why do the authors stress that the TECH decision-making process “begins and ends with a focus on the targeted learning outcome” (p. 570)?



6. Go online and do some research on autism. One good site is http://www.autismspeaks.org/, but entering the term “autism” into a search engine will produce many sources of information. After reading about autism, think about why computer-assisted instruction might be especially helpful for students with autism. Also, what problems might arise?



7. One of the more “traditional” ways of using technology in the classroom is as an alternative way of presenting information. Many of these ways of using technology are not very interactive and really are just electronic ways of presenting the same type of teacher-centered instruction that was done in the past, just with more “bells and whistles.” Technology that can really make a difference for students will need to be interactive and student-centered. What might such technology look like in a classroom? Think in terms of specific content and skills students learn at various levels. How might interactive technology take students to higher levels of learning than “traditional” instruction (even if that traditional instruction is presented using technology)?



8. Access the website http://web.teachtown.com/ and explore some of the product information there. How might the resources on this site help students? What potential problems do you see with it?



9. Look at the case study of “Brian” beginning on page 572. What strengths does Brian exhibit? What are his biggest challenges?



10. Why might keyboarding devices like AlphaSmart (see this web site for information: http://www.neo-direct.com/intro.aspx ) be less than satisfactory options for some students?



11. What possibilities do state-of-the-art cell phones present for instruction? What might be some barriers to their instructional use?



12. What changes in society have occurred in recent years that make assistive technology use less stigmatized than it was only a few years ago? How have those changes shaped classroom instruction for all students?



13. One of the leading sellers of speech recognition software is a company called Nuance. Explore their web site at http://nuance.com/ . How feasible do you think this kind of software will be for schools? Should it be made available to all students?



14. What is “support anonymity” (p. 574) and why was it so important for “Brian”?



15. Look at the case study of “Michelle” beginning on page 575. What strengths does Michelle exhibit? What are her biggest challenges?



16. What conflicts are behind “Michelle’s” comment that “Only babies use toys (her word for manipulatives) to do problems”?



17. Go to the following two web sites, both of which were used with “Michelle.” How might you use these two web sites, which provide free resources, to help students? How did using the web sites address the problem that Michelle had with using manipulatives?



http://www.mathplayground.com/



http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html



18. What do you think about the usefulness of sites used with “Michelle” such as http://www.studyisland.com/ and http://www.skillstutor.com/hmh/site/skillstutor/Home, which provide practice keyed to tested standards for individual states? Also look at the free web site, http://www.purplemath.com/, and evaluate its usefulness.



19. What will convince various educational stakeholders (policymakers, administrators, teachers, families, students, and others) that “the opportunities afforded by adoption of devices and software outweigh the constraints” (p. 577)?



20. Explore some of the web sites given in Table 1, Technology Choices Matched to Literacy Learning (page 573). Which of these options do you think offer the most potential for students you work with or plan to work with?

“My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, positioning, and resistance in multimodal instructional contexts

Collins, Kathleen M. (2011). “My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, positioning, and resistance in multimodal instructional contexts. Language Arts, 88(6), 409-418.

This is a story about how miracles can happen when we focus on children’s strengths in the classroom. Collins makes a strong case for looking critically at our notions of what is ability and disability in classrooms (hence the term Dis/Ability) through a sociocultural lens. Such a lens should assist us as educators in “moving beyond the assumption that abilities and disabilities are located solely within learners” (p. 409). The case presented here shows that what is considered ability or disability (i.e., deficit) always is constructed within the framework of what is valued in a particular context. In schools, certain kinds of behaviors and abilities have been traditionally more privileged than others, perhaps in an attempt to preserve a certain status quo. Print literacy is often at the top of the hierarchy in schools, and just below that, oral literacy. If you are not strong in those modalities, you may be seen as “deficient” and even disabled, and in the worst cases, you’ll be labeled and segregated, all in the name of “meeting needs”, as Collins observed in her three years of data gathering in the school described here. You may be strong in other modalities, like the visual arts or kinesthetic activities like sports or dance, but those are less valued in schools, and probably are not assessed or seen as strengths.

The focal student described here, “Christopher”, was an African-American male second grader who was seen as “a shy child” and “emotionally disturbed” because he would not participate in oral and written activities, and when pressed to do so, would retreat underneath his desk. He was on the road to becoming a “special ed kid”. It was only after Collins, who was a researcher in Christopher’s classroom, together with Christopher’s teacher, discovered Christopher’s ability in art and his self-identification as an artist (fueled by the encouragement of his family) that they were able to use that strength to set up a context (a play in which Christopher was costume designer and “chief set designer”) in which Christopher’s strengths could emerge and be recognized and valued. As the teachers began to value Christopher’s abilities rather than seeing him as disabled, so did the other children and Christopher himself, and a near-miraculous transformation is described.


I am deeply in agreement that we need to look at, value, and nurture children’s strengths. I also agree that children should not be marked as “disabled” just because their particular strengths differ from what the white, female-oriented, middle-class culture of many elementary schools (even those schools populated with non-white children and even in the classrooms of nonwhite teachers, because school values reflect the “dominant” culture in most cases) think counts or does not count as ability. What I am wondering about is how we can get the current view to change. In recent years, the status quo has seemed to strengthen rather than weaken, and children like Christopher often aren’t as lucky as he was to have someone willing to discover his strengths. How can we reach all the unreached “Christophers” out there before it is too late?

As a postscript, little tidbits about Christopher’s family intrigued me. He is quoted as describing a picture painted by an uncle—is this a family of artists who provided some important modeling and support? Also, it is noted that Christopher’s parents resisted special intervention (that would have probably ended in a special education placement). Many of us know of cases where children are known as two completely different people at home and at school. I myself was a child who was considered quiet and shy at school, but definitely was not at home. Was Christopher’s parents’ resistance a form of support for the boy they themselves knew as able, or even a protest against exactly the problem outlined here—a conception of difference as deficit, often resulting in labeling and educational inequity? Christopher’s family seems more important here than may initially meet the eye, and I’d like to know more about that important piece of the picture.

Discussion Prompts:

1. What kinds of evidence were used by the different people who spoke about Christopher in this article? What do the different views of Christopher tell us about assessment?

2. Do you know a child like Christopher who is viewed differently in different contexts and by different people? Who views this child positively? On what basis? Who views this child negatively? On what basis?


3. What are the values and assumptions that might lead to a child like Christopher being described as “deficient”? What are the values and assumptions that might lead to a child like Christopher being described as “creative”? (Note: Think of a “value” as a belief about what is “good”. Think of an “assumption” as an accepted belief about what is “true.”)

4. Reread the account of Christopher’s experience with the fables unit on pp. 413-416 of the article. Write a short script for a conference at which the following people are present: Christopher, Christopher’s mom, the artist-in-residence who worked with the children, and Ms. McSweeney (Christopher’s second grade teacher). Use the comments at the beginning of the article and expand upon them. Assume for the moment that each of these people has a valid point of view supported by evidence, and try to really put yourself in that person’s place. Try to really “hear” and understand each person’s point of view without making right/wrong judgments.

Group activity variation: Split into four small groups, and let each group develop the viewpoint of one of the above stakeholders in Christopher’s education. Then role-play the conference. This could be done in two ways: 1) elect one person from each group to play the four roles, enact the conference with everyone else observing, and then debrief as a whole group, OR 2) present the role-play “Jigsaw” fashion, forming new groups with one person from each viewpoint in each group, enacting several versions of the conference in small groups simultaneously, and then debrief as a whole group. If you are responding to the blog and try this group variation, please report on how it went in your blog entry!

5. What kinds of answers might be formulated for the question, “What is this child capable of?” How would the answers to the question “What is this child capable of in this context?” be different?

6. In what contexts are you personally viewed as “competent”? In what contexts might you be viewed as “deficient”? Most adults tend to seek out situations where they can be seen as competent, and avoid situations where they might be viewed as less than competent or even deficient. What if you were required to spend a lot of time in a situation where you were viewed as not competent or deficient? If you have experienced this at some time in your life, describe your feelings, actions, reactions, responses, etc.

7. Why do you think the “deficit” view is so common in school settings? What are the effects of this view on children who are viewed as “deficient”?

8. Think of a typical, everyday kind of language arts/literacy activity (reading, writing, speaking, listening or any combination of these) that you have observed or experienced in some way in a classroom (any level). What kinds of abilities are privileged by this activity? How could the activity be expanded and/or adapted to honor a wider variety of abilities?

9. Think of a typical school topic taught in elementary or secondary schools (any content area). List as many “modes of meaning making” (or “multiple semiotic modes”, as Collins puts it) as you can think of for that topic. How many ways could a student communicate understanding of that topic? Do not censor your list; include both the more “traditional” ways of meaning making along with some more “out of the box” ways. How many ways can meaning be expressed and communicated?

10. How do we reconcile the need to build on and honor children’s strengths with the pressures to teach to standards and to raise student test scores that prevail in most classrooms today? How can we meet accountability requirements and still focus on student strengths?

11. Respond to the following statement Collins makes on page 411 of the article:

“It is well documented that teachers’ assessment and interpretation of students’ use of various oral and written forms of literacy are influenced by the degree to which students’ primary discourse differs from ‘standard English,’ and that these assessments influence the ways in which schools position children in marginalized or ‘low-performing’categories.”

What evidence does Collins use to support her claim that school assessments and the educational placements of students that can result from these assessments may often function in discriminatory ways? What do you think? In what ways can placements meant to meet “special needs” be discriminatory? Is discrimination inherent in the way special education is delivered in the U.S., or can it be delivered in nondiscriminatory ways? How would special education that is nondiscriminatory look?
12. Why don’t we actually hear the voices of Christopher’s family members directly in this article? How could actually hearing their voices help us understand Christopher’s story better? What factors could have affected whether family members’ voices were or were not heard in the context described in the article?

Why do you think the parents put the Student Study Team process (which could lead to special placement) “on hold”?

13. It would be easy to criticize Ms. McSweeney from what we read in the first part of this article. Why should we resist that kind of reaction? What factors may have influenced Ms. McSweeney’s response to Christopher? Put yourself in her place. How would you have responded to the kinds of behaviors Christopher displayed in Ms. McSweeney’s classroom?

14. Go to the web site for Collaborations between Teachers and Artists (CoTA) given on page 412 of the article (http://cotaprogram.org/). This is the web site for the program that Collins was hired to help develop and gather data for. Read the information there (it is concise and will not take much time to read).

What do you see as benefits of this program? What do you see as its biggest challenges? What contextual factors would need to be in place for a program like CoTA to be successful?

Go to the pages under the tab, Workshops. Select a workshop you would be most interested in, and explain why.

The workshops are designed for elementary grade children. How might such an approach work in secondary schools? How would it have to be adapted?

View the slideshow under the tab, Gallery of Student Work. What is your response to the images you see there?

15. What purposes did each of the classroom strategies Collins observed in the second grade accomplish for the children?

Strategy 1: Opting Out

What purposes did Christopher’s “opting out” strategies (hanging back, remaining silent, not speaking, retreating under his desk) accomplish for Christopher in the classroom? Do you know students who enact similar strategies?

Strategy 2: Telling stories

Why were the children eager to tell Collins, a participant-observer in their classroom, their personal stories? What purposes did their story-telling accomplish? Why might the position of a classroom “visitor” like Collins sometimes be conducive to such story-telling?

Strategy 3: Doing it My Way

How did Ms. McSweeney create conditions that allowed children to “do it their way” in the activity on fables? What are ways that teachers can similarly empower children in their classrooms?


16. Collins writes about student strategies serving to “strategically disrupt classroom norms” (p. 415). Many times teachers might think of a disruption of classroom norms as a negative thing. Why might teachers think that? How might a disruption of classroom norms be viewed as a positive thing that contributes to learning? What does such a view require of teachers?

17. Read Christopher’s comments on his favorite part of the fables project on page 416 of the article. What do his comments, and the way he expressed them, tell us about Christopher?

18. What was the most important thing that Margaret McSweeney learned from the events described in this article? In what ways can we expect her learning to transform her classroom practice?

19. What is the difference between asking, “Do you really belong here?” and asking, “How do we support your belonging here?”

Supporting informational writing in the elementary grades

Donovan, Carol A., & Smolkin, Laura B. (2011). Supporting informational writing in the elementary grades. The Reading Teacher, 64(6), 406-416.

Donovan and Smolkin outline a helpful, practical framework for looking at the various kinds of text structures found in informational texts for children. This framework is much more useful than some of the categories of text structures found previously in the literature and in reading methods texts. The typical categories of text structures (e.g., Listing, Time Order, Comparison/Contrast, Cause/Effect, etc.) have been less than helpful for my own teaching because those categories examined informational text structures on too large a scale—a macro level, almost—when in reality informational text is much more complex than that, with multiple smaller structures occurring in any given text. When my students (both children and preservice teachers) looked for examples of the old macro-type text structure categories in informational texts, they often had a hard time finding them. Donovan and Smolkin’s categories CAN be found in typical children’s informational books; I know, because after I read this article, I looked in a number of exemplary children’s informational books and easily found examples of all of Donovan’s categories there. My mind immediately began racing with the possibilities of using these categories instructionally, and I could not wait to try those possibilities out with learners. When a framework creates that reaction in me as a teacher, I know it is a “keeper.”

There are eight categories in Donovan and Smolkin’s framework, and they are arranged along a developmental continuum, with the first category, Labels, presented as the simplest type of informational text at the most basic developmental level, and moving through increasingly “mature” developmental categories. We move from Labels , to Fact Statements, to Fact Lists, to Couplets (often connected by pronouns), to Fact List Collections, to Couplet Collections ,to Single and Unordered Paragraphs, to the most sophisticated structural category, Ordered Paragraphs. The continuum, which is outlined in the very helpful Table 1 (pp. 408-409), along with examples of each category, can be used in several ways. The authors suggest using it as a way of determining children’s informational text writing “levels” and then planning instruction to move the children from one developmental level to the next. For example, if a child has mastered Labels (“This is a bat.”), then he or she is ready to be scaffolded to move on to Fact Statements (“Bats are mammals.”). A Fact List (“Bats are mammals. Bats eat insects. Bats can fly.”) is the next step, and then it is on to the much more sophisticated Couplet structure (“Bats have wings with long fingers. These fingers help the bat move through the air.”). The sequence could move a child through all eight developmental levels over time. The developmental nature of Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum is potentially useful for both pre- and post- instruction assessment, and for instruction, not just in writing informational text as the authors intend, but also for helping children read and comprehend instructional text. Although the authors’ research was done with elementary age children, the categories and the developmental continuum can also be applied to older children in middle school and even high school, and the informational texts they read and write.

A Dozen Discussion Prompts:
1. Why is it important to teach children to read and write informational text from a young age? Why has informational text not been emphasized in the early elementary years until recently?

2. Look at Donovan and Smolkin’s developmental continuum and its eight categories. Find a good children’s informational book by an accomplished author of the genre (Suggestions: Gail Gibbons, Seymour Simon, Sandra Markle, Kathryn Lasky) and attempt to find examples of some of the categories within the continuum. What did you discover?

3. How can learning about informational text structures like those in the continuum help children learn to write informational text?

4. What do you think about using Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum as an assessment tool? How would that kind of assessment actually be done in the classroom? What kinds of data would result, and how would they be communicated?

5. Think about how a lesson designed to move children from one level to the next would look in the classroom. For example, how would you design a plan to move young children from Labels to Fact Statements? Or, select any two levels of the continuum and describe how you might help children move from one to the next.

6. Couplets seem to involve a fairly large developmental leap; literacy research has documented that readers and writers can struggle with the relationships between pronouns and their referents, which is what is involved in couplets. English Learners often have difficulty with these kinds of structures. What might be the best way to help learners understand how they work?

7. Can Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum be applied to students beyond the elementary grades? Why or why not?

8. Do informational texts in various subject areas (science, history, math, etc.) have their own specific text structures? Are any of the categories in Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum more prevalent in certain subject areas? If you are a middle/secondary teacher, think about the subject area(s) you teach. Which of Donovan and Smolkin’s categories are most prevalent?

9. Are there any categories you might add to Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum? Did they leave out any informational text structures that you think should be there?

10. If you work at the middle/secondary level, and you believe the continuum could be extended beyond Donovan and Smolkin’s highest level, Ordered Paragraphs, what would the next level (s) be if you continued the continuum?

11. In what jobs/professions do people need to write informational texts? What kinds of texts do people write “on the job” and what sorts of structures are seen in them? Relate this to Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum if possible.

12. What are some good uses of a developmental continuum like Donovan and Smolkin’s? What are some potential misuses?

Learning to read the numbers: A critical orientation toward statistics

Whitin, P., & Whitin, D. J. (2008). Learning to read the numbers: A critical orientation toward statistics. Language Arts, 85(6), 432-441.

The Whitins show how even very young children can be taught to "interrogate" texts that contain embedded data. Two case studies are presented, one with fifth graders who polled peers n their "least favorite chores," and one with kindergartners who graphed their favorite kinds of apples. In both cases, the children made rather stunning observations and noticed the ways that data may be shaped to privilege some voices and agendas and silence others.Table 1 is an extremely helpful guide to the processes used with the children. In it, seven "Dimensions of the Process" are given, defined, and "questions to consider" at each step are provided. Looking at these seven dimensions underlines the many ways that data may be shaped. It's a lesson that can be learned at all ages, from kindergarten to graduate school, as the Whitins make clear here. As we really start to think about "new" literacies and mutimodal texts, this article adds some useful ideas to try.

A Dozen Discussion Prompts:

Directions: Post a comment on any of the twelve prompts below. Please tell us the question number you are commenting on in the first sentence of your post. If you post three or more comments and would like a participation certificate, send an e-mail to klofflin@gmail.com and you will be e-mailed a certificate.

1. Compare and contrast the approach the Whitins used with fifth graders versus their approach with kindergarteners. What are common threads across grade levels in their approach? How does their approach with fifth graders differ from their approach with kindergarteners?

2. Look up your state’s standards or grade level expectations used for accountability and testing. Here is a link to the ones for Missouri: http://www.dese.mo.gov/divimprove/curriculum/GLE/
Attempt to fit the Whitins’ learning activities with both fifth graders and kindergarteners within those grade-level expectations. What standards are met for language arts (called Communication Arts in Missouri) and for math at each grade level?

3. Look up Bloom’s Taxonomy and attempt to place the kinds of tasks the Whitins describe within the levels of that model. Here is one good link:
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/pedagogical/blooms-taxonomy/

4. Look up the Depth of Knowledge model and attempt to place the kind of task the Whitins describe within the classifications of that model. Here is one good link:
http://www.pdesas.org/main/fileview/Instruction_Depth_of_Knowledge.pdf

5. The Whitins list four different roles a reader can take: code breaker, meaning maker, text user, and text critic. The roles form a sort of continuum. What kinds of instruction foster each kind of role? What types of instruction are most common in the elementary school classrooms you are familiar with?

6. What do you think it means to “interrogate” a text?
What kinds of texts are most in need of “interrogation” by readers?
What is risky about “interrogating” texts and teaching students to do so?
What risks do we run by NOT “interrogating” texts or teaching students to do so?

7. Look at a text intended for young children (maybe a story from a published reading program, or a content area textbook, or even a picture book) and attempt to “interrogate” it.
Ask yourself: Whose voice(s) do we not hear in the story? What do you think they would say? What voices or viewpoints are privileged in the text? What agenda or agendas might the author and/or illustrator have had when creating the text?
Describe how you think such a discussion might go with a group of children at the elementary level. Tailor your answer to fit the level where the book would likely be used.

8. Look at Table 1 on page 435. Find a text in a popular publication (newspaper or magazine) that includes a graph of some sort incorporating numerical data. Use Table 1 to “interrogate” that text. Which of the “Dimensions of the Process” did you find most challenging to apply to your text?

9. “We live in an age that is inundated by data.” The Whitins make this statement early in the article. They also state that this is both a “boon and a bane”. What are a few ways the knowledge explosion is a boon? What are a few ways it is a bane? Think of some specific examples of both cases, preferably from your own experience. What are the implications for teachers of this plethora of easily-available knowledge?

10. Whitin and Whitin write about “innumerate” individuals in a way similar to the way we hear about “illiterate” individuals. What do you think it means to be “innumerate”? What is a necessary level of numeracy for an elementary age student? a high school graduate? an adult citizen and worker? a professional person? Address any or all of these numeracy levels.

11. The Whitins describe how both gun-control supporters and the NRA have framed survey questions in biased ways (e.g., “Do you favor cracking down on illegal gun sales?” vs. “Would you favor or oppose a law giving police the power to decide who may or may not own a firearm?” In each case, what are the specific words that tip the question toward a certain bias? If you know of other examples of such biased questions that you have actually encountered in surveys, please share those with us.

12. What kinds of entities might prefer that we NOT teach a critical orientation to texts in our schools? What do these kinds of entities stand to gain by a limited numeracy in the majority of the people in a society? How might these kinds of entities influence public policy to prevent the teaching of a critical orientation?