Three Epiphanies about Content-Area Learning

Through out my course on learning about content-area teaching strategies I learned about  many new ideas and methods. Upon reflection, I am able to think about three main “ah-ha” moments in teaching to the content areas–especially for those students who have disabilities.

The first “ah-ha” moment for me was leaning about Differentiated Instruction (DI) and the fact that the focus does not always have to be on content. There are other means of differentiating instruction that can benefit all sorts of different types of students. Here is an excerpt from my blog post Differentiated Instruction: a Rant:

“I believe that differentiated instruction is a good method to use, however, it cannot be successful when pressures and requirements are placed on good teachers to teach certain topics within mandated time-frames. That leads to the thought that students either know the information or not. It basically throws out any idea of being able to teach students with disabilities, successfully.”

     The second “ah-ha” moment for me was learning about a strategy that I have never had the experience of learning or observe being used previously. The use of the Unit Organizer Routine can add real value to a content area classroom, especially one that has students with disabilities. This strategy is also great to use as a method of classroom/curriculum management. The following quote from my research on the content enhancement routines was the real “ah-ha” moment when I was able to start to see how I could been better at managing and organizing my curriculum to support my students:

“Content Enhancement Routines are defined as instructional principles designed to (a) teach academically diverse groups in ways that meet both group and individual needs; (b) carry out instruction in active partnership with students; (c) focus on the teacher as content expert and mediator of learning who selects critical features of the content and transforms them in a manner that promotes learning; and (d) maintain the integrity of the content (Bulgren, Deshler, & Lenz, 2007).”

Here is the link to the Unit Organizer File

Lastly, my third and final “Ah-ha” moment in teaching content area is all of the available technology that currently out there. If you haven’t, take a moment and do a quick google search of some of the awesome applications and software that is out there to assist students in their learning in reading, writing and other content areas. There are some great apps that I was able to find and play around with that I think would be beneficial to students of all calibers. Student supports or what I have learned are termed “Accommodations” are the key pieces for students with disabilities to be able to function or perform at the levels need to demonstrate understanding in many content area classroom–especially in reading and writing. Check out my recent blog post about different apps and software that are available to use in your classroom and how you can implement them with your students, 10 apps to support content area instruction.

Content area learning is essential for all students, but student’s with disabilities also need a lot of support, strategies and methods from outstanding teachers to be able to compete or perform at just the standard levels. I ask that you do some research and try to find some methods, strategies and even use technology to benefit these students.