3.4: Adaptive and Assistive Technology
Candidates facilitate the use of adaptive and assistive technologies to support individual student learning needs. (PSC 3.4/ISTE 3d)
Artifact: ITEC 7445 Unstructured Field-Log of AT work with student
Assistive Technology Implementation Plan
These artifacts (an Assistive Technology Implementation Plan and an unstructured fieldwork log and reflection) echo the experience of helping a facilitate the use of adaptive and assistive technologies to support a senior student in my International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) in her understanding of the Geography syllabus content and material and to enhance her study skills for the final examinations in May 2014. I worked with Atlanta International Schools’ Learning Resource Teacher to create this artifact.
This artifact represents the planning of using Assistive Technology with a student and the actual implementation of the plan put into place. The student’s particular issues were difficulty in comprehending the assigned written material (as the student was identified to be a visual learner), attention and engagement due to the volumes of information that the International Baccalaureate (IB) Geography Higher Level course. She needed this material to be “chunked” with scaffolding to allow her to learn and understand fully.
In the senior year, there was no formal 1:1 laptop programme for these students – they operated using a “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) programme. Therefore, this student had an aging PC Toshiba laptop with limited memory or device capacity for modern software. It was ascertained early in the process, that should software be sought as the solution, it would need to be free and not take up too much memory on an already slow functioning machine.
Through a process of research and discussions both with the Learning Resource Teacher and in online discussion forums, I discovered “MindJet” – a mind mapping software that would allow the student to visually document her notes. I worked with the Learning Resource Teacher to create the Implementation Plan and talked with the student about the time that we might be able to ring fence in order to have her try and use the software in an authentic sense. Senior students in Atlanta International School have a flexible study period called the “Hex Block”, so we agreed to meet during this block, install and try the software and then deploy during subsequent classes. Reflection would take place after one month.
The student found this software supremely useful and on reflection with the Learning Support Teacher, the use of this in my class was added to her accommodations list and communicated to her other mainstream teachers.
Should I be in this situation again, I would involve the students’ wider teaching team earlier in the process. The outcome of this work in adding adaptive technology software for the student learning was a real benefit to the student in my subject. Had I involved the wider teaching team earlier, not only would the student have had the opportunity to deploy in other subjects, but might have also won some technology buy-in from a faculty that are not early adopters or quick embracers of this kind of solution for learning difficulties. However, the arrival this year of a new reporting structure for student differentiation needs in the classroom Response to Intervention (RTI), has elevated this collegial conversation and Implementation Plans like this have already become part of the routine response to student learning difficulties. This has improved faculty development in this respect and I have been able to model strategies like using adaptive technology software to help faculty reach students like the one described here.
This artifact represents the planning of using Assistive Technology with a student and the actual implementation of the plan put into place. The student’s particular issues were difficulty in comprehending the assigned written material (as the student was identified to be a visual learner), attention and engagement due to the volumes of information that the International Baccalaureate (IB) Geography Higher Level course. She needed this material to be “chunked” with scaffolding to allow her to learn and understand fully.
In the senior year, there was no formal 1:1 laptop programme for these students – they operated using a “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) programme. Therefore, this student had an aging PC Toshiba laptop with limited memory or device capacity for modern software. It was ascertained early in the process, that should software be sought as the solution, it would need to be free and not take up too much memory on an already slow functioning machine.
Through a process of research and discussions both with the Learning Resource Teacher and in online discussion forums, I discovered “MindJet” – a mind mapping software that would allow the student to visually document her notes. I worked with the Learning Resource Teacher to create the Implementation Plan and talked with the student about the time that we might be able to ring fence in order to have her try and use the software in an authentic sense. Senior students in Atlanta International School have a flexible study period called the “Hex Block”, so we agreed to meet during this block, install and try the software and then deploy during subsequent classes. Reflection would take place after one month.
The student found this software supremely useful and on reflection with the Learning Support Teacher, the use of this in my class was added to her accommodations list and communicated to her other mainstream teachers.
Should I be in this situation again, I would involve the students’ wider teaching team earlier in the process. The outcome of this work in adding adaptive technology software for the student learning was a real benefit to the student in my subject. Had I involved the wider teaching team earlier, not only would the student have had the opportunity to deploy in other subjects, but might have also won some technology buy-in from a faculty that are not early adopters or quick embracers of this kind of solution for learning difficulties. However, the arrival this year of a new reporting structure for student differentiation needs in the classroom Response to Intervention (RTI), has elevated this collegial conversation and Implementation Plans like this have already become part of the routine response to student learning difficulties. This has improved faculty development in this respect and I have been able to model strategies like using adaptive technology software to help faculty reach students like the one described here.