Teaching Methodology:
The Art and Science
of Teaching at de Paul

A great teacher is an artist. She has a flair for the dramatic. She can transition smoothly away from the planned lesson in response to student needs which surface during class. She has the knack for knowing how to explain a concept so that it makes sense to a child. She has mastered the ability to be tuned in to every child in the classroom, letting little or nothing slip by unnoticed. These talents are best described as artistic, because they arise from the realm of intuition and empathy.

However,such talents alone do not bring success for students with learning differences. A great teacher for students at de Paul must also have mastered the science of teaching. Such knowledge is based on the best research that education, medicine, and psychology have to offer. These fields have generated an impressive amount of research in the past thirty-five years and offer guidance for teachers wanting to learn "best practice:" that is, what works best for students with specific needs.

The following summaries describe specific attributes and techniques which are best practice for students with learning differences. These attributes should be present in any subject area and at any grade level. Additional information can be found in the Curriculum section of this site.


Multisensory Experiences

Clinical studies demonstrate that understanding and long-term memory are greatly strengthened by involving as many senses as possible in the learning process. The de Paul School stresses multisensory learning in all subject areas, emphasizing vision, hearing, touch, and kinesthesia (movement).

There are various forms of multisensory instruction. One form is "simultaneous multisensory instruction," known by some as "VAKT" (Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic-Tactile) activities. Such activities use all of the senses at the same time in order to send information to the brain through as many channels as possible. Other forms of multisensory instruction use several different activities within one lesson, each which targets one or two different senses at a time.

Attention-Based Instruction

The more attention a student is able to give an activity, the more he will learn from it. Attention-based instruction makes it the teacher's responsibility to capture and maintain every student's attention. This is achieved through small class sizes, highly interactive instruction, and a multitude of techniques which our teachers use to keep students focused. There are many simple techniques which have dramatic results with students with attention difficulties, including movement around the room, keeping activities fairly short, verbal cues ("Eyes on me."), speeding up or slowing down an activity, and touching a student's shoulder.

Once students begin to experience long periods of focused attention in class, they begin to strengthen their ability to stay attentive on their own. Over time, a skilled teacher will "hand over" much of the responsibility for paying attention to the student. However, a certain amount of responsibility will always be the teacher's. Our de Paul teachers strive to always be interesting and interactive, and will always use techniques such as movement and pacing, because these are qualities of good instruction.

Practice and Repetition

The student with learning differences typically needs a great deal of repetition of a fact or procedure in order to commit it to long-term memory. It is not uncommon for the student with SLD to suddenly forget something that she has known for many weeks. Patient repetition through varied activities and multisensory reinforcement are the best tools for dealing with this difficulty.

This repetition must not be dull or labored, or adequate learning will not occur. A student must have a variety of ways to repeatedly study the same concept, so that the repetition is as interesting and new as possible. This is why classrooms which provide more engaging, interactive, and multisensory forms of practice are more effective than classrooms which emphasize worksheets and workbooks.

Structure

Structure is perhaps the most important, and most frequently misunderstood, of a teacher's tools. At de Paul, to structure means to remove chaos, to make sensible. For many students with learning differences, school has been chaos. Written symbols are chaotic, lessons have seemed abstract and hard-to-follow, directions have been difficult to remember, and their own desks, lockers, and notebooks have no organization. In order to learn, these students need structure; they need sense-making.

There are two types of structure emphasized at de Paul. The first is how a teacher structures the information to be learned. The activities and discussions must be presented without chaos:  without distractions, without unnecessary confusion, and without too many directions. Lessons must be thoroughly prepared, the wording of questions planned, the directions precise, and each new concept carefully built upon the student's previous knowledge. The classroom environment must also be structured so that it stimulates learning while not being distracting. (This structure can be thought of as directed from the teacher and environment toward the student.)

The second type of structure stressed is how the student learns to organize her own thoughts, environment, and written work. Obviously, this removal of disarray is necessary for learning and for future success in other school settings. The student with learning differences best develops these organization skills through the teacher's modeling, clear directions, and consistent feedback. (This structure can be thought of as directed from the student toward the environment and teacher.)

Teaching for Mastery

When de Paul students are asked why they are now succeeding in school, one of the most common responses is, "The teachers take time to explain things to us, and give us time to really learn new stuff."  Students need time to explore, practice, and discuss new concepts without quickly moving on to another concept. This does not mean that concepts are simplified or "watered down;" high expectations are met better when students have the time they need to learn thoroughly.

There is often a temptation for teachers to try to teach too many things in too short a time span. The result of such an approach, however, is a curriculum "a mile wide and an inch deep." Teaching for mastery involves a different approach:
 
> teach one thing at a time

> connect it to what is already known

> teach it until the student can apply it and generalize it to new  situations

> then move to the next concept

This systematic approach results in greater depth of knowledge.

Explicit Instruction

Research clearly shows that students with learning differences are more successful in classrooms which use explicit instruction. Explicit instruction involves the teacher explaining new concepts, demonstrating new skills, and providing immediate feedback to students while they practice these skills. Explicit instruction does not ask the child to learn from exposure. For example, a teacher who uses explicit instruction would teach his students the sound of "e" by modeling the sound, helping students to create the sound, leading students to generate examples of words which contain this sound, and having them determine whether the sound is in various words. This procedure is opposed to approaches which expect students to learn sound-letter relationships through their general exposure to stories and print.

It is important to note that explicit instruction is a tool, rather than the only method of interaction a teacher uses. A teacher of students with SLD should directly teach new skills or concepts while also:

> teaching students to use high-level thinking skills

> teaching students to problem solve and think independently

> involving students in cooperative learning situations

> encouraging students to take risks

> encouraging students to evaluate whether an answer is correct

Scaffolding toward independence:

"Scaffolding" refers to the process a teacher uses to scale back his assistance to students, so that the student becomes independent with a skill. Once a student begins to understand a concept or skill, the teacher steps back, bit by bit, so the student takes on more responsibility with the task. When breakdowns in skills occur, the teacher assesses the appropriate amount of assistance to provide, so that students are supported while not becoming teacher dependent.

Scaffolding occurs on a more general level, as well. Overarching skills, such as paying attention and organizing one's own materials, are considered to be the teachers' responsibilities at the beginning of the year. In other words, the teachers are accountable for maintaining student attention and directing the organization of student materials. As students develop these abilities, the teacher then reduces her role in directing these tasks, step-by-step, while keeping expectations high for students. In this way, students refine their skills and become responsible for maintaining them.