Understanding learning disability

I feel lucky that I didn't have any learning disabilities when I started schools, but I did study with learning disabled (LD) peers at elementary school. I still remember that one of my classmates was blamed and laughed at because of his distractibility and stammer when we were first graders. I could imagine how bad he would feel, and it must be hurt.

In the video How Difficult Can This Be, Richard Lavoie designed several activities to let teachers and parents know what happen to those learning disabled children. As he said, before thinking of the methods to improve these kids' performance, teachers and parents had better figure out what the problem ownership is. In some cases, teachers' attitudes and tones are forcing and aggressive, which makes students stressful, anxious and embarrassed in a long period of time. LD students really need time to process the information that they get from teachers. As a result, students would avoid the eye contact with teachers, and would not like to be volunteers to any questions. What's more, with the pressure and embarrassment, LD students have little time to solve problems and give right answers. What they always tend to respond is to say " I don't know". When there's one student saying so, the rest of students will probably stop trying to think about the answer, either.

LD students may have problems in visual perception, reading comprehension, oral expression, decoding and auditory or visual capabilities. For them, it is not because they don't try hard, or they are not motivated, but they lack the capability needed. Instead of forcing them to find the answer immediately, teachers should give enough instructions and directions based on different special needs. For instance, when LD students cannot comprehend the passage, teachers should provide them with background knowledge. When they have trouble following the listening material, scripts are better to be provided.

The part that they were talking about effect of perception on behavior impresses me the most. Richard asked Stephanie to share her opinion to an open-ended question. After she handed in her paper, he asked repeated questions that don't make sense at all, and finally tore her paper up in front of her. I feel shocked and sad about this situation. As Richard said, most LD students didn't know what they did wrong when they were yelled at and blamed. The teacher would rather satirize these student than let them realize the problem clearly (sometimes there's even no problems at all!). Teachers should not treat themselves as leaders, but guiders. Their love, patience and respect are essential when teaching LD students.

Kids are so sensitive that any reactions from teachers may encourage or frustrate them. Teachers should pay more attention to LD students in class. It is not because they are stupid, but they need more help. After watching this video, I get a deeply understanding and experience about learning disability. I can realize the suffering of LD students. It really enlightens me what I should do in my future career.

Strategies for visual learners

In spring semester, I took a course about teaching strategies and techniques. In this course, I learned some strategies for teaching visual learners.

What's recommended the first is Venn Diagram. This strategy can be used when students need to make a comparison among two or three different objects or abstract concepts. This kind of graphic organizer can help students deconstruct their ideas and summarize knowledge directly.

The second strategy I would like to use is K-W-L chart. This strategy provides students with clear charts which can show their misunderstandings and progress in process of learning.

As the survey which Jenny did in class this class shows, I believe that most of the students are visual learners. These teaching strategies can be combined with Inspiration or other online tools to create useful organizational charts. When students can make good use of them, they will get improved in thinking.

Apply Webquest in Classroom

In last semester, I designed a webquest for introducing one thing about my culture to foreigners. It's my first time that I have learned about what a webquest is and how to create a webquest.

In my opinion, webquest should be exciting and engaging. Users should be interested and have intention to achieve the goals. The webquest I created is about Chinese culture, which I think is used with success. First of all, my partner and I searched rich resources about the topic. We would like the target users to have fun when doing research with those specific websites and video clips. Secondly, we designed interesting activities for them to be engaged in. Thirdly, the evaluation was not very difficult or complicated for them to achieve. We got good feedbacks from our peers and teacher, so I thought it must be useful and user-friendly in real situation.

The most primary question we have to consider is if the content and language level is appropriate for the target users. After setting this basis right, you have more chance to make a success.