Building Engagement with Distance Learning

The leadership and teachers at North Carroll Middle School in Carroll County, Maryland are working to include students with significant cognitive disabilities in general education classes. In 2019-20, Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS) and TIES worked together to train teachers on how to implement the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework as a part of their co-planning, co-teaching and co-assessing. Their work helped inform the 5-15-45 tool that you and your teams can use too!

Let’s follow one team in their UDL and collaborative planning: 

Meet The Team

The Classroom

In his general education class of 24 students, Mr. Harrington, the 6th-grade social studies teacher has three students who have significant cognitive disabilities, as well as a few students who have more high incidence disabilities such as learning disabilities and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). 

Collaborative Process

Mr. Turek, the CCPS Inclusion Coach, and TIES Center personnel trained district content specialists and the middle school faculty and staff on how to make the general education curriculum accessible and meaningful for all students, including students with significant cognitive disabilities. General and special education teams, including paraprofessionals, met regularly with Mr. Turek on this process: 

1. Begin with the grade-level standards and UDL framework: Where are the barriers to learning?
2. Review content and materials for individual needs: What individual barriers and needs exist?
3. Adapt materials and content only as much as necessary: Are there adaptations or modifications needed for individual students? 
4. Repeat as needed for additional students: Are there changes needed for other students?
5. Review materials and instructional strategies: Do they maintain the essential parts of the standard?

While the regular meetings stopped when COVID began, the process continued.

Example of  What It Looks Like

Begin with the grade-level standards and UDL framework. Where are the barriers to learning? 

Unit grade-level goals based on the social studies standards: 

• Students will be able to answer questions and organize information about chronology in history.
• Students will gain content vocabulary for social studies.
• Students will be able to discuss how societies have changed over time.

Mr. Harrington chose his lesson and materials with an eye toward the UDL framework of providing multiple means of engagement, representation and action, and expression. The seven images below are samples of the social studies PowerPoints that are used to teach all students.

Review content and materials for individual needs: what individual barriers and needs exist? 

Most of these slides had multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression, because:

• key information was highlighted
• information was shared visually, auditorily, and textually 
• graphic organizers were embedded 
• background knowledge was woven throughout the unit

When Mrs. Calvin (special educator) and Ms. Holcombe (speech language therapist) reviewed the materials for students on their caseloads with speech and language support needs, learning disabilities, ADHD, etc., they found three slides had potential barriers. 

 Adapt materials and content only as much as necessary

Mrs. Calvin and Ms. Holcombe made the following changes to meet individual student needs and to support the learning standard: 

• condensed the text, removed some details, and highlighted the topic of each slide, decreasing executive functioning requirements   
• combined slides 4 and 6, reducing the cognitive load
• moved the questions about geologists to the same page as the definition, lessening the amount of visual tracking and short-term memory needed
• provided an answer key to guide student answers for the timeline activity, supporting word recognition, spelling, and movement needs
• made the matching activity a more concrete graphic organizer with specific boxes for each specialist, making it more accessible

Repeat as needed for additional students.

Mr. Turek (inclusion coach) and Mrs. Baughman (paraprofessional) then looked at the materials to determine if there were additional supports needed for some of the students with significant cognitive disabilities. 

Mr. Turek and Mrs. Baughman made the following changes:

• color-coded answers in the text, to focus attention and support answering questions
• printed the presentation as a booklet for students in the hybrid instructional model, for easier access
• condensed timeline activity to reduce the complexity of the text
• provided two options for engaging with the timeline activity, for accessibility and to support generalization across materials
  • digital version drag and drop slide
  • hybrid version velcro and paper activity

Other possible supports not evident in these slides include: 

• providing objects used in an archaeology dig instead of only using the pictures for students with low or no vision
• embedding instruction on number identification or a calendar or grid for help with foundational skills
• assigning paraprofessional support via chat boxes or during asynchronous times of the day

Review materials and instructional strategies to ensure they maintain the essential parts of the standard. 

Mr. Harrington then reviewed each version to ensure the changes remained true to the concepts being taught. 

While the barriers to learning changed when school moved to online and hybrid instruction, the foundations of good curriculum and instruction for students with significant cognitive disabilities remained the same.

Because teamwork really does make the dream work.