Present Challenges and Future Directions for the Field of Learning Disabilities

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  Present Challenges and Future Directions for
the Field of Learning Disabilities

• Margo A. Mastropieri
• Paper presented at the 14th Annual World
  Congress on LD, Burlington, MA, October 28, 2005

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Challenges Are Great

• High Stakes Testing Demands
• Difficulty level
• Tests vary
• Standards vary
• RTI Issues
• Learning Issues
• Instructional Issues

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Testing Issues

• High Stakes Tests
• Represent a single measure of performance
• Selected at the state level
• Administered annually
• Test-taking Skills
• Less well developed in students with LD

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Released 3rd Grade Reading Virginia High Stakes
Test Items

• 3 pages with text and questions
• 486 words
• 14 words per sentence
• 1.29 syllables per word
• Readability Grade Level Scores
• 6th grade with Fry
• 5th grade with Flesch-Kincaid

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Difficulties with Test-Taking Skills

• Understanding and interpreting novel formats
• Focusing attention appropriately
• Select first answer they see
• Using elimination strategies
• Using time wisely
• Error avoidance
• Deductive reasoning strategies
• Using separate answer sheets
• Passage independence

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Test-Taking Skills Passage Independence
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Students with LD

• Less likely to employ an appropriate strategy
• Less likely to employ an appropriate strategy
  effectively
• More likely to be confident in their answers, but
  less likely to be correct
• More likely (52 vs 24) to choose a "decoy"
• blind
• o blink
• o nibble
• o leaned 

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Students with LD

• For incorrect answers
• ü 89 didn't refer to passage
• ü 40 had not read all distractors

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Virginia High Stakes 2004 Data Grade 3
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Virginia High Stakes 2004 Data Grade 8
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Virginia High Stakes 2004 Data End of Course
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Standards Issues

• How are the cut-off scores for passing set?
• Failure to pass a test may mean ..
• Failure to be promoted to next grade level
• Failure to graduate from high school with a
  standard diploma
• Decision to drop out of school based on failure
  of high stakes tests

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Federal and State Standards

• Federal and State Standards
• Variability among States

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•  
• Gov. Jeb Bush says that Gulfport Elementary
  School did so well academically last year it is a
  due for a state bonus check of roughly 40,000.
• President George W. Bush says Gulfport Elementary
  School has performed so poorly that its parents
  must be allowed, less than a week before school
  begins, to pull their children out.

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• Regents Math A Exam required for graduation
• Last year 61 passed
• This year 37 passed
• Result
• State will loosen testing requirements!

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Response To Intervention (RTI) Issues

• What is RTI?
• What are good models of RTI
• How many Tiers will be required?
• I, II, III, and IV?

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Operationalize the Tiers

• Tier I, II, III and maybe IV
• Describe how the classroom looks
• What is the teacher doing?
• What are the students doing?
• How many teachers are in a room with a specified
  number of students per grade level per curriculum
  area K-12?
• What do the instructional methods and materials
  look like?
• What do the tests look like?
• What is the record keeping system?
• Who monitors the system?
• Who has the ultimate decision making power in
  this system?

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How will the roles of teachers and diagnosticians
change given the significant demands for
implementing RtI?

• Unclear presently what the actual demands of RTI
  will look like
• Where are the models besides a few selected
  sites?
• Unclear roles teachers will have
• Deliver scientifically based instruction ,
  administering CBM, interpreting data, placing
  students into tiers and teaching in small groups
  with different instructional methods and
  materials and CBM, etc.
• Major shift in general education teachers role

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Who is responsible to ensure procedures are
implemented with fidelity special education or
general education?

• Unclear
• General or Special Educators? Diagnosticians?

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How will issues of consistency of decision-making
be assured from school to school, district to
district, and state to state?

• Unclear no clear answers provided
• Standards issues remain across K-12
• Current federal and state variability

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Learning and Instructional Challenges

• Pace
• Content coverage
• Abstractions represented
• Learning from texts
• Demand for broad shallow verbally based knowledge

• Inclusion and access to the general ed curriculum
  
• No longer an IEP
• Class size and make-up issues
• N 30, 12 have IEPs, 7 at risk

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Textbooks and Access to the General Ed Curriculum

• Increase in difficulty with grade level
• Discrepancy between reading level of students and
  readability of textbooks (Kinder, Bursuck
  Epstein, 1992)
• Breadth vs Depth of Coverage
• Unfriendly nature of textbooks (Armbruster
  Anderson,1988)
• Introduction of large number of vocabulary words
  (Yager, 1983)

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Readability, Comprehensibility and Density Issues

• In most polymers, like polyethylene and
  cellulose, the monomers are all identical. In
  other cases, such as proteins, different monomers
  may be combined. Although the amino acid monomers
  that make up proteins appear to be very
  different, each one has an amino functional group
  and an organic acid functional group, so the
  monomers all link in the same way, forming a
  "backbone" of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms.
  A polymer with three amino acids is called a
  tripeptide. (Tocci Viehland, 1996, p. 257)

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Previous page equals

• 15 of the space of one page of an 848-page book
• Reading level for passage 15th grade
• Students take annual state wide SOL on text and
  content covered in class in May

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What Do We Have to Do?

• Deliver vast amount of content very rapidly
• Unclear whether all standards will be met
• Use what has research documented as best
  practices for students with LD

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Samples of Ways to Address Challenges

• Peer Mediation
• Strategy Use
• Text comprehension
• Mnemonic strategies
• Peer Mediation Strategy Use
• Enhance Concreteness in Verbal and Conceptual
  Learning

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Peer Tutoring Comprehension Strategies in
World History (LDRP, 2003)

• Extension of previous research in peer tutoring
  and reading comprehension to content area
  learning with high school students with
  disabilities.
• Purpose
• Compare peer tutoring versus teacher-directed
  study in high school world history with students
  with disabilities

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Partner Reading

•  1st reader (admiral) reads 1-3 paragraphs while
  second reader (general) listens and helps with
  difficult words
• Switch roles turn to the beginning of section
  and 2nd reader begins reading
• Answer summarization questions using strategy
  sheets
• _______
•   Modeled after Fuchs and Fuchs PALS

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Comprehension Strategy

• Read the paragraph - ask and answer
• Who or what is it about?
• What is happening to them?
• Use those answers to write a summary sentence
• tells what the whole paragraph is about
• Use self-monitoring card

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Paragraph Summarization Sheets

• Name ______ Date __________ Paragraph No.
  _____
• Who or what is this paragraph about?
  ______________
• What is happening to the who or what?
  _____________
• Summary Sentence ____________________________
• Who or what is this paragraph about?
  ______________
• What is happening to the who or what?
  _____________
• Summary Sentence ____________________________

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Graphic Display of Content Test Performance
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Year-End Final Exam Items Covered and Not
Covered During Study
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US History Study

• Design
• Crossover design with four inclusive 7th grade
  classes
• Plus parent component involving in-service,
  technology and home activities
• Sample N 81 students and their parents/guardians
• 15 with mild disabilities

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Parent Component

• Training sessions held in evenings to teach
  parents how to access and use study materials on
  Blackboard site
• Materials sent home for those without pc and
  internet access
• Pre and Post testing Blackboard use
• Anecdotal record keeping of material use at home

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Blackboard Training

• Evening sessions in pc lab
• Pre and post testing
• Blackboard access and use
• History training materials and use

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Rules for Tutoring At school and home

• 1. Talk only to your partner about the
  peer-tutoring program.
• 2. Talk in a quiet voice.
• 3. Cooperate with your partner.
• 4. Do your BEST.

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Identifying Mistakes

•  Your child says the wrong answer.
•  Your child gives a partially correct answer.
•  Your child adds unnecessary information.
•  Your child waits longer than 3 seconds to give
  an answer. (count 1- one thousand, 2 - one
  thousand, 3 one thousand)

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Correcting Mistakes

•   If your child misses an answer say, You
  missed that one. Can you try again?
•   If your child answers correctly, say, Good.
  Ask the question again.
•   If your child does not know an answer, wait 3
  seconds, then say, The answer is _____.
•   Ask the question again.
•   Then say, Good.

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Parent Home Tutoring Checklist

• ü     Get out own tutoring fact sheets and record
  keeping sheet.
• ü     Get with your child.
• ü     Write date and time on your record sheet.
• ü     Begin asking and answering the questions
  with your child (if child is alone, have him/her
  cover one side of the sheet and ask and answer
  questions independently).
• ü     Put all tutoring materials away.

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Parent Recording Sheet
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Tutoring Sheets

• Name the Railroads and the railroad towns.

• Railroads Union pacific and Central Pacific
• Towns Promontory Point, Utah Omaha, Nebraska
  Sacramento, California

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Tutoring Sheets

• Name the cattle towns and trails.
•  

• Towns Abilene, Kansas Cheyenne, Wyoming
• Trails Chisholm Trail Goodnight-Loving Trail

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Parent Training Results

• Pretest vs posttest
• Evaluation of blackboard usage
• Evaluation of access of study materials
• t(21) 25.228, p .000

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Parent Evaluation of Training1 low 5 high
Mean (SD)
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Teacher Feedback

• Materials engaged all students
• Materials very student centered.
• Students needed directions once, and they were
  off and running.
• Had to quiet students down but only lower voices.
  
• They were always on task.
• Students even developed their own games out of
  it.

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What are General Techniques for Improving Memory?

• Increase Attention.
• Promote External Memory.
• Enhance Meaningfulness.
• Use Pictures.
• Minimize Interference.
• Promote Active Manipulation.
• Promote Active Reasoning.
• Increase the Amount of Practice.

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What Are Effective Mnemonic Strategies?

• Strategies that make Unfamiliar Information more
• Concrete
• Meaningful
• Familiar
• Memorable

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Mnemonic strategies

• First described by the ancient Greeks (see Yates,
  The Art of Memory, 1956)
• Discussed by William James, Principles of
  Psychology (1890)
• First treatment in experimental psychology,
  Atkinson (1975), for teaching Russian vocabulary
  to college students.
• Employed in late 1970s with k-12 students
  (Pressley, Levin, Delaney, 1982)
• Employed with students with LD, 1983-present
• Over 40 experiments, gt1200 students

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How Effective Are Mnemonic Strategies ? (Forness,
2001)

• Mnc Mnemonic
• RC Reading
• comp.
• strategies
• DI Direct
• Instruction
• SM Stimulant
• medication
• PrT Peer
• tutoring
• Diet Diet
• restrictions
• PT Perceptual
• training

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Most Effective Techniques

• Mnemonic strategies
• Keyword method
• Pegword method
• Letter strategies, such as acrostics and acronyms
• Other verbal elaborations

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The Keyword Method

• Best for Unfamiliar Vocabulary
• Steps in using the keyword method
• Recode unfamiliar word to an acoustically similar
  but familiar word or keyword.
• Relate the the keyword in an interactive picture
  with the to-be-remembered information
• Retrieve the new definition by thinking of the
  keyword and what was happening in the interactive
  picture

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Ranid (rain) frog
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Pegword method

• Can keyword method be combined with the pegword
  method for remembering numbers?

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Materials

• Content hardness levels of North American
  minerals, according to the Mohs scale.
• Mnemonic pictures included keyword representation
  of mineral name, pegword for hardness level.

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Pegwords

• One is bun
• Two is shoe
• Three is tree
• Four is door
• Five is hive

• Six is sticks
• Seven is heaven
• Eight is gate
• Nine is vine
• Ten is hen

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Crocoite (crocodile) 2 (shoe)
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Multiple Attributes

• Can students with LD learn multiple attributes --
  e.g., hardness, color, common use -- with
  mnemonics?
• Example WOLFRAMITE A black wolf at a door lit
  by light bulbs
• Black mineral color
• Door hardness level 4
• Light Bulbs common use (from tungsten filaments)

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Three conditions

• Mnemonic instruction
• Direct instruction
• Free study

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Results
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Curriculum Applications of Mnemonic Instruction

• Can mnemonic strategies be applied to a chapter
  from a content area textbook?

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Content Area World War I

• Allied Powers
• Central Powers
• William Jennings Bryan
• Lusitania
• Zimmerman note
• Trench warfare
• Eddie Rickenbacher
• George M. Cohan

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Reconstructive Elaborations

• Mimetic Representational picture for concrete,
  familiar information (trench)
• Symbolic Symbolic picture for abstract, familiar
  information (foreign policy)
• Acoustic Keyword strategy for unfamiliar
  information (Zimmerman)
• Letter strategies for list information

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World War I test

• What countries were in the Allied Powers?
• What countries were in the Central Powers?
• Who was William Jennings Bryan?
• What was the Lusitania?
• What was the Zimmerman note?
• What was trench warfare like?
• Who was Eddie Rickenbacher?
• Who was George M. Cohan?

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Participants, Procedure

• 30 8th 10th graders with LD
• Mean reading GE 5.2
• Students stratified by grade level and assigned
  at random to mnemonic or control condition.

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Long-Term Applications

• Can mnemonic strategies be applied to units of
  curriculum in classroom instruction over time?

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Participants

• Four classrooms of students with learning
  disabilities in an inner-city school
• Each classroom had a different configuration of
  mnemonic and traditional pictures to support
  classroom learning over 4 units
• M-T-M-T
• T-M-T-M
• T-T-T-M
• M-M-M-T

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Procedure

• Each unit lasted two weeks. Teachers employed
  relevant pictures as overhead transparencies
  throughout the unit.
• After 8 weeks of instruction, individual tests of
  content knowledge were given
• World War I
• 20s
• 30s
• World War II

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Research questions

• 1. Can the model of reconstructive elaborations
  be used with life science content?
• 2. Can students with LD create their own mnemonic
  strategies?

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Participants, design

• Students with LD student in two self-contained
  classes
• Each classroom had a different configuration over
  2 units
• 1. Mnemonic-Traditional
• 2. Traditional-Mnemonic
• Third week all mnemonic
• 4th week generalization

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Procedure

• Each unit lasted one week. Teachers employed
  relevant pictures as overhead transparencies
  throughout the unit.
• After 2 weeks of instruction, individual tests of
  content knowledge were given
• Invertebrate animals
• Vertebrate animals

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Questions

• What are characteristics of earthworms?
• What are characteristics of birds?
• What are characteristics of trichina?
• What are the five classes of vertebrates?
• What are parasites and hosts?
• What is radial symmetry?

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Generalization phase

• Earth history Third week of training, both
  classes taught mnemonically

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Questions

• Name the three parts of the earth.
• What is the core?
• What is the mantle?
• What is the crust?

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Week 3

• 76.3 answered correctly

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Generalization Training Week 4
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However

• For generalization week, 52.5 of content covered
  answered correctly
• 33 to 39 as much content covered as previous
  weeks. Additional time spent creating strategies.

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IT FITS Strategy

• Identify the term
• Tell the definition of the term
• Find a keyword
• Imagine the definition doing something with the
  keyword
• Think about the definition doing something with
  the keyword
• Study what you imagined until you know the
  definition
• King-Sears, M.E., Mercer, C.D., Sindelar,
  P.T. (1992). Toward independence with keyword
  mnemonics A strategy for science vocabulary
  instruction. Remedial and Special Education, 13,
  22-33.

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Effectiveness of Mnemonic Instruction in
Science(13 experiments, N 525)
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Concrete Meaningful Tasks

• Point out importance and worth
• Select relevant, concrete tasks
• Hands-on materials
• Illustrations
• Active involvement
• Relate to students personal experiences

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Approaches to Science Instruction

• Textbook
• high language demands
• high literacy demands
• excessive vocabulary
• abstract content
• high factual learning demands
• factual recall on tests

• Activities-oriented
• reduced language
• reduced literacy
• reduced vocabulary
• hands-on experiences enactments
• minimal testing
• performance-based testing

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Activities versus Text-basedScience

• Ecosystem Unit (Science Education)
• 4th grade classes
• Textbook adopted by district
• STC Ecosystems unit
• Inclusive classes with adaptations

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Student Data by Classroom

• Activities Comparison
• M (SD) M (SD)
• Age 120.7 (5.5) 121.4 (6.0)
• IQ 109.8 (16.0) 112.2(14.1)
• Rdg 75.3 (17.8) 75.1 (20.9)
• Math 76.8 (20.3) 81.0 (19.3)
• Lang 76.3 (19.6) 74.4 (20.1)
• Males 48 44

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PASS Variables

• Prioritize objectives
• Adapt (instruction, materials, environment)
• SCREAM
• structure
• clarity
• redundancy
• enthusiasm
• appropriate pace
• maximize engagement
• Systematic Evaluation

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Problem Solving

• Very structured and guided instruction
• Build ecosystem and observe plant, animal growth
  interactions with environment
• Predict effects of acid rain, too much salt, too
  much fertilizer on your eco-column
• PORC predict, observe, record, compare
• Minimal insight required for success
• Disability specific adaptations made

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Disability-Specific Adaptations

• Vocabulary check-sheets
• Modified worksheets
• Communication boards
• Teacher and peer assistance with reading tasks
• Special matching of peers in small groups
• Testing adaptations - oral and transcribed

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Textbook vs Activities Science
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Textbook vs Activities Science
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Enthusiastic Science Teaching
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Coached ElaborationsDirect Teaching (No
Explanation) Condition

• Experimenter The anteater has long claws on its
  front feet. What does the anteater have?
• Student Long claws on its front feet.
• Experimenter Long claws on its front feet.
  Good.

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Coached Elaborations Provided Explanation
Condition

• E The anteater has long claws on its front feet,
  to help it dig for ants. What does the anteater
  have?
• S Long claws on its front feet.
• E The anteater has long claws on its front feet.
  Good. And why does it have this?
• S To help it dig for ants.
• E To help it dig for ants. Good.

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Coached ElaborationsCoached Elaboration
Condition

• E The anteater has long claws on its front feet.
  Why does it make sense that the anteater has long
  claws on its front feet?
• S I don't know.
• E Well, let's think. What does the anteater eat?
• S Ants?
• E Ants, good. And where do ants live?
• S In holes in the ground.
• E In holes in the ground. So why does it make
  sense that the anteater has long claws on its
  front feet?
• S Oh. To help it dig for ants.
• E To help it dig for ants. Good.

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Results (Sullivan, Mastropieri, Scruggs, 1993)
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Summary of Results Coached Elaborations

• Students in the CE conditions remembered facts
  (e.g., long claws) best
• Students in the CE conditions remembered
  explanations (e.g., to dig for ants) best
• Transfer and independent learning effects were
  smaller

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Differentiated Science Curriculum Enhancements

• Random assignment of 13 inclusive 8th grade
  science classes to
• Control Group traditional instruction
• Experimental Group traditional instruction
  differentiated curriculum enhancements
• Intervention
• Delivered by teachers over 12 weeks

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Sample

• 13.7 Mean age
• N 213
• (37 LD, 7 SED, 35 ELL)
• Ethnic diversity
• 44 Caucasian
• 27 Black
• 17.4 Latino
• 5.2 Multi-racial
• 4.4 Asian

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Differentiated Curriculum Enhancement Activities

• Scientific Investigation Unit and linked to high
  stakes tests
• Eight major activities developed
• Each activity developed into multiple levels of
  increasing difficulty
• Start with differentiating the content using
  scaffolding/prompting
• Level 1 for maximum support with content
• Level 2 for reduced support with content
• Level 3 for independent learning with minimal, if
  any supports

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Scientific Process Skills

• Observing,
• Classifying
• Predicting
• Comparing
• Contrasting
• Charting, Graphing, Recording Data

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Development Rules for Level 1

• Identification level
• Must be able to identify answers from a multiple
  choice or matching format
• Must contain prompts to help ensure success

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Development Rules for Level 2

• Production with prompts level
• Start at beginning production responses
• Include prompts to ensure success

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Development Rules for Level 3

• Independent production level
• Production format
• Remove prompts

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Experimental Design Level 1-3

• Level 1 students match independent and dependent
  variables.
• Level 2 identify independent, dependent
  variables, and hypothesis given a scenario.
• Level 3 students produce independent, dependent
  variables, and hypothesis given a scenario.
• These games provide practice for the SOL Grade 6
  hypotheses are stated in ways that identify the
  independent and dependent variables, SOL Grade 7
  variables defined, dependent variables,
  independent variables, and constants identified,
  and SOL Grade 8 independent and dependent
  variables, constants, and repeated trials are
  identified.

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Sample Scenario

• Scenario A student's science fair project was to
  examine the effects of different amounts of
  fertilizer on plant growth. Three identical
  plants were grown with three different amounts of
  fertilizer (low, medium and high). At the end of
  the experiment the plant given the highest amount
  of fertilizer was the tallest.
• Independent variable- Amount of Fertilizer
• Dependent variable- Plant Growth
• Hypothesis- If you give a plant a high amount of
  fertilizer, then the plant will grow taller.

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Data Sources

• Pre and Posttests
• Content
• High Stakes Tests
• Student Reports
• Teacher Feedback

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Results

• Students in Differentiated science curriculum
  outperformed comparison students on
• Science content tests
• Virginia High Stakes Tests

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Chemistry

• 10th Grade Chemistry Study
• Students with and without disabilities in
  inclusive classes
• Peer Tutoring Format involving
• Strategies including mnemonics, elaborations
• What else is important?
• Applications
• Differentiated format
• Use embedded strategies when required
• Skip strategies when not required

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Tutoring Condition Materials

• Rules and Procedures for Tutoring
• Folders containing strategy sheets
• What is
• A strategy to help you remember
• What else is important about . ?
• What is an example of --- ?
• Student recording sheets

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What is the Periodic Table?  
 
A tabular arrangement of all known elements,
organized by properties. If your partner is
correct, go to ? If your partner doesnt know the
answer, review the strategy.   Strategy Think of
the word "table" (chart) for periodic table, and
think of the table of all the elements. Then
ask  What is the strategy to remember periodic
table?
Then ask again  What is the periodic table?  ?
Then ask What else is important about periodic
table? Answers include Properties are arranged
by periods (rows) and groups (columns).   Then
ask What are other characteristics of periodic
table?  Answers include Increase across
periods, Mass, Electron affinity, Ionization
energy Decrease across periods Size Increase
across groups (top to bottom), Reactivity, Atomic
radius Decrease across groups (top to bottom),
Electron, affinity, Electron negativity,
ionization Then ask What are the components of
the periodic table?   Answers include alkali
metals, alkaline earth metals, transition
elements, metalloids, noble gases, lanthanides,
actinides  
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Chemistry Test Results
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Challenges with Implementations

• Can we raise scores enough?
• Support for teachers and administrators
• Resources and training issues
• Time for teachers and for freeing teachers

• Sustainability of practices
• Providing ongoing positive and positive critical
  feedback
• Demonstrating student growth
• Fidelity of Implementation

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Summary

• Tension exists between demands of high stakes
  testing and teaching students with LD
• RTI may present challenges
• A variety of evidence-based techniques have
  improved performance
• Extend interaction and practice with text
• Use strategies with peer tutors
• Enhance meaningfulness and concreteness
• Use activities to enhance meaningfulness
• Differentiate activities to support multiple
  learner levels

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Great Challenges can lead to Great Opportunities
for Students with LD

• Improved accountability
• Improved access to general ed. Curriculum
• Potential for achieving beyond expectations
• Entire school has stake in success of students
  with LD
• Future research can provide further guidance for
  practice