It is wise that we have our early drivers practice their skills first on easy roads with automatic transmissions, on back roads and streets where all of the focus can be given to the complexity of mastering the skills of steering the powerful tool of transportation through an easy course. It is wise that we then add the complexity of other drivers on the road in more intricate situations as mastery of certain levels is achieved. Adding complexity too early puts everyone at risk of crashing.
If only we followed this wisdom in introducing tutors and teachers through the multilevels of teaching complexities, we may not have so many crashing and burning in their mastery of literacy and numeracy(1). Multi-level is not some "new fangled" special technique of inclusion; rather it is something that every classroom grouping faces; the natural multi-levels of children that we universally get when we arrange our classrooms around age.
Let us be clear, every time we have more than one student (which would be unilevel) we are faced with the complexity of multi-level teaching as no two students are ever exactly at the same level across all subjects and other associated developmental needs … not even identical twins. The core issues are therefore no different when one adds each additional layer of diversity. One must either "pretend" that all are at the same level and teach to that mythical level and have yet one more student who doesn't "fit" (e.g., the old grade level focussed, uni-level teaching to a multi-level grouping) OR merely apply a broader band-width of multi-level strategies to meet the developmental needs of each of the individuals of the group. (Applying the uni-level teaching to a multi-level grouping is a bit like the L Plate driver pretending there are no other cars as they attempt to drive at 110kmph on Pitt Street on Friday night.(2))
My point is not to say that the move to include a wider diversity of students does not add complexities that mainstream educators may not have faced before. It is merely to point out that the core issue is a stretching of a generic issue rather than adding something "special or foreign" to the planning.
Stretching the bandwidth to include all:
Over the past month we have heard and responded to a mostly unspoken question
of our fellow educators: "How in the world do I alter my thinking, planning and
curriculum to include a student so distant from their peers in these activities?" The
question has come from teachers at the coalface of including students with whom they
are unfamiliar. It has come from a range of teachers from a range of schools – public
and private - primary, secondary and tertiary (TAFE). We therefore want to start a
dialogue on how one might frame one's thinking so as to plan an approach to this
increasingly common question posed by our mainstream colleagues.
As we have written extensively elsewhere(3) about various aspects of inclusion we will focus our discussion herein upon the specifics of dovetailing a student's IEP into the general milieu of a high school classroom.
The Individual Education Plan (IEP) is a device designed in the 70's when inclusion of students was in its earliest days. It has evolved into many forms in many jurisdictions across the globe and forms one of the basic procedures most school systems follow when thinking about students whose skills range much broader than the "typical" bandwidth of diversity we became accustomed to before their entry into the "mainstream".
IEPs have various degrees of utility as we move into an era of New IQ(4) (inclusion quotient) as the major focus of change in an IEP is student focus and New IQ is setting focussed. In our view, IEPs have utility when one uses them more as a model of thinking from the 'big picture':
- A vision of what the parents want for their son or daughter when they leave school: (e.g., Our hope for our daughter is that she will live independently with as little help from formal services as possible. We hope she will have a job she enjoys with an employer who enjoys her contribution and workmates who enjoy her company. We hope she will build and maintain at least a few close friendships to add to the life-long love of her family relationships.)
- A vision of what the school wants for all of their students in terms of inclusion. (e.g., taken from a recent, actual example: We are committed to offering this young lady a place within our school community over the next 5 years. We now need to know how to build our capacities so that we can successfully do that.) The marriage of visions can then be wedded at each level from:
- Assessment:
- Of the student (e.g., samples and data of current skills and knowledge as well as current relationships and skills the student has.)
- Of the class and school capacity to include (e.g., what do the teacher/s, peers and others need in terms of training & support to help this young women to build the skills to be employed, to be a success in social relationships and to fully include her over the commitment we have made?)
- Long term goals:
- Annual steps to be taken to achieve the vision for the student's development (e.g., to build the student's communication, social and basic skills and concepts.)
- Annual steps to be taken to achieve the vision for building the school's inclusive capacity. (e.g., to build the teachers' capacities in dove-tailing IEP objectives into generic classroom activities and to build their understanding of the impact and adaptive responses to issues of "learned helplessness")
- Shorter and more specific, term goals:
- For the student (e.g., the student will respond to teachers and peers when asked questions.)
- For the school community (e.g., the teachers will successfully outline accommodation designs of involvement of the student in their generic activities.)
- Development of indicators for each: -
- For the student (e.g., comparison of data samples collected over the term by assistants against baseline data on current speech levels and frequency.)
- For the school community (e.g., samples of written outlines made available for colleagues to share and build upon.)
- Brief outline of strategies for each
- For the student (e.g., teachers and TA's will request the student to ask verbally for any help and record the level of help given with each activity for assessment of understanding by the teacher in charge.)
- For the school community (e.g., consultant will meet with teachers and go through their unit outlines, determine the central issues and activities linked to these, identify source generic and specialist source material and devise variations of the lesson format and assessment to include the student.)
- Term and annual reviews of each, fine-tuning analysis and resetting of longterm goals for the following year.
The biggest problem we have found over the years is merging the student's IEPs with the common curriculum on a day-to-day basis. When this does not occur, IEPs tend to become 'rationale' for teaching the student in isolation, possible in the class but not integral to the class. We have found that when units are built around the "big ideas of the topic" and problems to be solved, individualisations at all levels are expanded. In investigating a problem or an issue we are better positioned to assist students to investigate at their own level and thus we can judge (assess) them against their own past performances. The previous outline is taken from a recent, real planning process where the "gap" would be traditionally measured at something like 6 years. Even in science, something thought to be quite abstract and difficult, we were able to design realistic accommodations that did not resort to alternative curriculum. Video examples of this process with chance and data involving peers in designing the accommodations are also available.(5)
In summary, multi-levels have been around since we began teaching students in groups. Accommodating a broader bandwidth is the challenge of applying generic multi-level strategies to this broader width. The New IQ acknowledges that we also need to identify the needs of teachers and systems to build these capacities.
Endnotes
- Australian Council for Educational Research (1997). Literacy Standards in Australia.
- Pitt Street is in the city of Sydney and well known for its congestion at peak periods such
as Friday nights. - See volumes 10, #2; 14, #2&3; 16 #4; & 17 #2 of Interaction: Journal of the National Council on Intellectual Disability.
- Wills introduced the concept of the New IQ (Inclusion Quotient) at the International Conference of Inclusion International in Melbourne, September 2002. More information can be obtained from patchworkpublications.com
- This video is available from patchworkpublications.com (click here) or email the associate editor to arrange a copy. Wills published an article based on the video in volume 17 #2 of Interaction (click here).
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