Joyful Learning

Active and Collaborative Strategies for Inclusive Classrooms

Alice Udvari-Solner, Paula M. Kluth

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781506375670
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Discover motivating, personalized learning strategies that all of your students will love!

Build an active, responsive, and inclusive classroom where every student benefits. Through step-by-step directions, reproducible handouts, classroom-tested examples, and specific guidelines, teachers and teacher teams will discover 60 activities to help you:

• Quickly and easily modify and adapt design instruction for diverse learners, including students with cultural, language, learning, physical, or sensory differences
• Transform lectures and whole-class discussions through dynamic, student-centered learning experiences
• Immerse students in discussion, debate, creative thinking, questioning, teamwork, and collaborative learning
• Flexibly co-plan and co-teach with a variety of school professionals

1 Building Teams and Classroom Communities

That’s the Story of My Life!

Although many celebrated figures have the unique (and probably transforming) opportunity to create and share their autobiographies, ordinary people typically do not have the chance to tell their life stories. We think they should! Therefore, this activity allows students to share some of their personal histories and to develop new connections with classmates.

Directions

• Initially, students will work individually. Ask each of them to take a piece of flip chart paper and fold it into quarters so it is shaped like a book.
• Then on the front cover of their creations, they should write the title of their stories. To add a bit of whimsy to this part of the activity, you might instruct them to choose the title of a popular novel, song, movie, or television program (e.g., The Time of My Life, The Fast and Furious Life of George, Wendy’s “Believe It or Not” Life Story, “Orange County Girl”).
• On the inside of the front cover (page 2), have students create an index of their lives, including the following:
  • Date and place of birth
  • Family information (e.g., number of siblings, names of pets)
  • Favorite hobby, sport, or interest
  • Favorite quote, phrase, or joke
  • Most exciting moment
  • Thing that makes them unique
• On page 3, ask students to draw a picture of their perfect day.
• Finally, on the back cover of the book, have students draw a picture of their future (e.g., family, where they are living, what they are doing).
• When all books are complete, have each student tell his or her story using the book as a visual aid. Depending on the size of the class, you may want to have students share stories in small groups.
• If possible, leave the books in a central location for the day or for the week so classmates can learn more about one another.

Examples

• A high school French teacher asked second-year students to construct stories using only the vocabulary they had learned the previous year. Then, she asked them to read their stories to one another, again using only the French they had mastered to date. Thus, the exercise served not only as a community-building exercise but as a review of vocabulary and an opportunity to polish their conversational skills.
• One elementary school teacher used this structure as a getting-to-know-you exercise during a year when she was welcoming Beth, a student with multiple disabilities, into her classroom. When Beth’s mother asked if she should come and explain her child’s abilities, strengths, history, and special needs to the class, the teacher decided it would be nice for all students to learn this type of information about one another. She wanted to make sure that Beth and the other students understood that all learners in the classroom were unique and special.
  Students spent a day collecting information for their books; this collection process involved interviewing family and friends, gathering artifacts from home, and filling in a teacher-prepared questionnaire designed as a brainstorming tool. Then, they worked alone (or in pairs, if assistance was needed) to construct their books. The school social worker visited the class to help students express themselves and tell their stories.
  The speech and language therapist also visited during this time to teach Beth some new sign language vocabulary related to the book; she also helped Beth answer all the necessary questions by using both the new signs and some pictures other students found on Google Images. Students spent two language arts periods sharing their work and asking and answering questions about their personal stories. Their books were then displayed in the school library.
• A high school psychology teacher used That’s the Story of My Life! to give students opportunities to share personal information and to reinforce concepts from his class. Students were asked to include the following pieces of information in their books:
  • Full name
  • Place of birth
  • Family information
  • Favorite hobby, sport, or interest
  • Favorite websites/blogs/apps
  • Theorist that most intrigued them (e.g., Freud, Piaget, Bandura)
  Students also had to include the results of a personality test the teacher had administered. They could choose to illustrate the results in some way or summarize them in narrative form. Finally, they took turns sharing their stories with assigned partners.

Methods to Maximize Engagement and Participation

• Tell or share the story of your own life; show students a sample storybook featuring your own family, interests, and dreams. If you are working with younger children and you are using this structure to teach about diversity, uniqueness, or community, you may even want to invite other adults into the classroom to read their stories so that learners can see and hear about differences related to gender, sexual identity, family structure, and cultural and ethnic background.
• This activity is ideal for students who are new immigrants or who are simply new to the school to reveal more about themselves, their families, and their culture. Consider allowing these learners to also bring an artifact or two from home to share as a way of extending their story and further illustrating their life experience. Bringing artifacts might also be helpful for students with more complex or significant disabilities who struggle to communicate.
• Some students may need different materials to create their books; if there are learners in the classroom with fine motor problems, rubber stamps, stickers, and pictures from magazines and Google Images can be provided for them to use in the construction of their stories. Alternatively, these learners may want to construct their stories using PowerPoint or a storytelling app such as StoryKit by ICDL Foundation.
• You will want to consider how well students know each other when designing prompts; students who have been educated together for years will be familiar with basic information about one another (e.g., full name, family structure) and may be more interested in gathering information about their classmates that is slightly more in-depth, such as their most embarrassing moment, family traditions, or travel experiences.

©iStockphoto.com/alexjuve

Slide Show

In decades past, slide shows were a way to bond and share experiences. Friends, family, and neighbors gathered around a big screen to view images of a vacation, party, or new baby. The group would “ooh” and “ahh” with every image, and stories would be shared throughout the viewing.

Students today have certainly not experienced the type of slide show we are describing. They are growing up in a world with images that are as easy to share as they are to capture. This does not mean, however, that the community-building experience of gathering around the slide show needs to go the way of the carousel slide projector. We recommend, in fact, that you bring Slide Show into your classroom and use it to encourage students to take snapshots to tell their own stories and create connections with peers.

Directions

• Using phones or tablets, have students walk around the classroom or the school, snapping photos of people, moments, and things that represent them. They can take photos of others, of themselves, or of objects in the environment. They can also set up shots to create an image (e.g., scribble a phrase on a whiteboard).
• Put no limit on the number of photos students can take.
• After a set period of time, ask students to come back and review the photos they snapped.
• Now, ask them to narrow their collections down to just five images that best represent who they are.
• Finally, have students share their slide shows with a partner or small group. Repeat this final step a few times so that every slide show is shared several times.

Examples

• A physical education teacher asked her middle school students to create slide shows of themselves as athletes. She encouraged them to think broadly and asked them to capture images of their healthy habits (e.g., drinking water, eating vegetables), active hobbies (e.g., skateboarding, dancing), recently-acquired skills (e.g., doing a back flip, serving a volleyball), and wellness-related achievements (e.g., trying out for a team, running a mile, meditating).
• An English teacher used Slide Show both as a getting-to-know-you activity and as a way to introduce autobiography. Students initially shared a handful of slides to introduce themselves to the teacher and their classmates, but over the course of the semester, they added and edited to images to create a 10-minute story of their lives.

Methods to Maximize Engagement and Participation

• Create your own slide show, or share other sample slide shows so that students have a few ideas for content and style before they begin working.
• Make the task more interesting or challenging for some by introducing students to new photo editing tools, techniques, and equipment. Introduce apps such as Enlight by Lightricks Ltd. and AfterFocus by Motion One. Better yet, collaborate with your art or technology teacher on a slide show exhibition and ask him or her to work with you to teach new skills.
• Add to the drama of the activity by setting up a few projectors in the classroom and allowing students to show their pictures on the big screen (or wall or bulletin board).
• Have students start the project by brainstorming. Ask them to think about or even jot down these things:
  • Likes
  • Interests
  • Personality quirks
  • Values
  • Beliefs
  Then, have them make a few notes about what types of images would capture some of these elements.

©iStockphoto.com/alexjuve

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