Meet Mr. Mitchell . . . and Jamal
Mr. Mitchell teaches 5th grade in an urban Chicago school. This year's class is the largest he's ever taught, and it includes several students with disabilities. One of his students is Jamal, a young man with cerebral palsy. Jamal is an enthusiastic student and well on his way to becoming an expert on military tanks and submarines. From his home computer, he has found and collected hundreds of photos, stories, and Web sites devoted to this weaponry. Jamal speaks slowly but intelligibly. He uses a wheelchair for mobility and a variety of assistive technologies to help him operate his computer. Although Jamal cannot write or draw with pen and paper, he has learned to do these things with the support of a computer equipped with an expanded keyboard and a voice recognition system.
Jamal is integrated into Mr. Mitchell's classroom for all academic subjects. Science and social studies particularly engage him, and he uses his strong strategic skills (such as his ability to seek, locate, and save information) to good effect in these classes. But Jamal's motor difficulties affect the pace of his work. He is keeping up, but barely - challenged by the large amounts of required reading and writing. Despite his interest and abilities, Jamal must invest tremendous effort to avoid falling behind, and at times, he becomes discouraged.
Jamal's story to date is one of strategic success, but he works slowly and the academic demands he faces will only increase as he progresses from grade-to-grade. Realizing that Jamal's motor difficulties are a potential threat to success, Mr. Mitchell plans to scaffold Jamal's areas of difficulty and draw upon his particular strategic strengths. Among other things, Mr. Mitchell will make sure assigned text is available in digital form so that Jamal can navigate it on the computer with keyboard or voice-activated commands. He will also make sure Jamal has access to computer-based drawing and composition tools rather than just pencil and paper. Mr. Mitchell hopes these methods will help Jamal stay engaged and enable him to develop new ways to manage his increasing workload.
Meet Ms. Chen . . . and Charlie
Ms. Chen has taught 6th grade in rural Iowa for three years. One of her major goals for this year is to find a way to adapt her techniques and materials so that she can reach all students in the class, who range from "highly focused" to "highly distractible."
Ms. Chen describes Charlie as a constant source of classroom energy. He dives headlong into activities, jumps out of his seat to answer questions, and constantly seeks new things to do and join. He finishes few of the things he starts. When boredom descends or something new comes up, Charlie quickly abandons his task, regardless of whether it is complete. This is true not only for extended projects, such as a science fair experiment or a book report, but also for short-term tasks like looking up a word in the dictionary. Unless Ms. Chen or one of Charlie's parents structures him closely, he rarely completes his schoolwork. He also forgets his homework and textbook nearly every day, and despite his enthusiasm, he is rarely ready to begin an activity with the rest of the class.
At first glance, it seems that Charlie's problem is distractibility. However, Ms. Chen has found that if she minimizes external distractions, Charlie will create his own. Further, when engaged in an activity that interests him, like a Nintendo game or a certain school project, he can focus for long periods of time. Ms. Chen realizes that she needs to help Charlie develop strategic skills, particularly the ability to plan, self-monitor, and complete tasks.
