Planning for Learner Success - Activity 1

Creating Accommodations for All Learners

  40 minutes

Teachers want all learners to meet assessment standards and project goals and reach their learning potential. The assessment plan you created gives you and your learners important information about their learning. Learners also have differences based on interests, personality, and preferred learning modalities. In this activity, you look at how the learners in your classroom differ from each other and you think of ways in which all learners can successfully participate in your project.

Click here to read more about meeting learners' needs...

Step 1: Considering Different Learning Modalities

Psychologists and educators have developed several frameworks for describing various ways in which learners learn, such as visual-auditory-kinesthetic, left brain/right brain, and multiple intelligences. Work with a group to explore various learning modalities.

  1. Break into groups of three members each. Have each member in the group read and report on a different framework for understanding learning styles:

    • Visual-auditory-kinesthetic
    • Left brain/right brain
    • Multiple intelligences


    1. Go to the Intel® Designing Effective Projects resource

    2. Click Thinking Skills.

    3. Click Thinking Frameworks.

    4. Click Learning Styles.

    5. Read about your assigned learning style. (You may need to click Next at the bottom of the page to find your learning style framework.)

  3. Read the information in your framework and summarize it for your group. Discuss your thoughts about how this particular look at learning styles could have an impact on how you meet learners' needs in your project:
    • Visual-auditory-kinesthetic

    • Left brain/right brain

    • Multiple intelligences

Step 2: Differentiating for Learning

Providing for learners with a range of learning abilities and non-first language speakers in the regular classroom offers unique challenges for teachers. At the same time, learning accommodations to support diverse needs can provide rich learning experiences for all learners.

Meeting the needs of all learners requires careful preparation and planning in project design. All learners need the right amount of support so that they feel confident and comfortable taking risks, and are working to become independent learners. Learners with learning difficulties, non-first language speakers, and learners with exceptional abilities need different kinds of support. Some of this differentiation of support can be met with ICT. Review the materials for accommodating the needs of all learners. Note how you might include some of those strategies in your project.

 

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