Overview of the Preschool
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| Circle Time |
The school that I am currently working in is a preschool
which provide early intervention programme for infant and children (EIPIC)
three to six years old. All students are referred to the preschool by
hospitals; 50% are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), 30% with
Global Developmental Delay (GDD) and 20% Speech and Language Delay. Students of
different races, Chinese, Malay and Indians attend the preschool two or three
times per week for 3 hours per session. The total enrolment is about 90.
All teachers are required to use the curriculum embedded assessment tool- “Assessment, Evaluation and
Programing System (AEPS)” on students upon their enrolment. Two teachers are
assigned to a class and they work together as a team with the occupational
therapist (OT), speech & language therapist (SLT) and psychologist. All therapists
are encouraged to work in-class to support and en-skill teachers (apart from
the occasional pull-out sessions needed for individual assessment). Daily the pre-school operates on five classes per session, one class of 3 years old, two classes of 4-5 years old and two classes of 6 years old (graduating group). A class consists of students from the 3 types of diagnosis (as above), and all of them may function at different cognitive level. The maximum teacher to student ratio per class is 1:4; that is, a maximum of 8 students (2 teachers).
The teaching language – English
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| All activities are conducted in English |
The preschool is a subsidiary of a voluntary welfare organisation (VWO) and students’ school fee is dependant on government's funding and parents’ income. If parents’ are under the low income range, students will receive maximum funding for their fees. 20% of the students receive maximum funding and their parents usually speak or understand little English, thus, English Language is their 2nd language. The other 80% of students’ come from middle income families and most of them attend childcare centres when their parents are at work. The main language used in all childcare centres is English.
For this group of students (who understand only a little
English), they are group together for half hour once a week for fun activities
that allow them to have more opportunities to understand common instructions that are
used in class like, “give me”, “show your friends”, “take this” and “look
here”. One teacher is assigned to take charge of this group and plan extra lessons for them (based on needs). This shows the preschool supports all learners by preteach partial contents so students will feel included in their own classroom.
Learning Environments
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| Classroom setting is safe & warm |
Every day when students arrive at the centre, they are
greeted by their class teachers at the entrance. Every child is encouraged to
say “bye bye” to their parent/caregiver before entering a pair of glass doors;
very often, he/she will turn around for that re-assuring look from his/her caregiver, before following
the teacher to the classroom. This is the start where the centre provides a
positive learning environment; students walk into a place with physical set up that
make them feel safe, warm, welcomed and belonged. Entering the classroom, its décor
is carefully planned (without bright colours) so it does not create distraction
or sensory overload (especially for those who are more sensitive).
Depending on needs, upon arrival, the OT supports the
teachers by bringing all students that need to calm down before attending to
tasks, to the OT room for appropriate exercise/activity. Once back in the
classroom, students are ready to learn and are guided by class rules and
routines (e.g. individual schedule board). Working together as a team all
staffs create a learning environment that make students feel safe and secure.
Cognitive and academic learning outcomes are found to improve when students
feel safe and secure (Sousa, 2011).
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| OT working with 3 students |
Assessment and Curriculum
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| AEPS assessment form |
Assessment using AEPS
AEPS is a comprehensive linked assessment, intervention,
and evaluation system for infants and young children who have disabilities or are at risk for developmental delays, from birth to six years (Bricker & Pretti-Frontczak, 2004). For the first 8-10 weeks upon enrolment, every
student is assessed using AEPS on six domains, that is, fine & gross motor,
cognitive, adaptive, social & social communication. By the 10th
week, parents are invited to the school for an Individual Educational Plan
(IEP) meeting where the student’s goals for the next six months will be
informed by the whole team, i.e., the therapists and two class teachers. AEPS is used as a tool for assessment to decide on
students’ initial set of goals and in summative assessment done every six
months, for reporting progress and decision on a new set of goals.
Tomlinson (2006) said that assessment is a process by which teachers can make inferences about what students know, understand and can do based on information obtained through the assessment. The preschool already has a good assessment system using AEPS, I think by extending it further to onging assessment for teaching contents, it is a strength for implementing differentiation. Teachers could make the ongoing assessment a part of the lesson design.
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| Activity based on theme |
Curriculum based on themes
The preschool’s curriculum is based on themes and for each term of 10 weeks there is a main theme like animals and the sub-themes are, for example, farm animals and sea creatures. At the beginning of the term teachers come together to discuss and decide on topics that each will want to focus on. For example, class A will focus on food that animals eat and class B will focus on habitats of animals. Every teacher will write one activity plan and exchange it with another 1 to 2 class teachers, after they have used their own plans. (Each plan will be modified to suit learning needs)
In every class, teachers will embed IEP goals of
individual students into their activity plans. Within each activity plan,
students’ learning tasks are designed to suit their needs. For example, student
A fine motor goal is to learn how to cut, will be cutting a fish using materials
that is suitable and given appropriate prompts; whereas student B who has
social goal of learning to take turns will have to learn to wait for his turn
to use the scissors.
This showed that teachers wrote their
activity plan based on students’ ability. The family report (part of AEPS)
that is completed by parents or caregivers allow teachers to understand home settings
and students’ prior experiences. These information plus the assessment results
from AEPS give teachers the indication how to group students according to their
ability or skills level. In this area, it could form the basics of flexible grouping with content knowledge in mind.
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| Pretend Play - doctor |
However, it was observed teachers put a lot of emphasis on activities to meet IEP goals such that certain learning differences are not looked into. Teaching is very much teacher directed; for example, on the topic of farm animals, a teacher wrote a lesson plan on cow, sheep, pig and horse when most of the students have experience with chicken and duck (their pets). Students’ readiness for learning should be looked into for appropriate grouping and development to differentiation.
It is believed that it is important to distinguish
between ability and readiness, as it affects both teachers’ and students’ mind set
about learning (*Sousa, 2011). Readiness changes from topic to topic and skill
to skill, whereas many people will look at ability as fixed, in terms of
academic success. Since the preschool’s curriculum is based on themes, topics
to be taught will change often, it is important to tap on their current practices
and make it another strength of the preschool, encouraging teachers to plan activity with
differentiation in mind. The set up for each activity varies and flexible groupings
can easily be arranged according to differentiation by readiness, interest and
learning profile.
Definitions
of differentiation and inclusion
Definition of Inclusion
Using the preschool’s teaching model to define inclusion:-
starting at the entrance students feel welcomed and belonged and teachers
strive to build trusting relationships with students; before entering the
classrooms therapists prepare their senses for learning; next, in the classroom
care is taken with the décor, looking into sensory overload, there are rules
and schedules for routine and much is done to make students feel safe and
secure; the 20% of students who hardly understand English are given additional
time (preteach) to partially learn first so they will understand like their peers. On the whole, the curriculum and
assessment are adapted so that teachers understand and teach according to
specific learning needs for all types of disabilities (ASD, GDD and Speech
& Language Delay).
Inclusion may be defined as a big package where students
are supported to achieve and participate fully in the school with all the other peers
and the teacher facilitating in the learning process (Pagliano, 2008).
Definition of differentiation
In order for all students to be included in the whole
teaching-learning process, teachers have to plan ahead for differentiation. Differentiation
is dependent on various classroom elements as per the diagram below:-  |
| Elements of Differentiation |
In the above preschool, the learning environment allows students to feel safe and secure and
they do tasks set at appropriate level of challenge (goals set after assessment using AEPS); when
differentiated instruction is followed, the planned activities in the curriculum are carried out with essential
skills in focus, based on teaching contents. In other words, different access to
the same content and students are allowed different
ways to show what was learned. For this to happen, instruction to be designed to cater to variety of needs in the classroom. Flexible grouping are formed that promotes growth
mindset which shape students’ believe that they can suceed.
Differentiation can be defined as a sum of all the above
elements, the teacher planning in advance to vary how she teach, what students
learn and how they learn it and eventually how student show what they have
learned (Sousa, 2011). Professional Reflections
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| Looking for fruits at the supermarket |
I was implementing my tiered lesson (differentiated by
readiness, assignment 1) under the topic of healthy fruit choices; students to understand there is a variety of
fruits to choose from and how it helped them to be healthy, know the names of
many types of fruits and able to make a list of fruits that they can eat daily.
The class has six students, a mixture of four to five years old boys and girls
with mild to moderate diagnosis (ASD, GDD and Speech & Language Delay).
The preassessment was done using a game of passing teddy
bear and the students to take turns to talk about fruits picked from a basket (to
gauge their experience and levels). The grouping was easily done and there were
three groups which consist of one, two and three students per group. I had a co-teacher to work with so I had requested that she rotated with me to give instructions to each group. The same co-teacher had worked with me previously when all the six students were taught together in a single group and given the same instructions. Now students are divided into three groups, the co-ordination between us had to be “negotiated” again. Initially it was frustrating, until we sort out our roles that only one person to lead.
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| Student learning to name fruits |
Next was the physical environment, the arrangement of
furniture, space and location within the classroom did not suit the group
instruction. The classroom was small, though sat at different corners, I had to
put a screen to prevent the students from looking across and being distracted.
However, the single student group where she had the least
readiness for learning went very well as I noticed she responded to the
customised instruction. She has speech delay and normally would not imitate the
adult when learning to name things. The student–teacher relationship was
enhanced as I made her laughed when the fruits “fly” to her. I observed she was
much more relaxed than in the previous bigger group where all peers were
included. Upon reflection, I think instruction was given at her comfort level
and gradually stepped up, working around her ZPD (zone of proximal
development). What I had experienced agrees with the research finding that
students learn better and feel better when teachers prescribe tasks at
appropriate level of readiness (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993;
Fisher et al., 1980; Hunt, 1971, as cited in Sousa, 2011).
I also realized the above student is at an earlier stage
of cognitive development and I had engaged her through age-appropriate learning
tasks, giving explicit instruction and she managed her learning tasks with
greater confidence through the concrete experience (touching and playing with
actual fruits). Students with cognitive impairment will benefit from explicit
instruction, repetition and supervised practiced (Pagliano, 2008).
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| Students in differentiated group |
In the group that had three students, the activity was
differentiated from the least readiness group by less structure where students
were given choices to decide on fruits for their salad. In this group there was
an ASD student who insisted on putting only one type of fruit into the salad.
It was challenging to help him meet the learning objective for this lesson
(learning many types of fruits). In the end the activity was modified to
arrange fruits on the supermarket shelve instead of making salad as he was
happy to arrange different types of fruit in a row (but not putting them in a
salad bowl). I had to think on my feet to come up with an alternative
instruction strategy to overcome the (repetitive) behaviour issues experienced
by students in the autistic spectrum. I have learned that the better teachers
know their students the better they are at identifying when and how to adapt
the curriculum (activity) to suit individual learning needs (Pagliano, 2008).
In the third group, the readiness is advanced as compared
to the other two groups. The two students were able to discuss with each other
and be engaged after I participated in the activity (to scaffold) and not just gave
instructions. I observed the social interaction that was going on had an impact
on the learning outcome. The two students were deciding on fruits for their
cooking recipe, one student was not interested in cooking and he asked his peer
to decide (his response affected what he should learn). I joined in the pretend
play and the student who was not interested was encouraged to be a driver (as
his interest is cars), to assist with carrying the fruits into the car and some
fruits were heavy so he had to select for a balanced load.
The above group showed that social interaction,
engagement between teacher and students, meaningful instruction and scaffolding
were important factors in differentiating lessons (Krause,
2010).
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| Art work of fruits |
Reflecting on the three groups I learned that there are
many elements to consider when planning for differentiation. I used to believe
student–teacher relationship is not as important as what and how instructions are
to be delivered. The first group (single student) and the third group (advance, deciding
on recipe) have convinced me that building on trusting student-teacher relationship
enable meaningful instruction, which has tremendous impact on whether the
teaching-learning process will succeed. When I joined in and am a “member” of the play (third group), I could
feel a difference in the students’ mindset, I had promoted the growth mindset
by tapping on the student's interest and changed the learning outcome. For the second group, I had overlooked the adjustment to be made for specific special needs like ASD.
My differentiation experience leads me to
agree with Tomlinson that differentiation is a way of thinking about teaching
and learning, a philosophy that is backed by a set of beliefs (Tomlinson, 2000). Supporting this philosophy is UK department of education and skills who states that effective inclusion requires positive attitudes toward children who have difficulties in school and responsiveness to individual needs critically by teachers who willingly play their part (Westwood, 2007).
I had commenced learning about differentiation thinking about it as just some
strategies to teach and realised it is so much more than that. I shall continue learning and adopt Tomlinson's philosophy with a growth mindset!
References
Bricker, D. & Pretti-Frontczak, K. (2004). An Activity-Based Approach to Early Intervention. Baltimore, USA:
Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Krause,
K. D. (2010). Learners
with special needs and inclusive education. Chapter 9 in
Educational psychology for
learning & teaching. South Melbourne, Vic.: Cengage Learning Australia. pp. 326-363.
Pagliano, P. (2008). Curriculum,
adjustments, and adaptations. Chapter 7 in Education for
inclusion
and diversity / edited by Adrian Ashman. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson
Education
Australia. pp. 201-234.
Differentiation and the brain: how neuroscience supports the
learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree
Press pp. 17-43
Differentiation and the brain: how neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom.
Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press. pp. 85-108
Integrating differentiated instruction & understanding by design: connecting content and kids.
Heatherton, Vic.: Hawker Brownlow Education. pp. 59-82
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