Author(s): Bulgren, Janis A.
Published: July 2006 in Teaching Exceptional Children
URL to article
Research Focus Area: Asset-based best practices for serving students with disabilities/students in special ed
Abstract:
The article investigates novel methods of improving educational outcomes for adolescents with disabilities by researchers in the U.S. Propositions were made regarding the use of an integrated set of content enhancement routines in educating special needs students. In this study, the researchers examined the challenges presented by rigorous inclusive secondary content classes. The initiative has resulted in the development of an instructional framework aimed at responding to those challenges. Also, instructional procedures that respond to both students’ and teachers’ needs were established.
Research Question(s):
How can CER methods be used to improve educational outcomes for adolescents with disabilities?
Methods:
Intervention
Key Findings:
- Content Enhancement Routines (CERs), based on Content Enhancement (CE) principles, Content Enhancement (CE) principles, support both students and teachers as they respond to rigorous course challenges.
- According to CE principles, the teacher acts as a mediator of instruction, builds on students’ prior knowledge, selects the most important content information, and organizes and transforms that information so that all students can succeed.
- The CE approach uses collaborativeiy developed graphic devices to help students understand and generalize information, and to benefit from different ways of learning.
- Importantly, CE meets both group and individual needs (including those of students with special learning needs), while maintaining the integrity of tbe content.
- The teacher and students collaboratively construct the information together in class to ensure engagement and active learning.
- CERs incorporate a review of the content and process of learning to confirm understanding.
Implications:
- The article presents a set of CE graphic devices that a class might interactively construct for a science unit on the effects of human activities on the environment. Teachers can use the following CE strategies and their associated CER routines:
- a Unit Organizer (UO) to launch learning by organizing and highlighting the critical relationships in a unit
- a Concept Diagram to help students acquire foundational content knowledge and provide scaffolds for higher-order thinking
- an Anchoring Table, which helps students understand a new concept by analogy to a known concept
- a Comparison Table, which encourages students to learn to describe different characteristics (e.g., limited vs. unlimited) with a single higher-order categorizing label
- a Cause and Effect Table to trace a sequence of events
- a Question Exploration Table to generate a series of questions as a means of answering a ore complex, critical question
- a Decision-Making table to help students learn to identify and evaluate options
Limitations:
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