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Creating an inclusive classroom environment that supports all learners is an ongoing challenge of teaching. Dr. Erin Leif and Dr. Russ Fox discuss the concept of neurodiversity, how it affects student learning, and what strategies teachers can put in place to support the needs of neurodivergent students in mainstream classrooms.
Kolber’s Corner – Steven Kolber shares AI tools for simplfying and summarising complex texts.
Ideology in Education – Tom Mahoney considers interruptive pedagogy and how teachers can react to having ideas challenges.
Education in the News – Cameron unpacks the federal government’s new review into education that is inviting submissions until 23 June.
Review to Inform a Better and Fairere Education System
Timecodes:
00:00 Opening Credits
01:31 Intro
07:05 Kolber’s Corner
14:06 Ideology in Education
23:09 Education in the News
43:36 Feature Introduction
46:52 Interview – Erin Leif & Russ Fox
01:12:21 Sign Off
Read More for transcripts.
Feature Interview Transcript (unedited, prepared by Otter.Ai)
Click here for interactive transcript.
Cameron Malcher
I’m joined now by Erin Leif and Russell Fox from the school of educational psychology and counseling at Monash University. Aaron Ross, welcome to the show.
Erin Leif
Hi, thanks for having us.
Cameron Malcher
Thank you. We’re here to talk about the quite broad topic of inclusive educational practices to support neurodivergent students in the classroom. But before we get into the details of pedagogy, can we start by just unpacking that term? neurodivergent. We hear it a lot lately in discourse about policy and teaching. So what does it actually mean to be neurodivergent?
Erin Leif
Yeah, it’s a it’s a great question. And it’s a great start point for the conversation. And so I think to understand what we mean, when we talk about neuro divergent students, it’s helpful to sort of zoom out and look at something called the neurodiversity paradigm. And the neurodiversity paradigm is, it’s stemming from a disability rights perspective, it’s a concept that now starts to look at neuro diversity or differences in learning and thinking, not as a deficit, and not as a problem to be solved, but rather part of natural human variation. And it really is designed to challenge some of our pre existing views about disability always being a deficit or disorder that lives within the person. And the onus is really on the person with disability to have to change to fit into a society that is not accommodating for them. And so the neurodiversity movement is one that aims to shift our focus from trying to cure or normalize neurodivergent individuals to looking into the environment, and how we can create a more inclusive and accommodating society that really values and celebrates diversity in all of its forms. And so what we’re really looking to do when we practice from the neurodiversity paradigm is remove barriers that prevent people with neuro divergent conditions, from fully participating, and we can do that in schools. But we can also do that in a number of other settings, such as employment settings, universities out in, you know, community, recreational settings. And so the neurodiversity paradigm is really what underpins this concept of being neuro divergent. It’s a relatively new paradigm. And so there’s still a lot of debate and discussion around what it actually means. And I actually would like to give a shout out to Judy singer who’s an Australian sociologist who was the one who actually first coined the term neuro diversity, but essentially, what does it mean to be neuro divergent? Neuro divergent students are those that have different ways of thinking and learning. And it encompasses a broad spectrum. So it might include autism or ADHD, it might include dyslexia or dyspraxia. It might include Tourette syndrome, or other sorts of learning and thinking different differences that can present challenges for kids within schools. And so kids with that we might identify as being neuro divergent might present with different cognitive or sensory or social differences. Some don’t require any support, but others might require more specialized support to help them succeed at school. So that’s kind of I guess, a general introduction to the topic. Ross, would you add anything to that? No, I
Russ Fox
think it’s just recognizing that that there are certain things that could school school conditions, some some typical school scenarios might present really differently for some young people, and it’s about understanding their individual needs, so that we can either adapt our environment or support them to develop new skills in specific ways so that they can succeed that ideally, we’re just focusing on ways that we can create really, really inclusive environments by recognizing the differences and looking to do really, really good practice in the first instance and meet the needs of learners, regardless of their, of their developmental or neurological differences.
Erin Leif
It really is about recognizing that neuro divergence, students bring unique strengths and talents to the classroom. They have great skills and they have a lot to contribute. But also there are features that can be relatively distant enabling, particularly in environments, which maybe aren’t providing the right types of accommodations or modifications to support their participation. So instead of pathological it taking a pathological approach to neuro divergent, and again, viewing it as a problem within the child, and we need to fix the child. Again, it guides the paradigm guides teachers to look into the environment and actually reflect on how they’re teaching, and ways that they might be able to set up the classroom or design instructional practice practices to break down those barriers and maximize participation for these students.
Cameron Malcher
What you’re saying, the phrase that comes to mind, sounds like you’re talking about a concept that’s grown out of the social model of disability. And I remember hearing, you know, former Australian of the Year, Dylan, Alcott speak. And he summed it up quite succinctly, saying that he said, I’m not disabled, because I’m in a wheelchair, I’m disabled, because everyone keeps putting stairs in front of me. And when you’re talking about students potentially facing challenges at school, to what degree is it a manifestation of what might be, as you say, a disabling part of their own neurological makeup? And how much of those challenges are a result of school being built in a way that’s not friendly or accommodating for those students?
Erin Leif
Yeah, when we’re thinking about neurodivergent students, instead of having necessarily a physical disability, we can kind of take that, that analogy that Dylan Alcott used and say that neurodivergent kids may be disabled at school, when we put tasks and expectations in front of them that they don’t have the skills to meet. And so it’s the same idea, except we’re looking at a different type of barrier. It’s not a physical barrier, but it’s a it’s an expectation, or an attitudinal or a learning barrier. And so really, our job is to proactively understand what barriers our students might face in the classroom. And take steps to reduce those barriers before we even set foot in the classroom. And we’ll talk a little bit more about some of the ways that we can do that. But it is about again, looking at the person’s interaction with the environment. And unfortunately, in a lot of ways schools are set up to, to really cater for a non neurodivergent student population. And so this challenges teachers to perhaps think a little bit differently about how they support students. But the good news is, is that research shows that some of our really high impact teaching strategies that can benefit all students also do benefit neurodivergent students. Well, let’s
Cameron Malcher
start unpacking some of those particular challenges that they might face. You know, when we talk about, you mentioned a couple of conditions, particularly dyslexia, and dyspraxia, which obviously are sort of disconnects between the outside world and how people process information on the inside. What are some of the other conditions that might be known that fall under the banner term of neuro divergent? And what challenges do they then create for students in the school?
Erin Leif
Yeah, so I can talk a little bit about autism. And then maybe Ross can touch a little bit on ADHD, because those are probably two of our most prevalent conditions that students are presenting with in today’s mainstream schools. So for students with autism, some of the areas where they may experience challenges are in communication. So sometimes they have language delays, they could be expressive language or receptive language, or they communicate in ways other than using vocal speech. So they communicate using things like gestures or pictures, or what we call speech generating devices. And so for kids with autism, communication is really critical. Everybody needs to be able to communicate their basic wants and needs in order to successfully navigate the big wide world. And when kids with autism don’t have an effective communication system, the world is really, really hard. And so one of the most important things we can do in supporting kids with autism to proactively break down barriers and address potential challenges is to ensure that they do have an effective means of communication. But kids with autism might also struggle with social interactions, so they might have difficulty making friends having conversations playing with other children. Some of that might be preference. Some children prefer more solitary activities, but some kids might struggle because they really do want to make friends. But it could be that other kids are not accepting of them because they are different or Could it be that they don’t know how to make friends and join in a social activity or play with their peers. And so we sometimes see behaviors, challenging behavior in those contexts, because that’s how the kid knows to get involved and to, you know, have a social interaction. So again, it’s about understanding the child’s needs and preferences in the area of social interaction and looking at ways to help them make friends play, take part in different fun activities at school, in ways where they can participate and be successful. So again, with autism, we do often see those communication and social interaction difficulties, which can be quite challenging, and make school a really hard place. So Ross, I’ll turn it over to you maybe to talk about ADHD.
Russ Fox
Yeah, sure. And, and I have a lived experience of ADHD. And I think it’s really important though, like, it’s not like, Oh, there’s the ADHD guy, he could talk about ADHD, because it’s, it’s, you hear things like you meet one person with ADHD, and you’ve met one person with ADHD. And so recognize that everyone’s experience of this kind of stuff is different. And it can play out differently. But there are some core things that are common across, otherwise you, we don’t wear those labels or catch those diagnoses. And so for ADHD, we’re talking about impulsivity or hyperactivity, and an attention deficit built into the name. And some of these kinds of things in schools. You know, I’ve worked with learners diagnosed with ADHD, and we’ll see sort of near inability to focus or it might play out like not finishing work or not completing work, there might be some sort of bursts of stuff, or a different stages, there might be real difficulty with impulse control, or sort of a different stages, quite impulsive behavior looks like we just kind of run off and do something else, I sort of describe it like, a different stages, like shiny things, you know, I get caught with switching attention between tasks and being pulled away from things. But again, it’s just recognizing that that plays out differently. And there are the times that someone with an ADHD diagnosis will pour themselves for hours on end into a particular thing that really is, like capturing the attention. But it is characterized by attention deficits by hyperactivity, and an ability, inability to focus attention at different stages, as well as sort of difficulty with planning and executive function. So like putting things together in the in the longer term organizing things like school, books, and materials and other bits and pieces. So showing up to class with some of the stuff or showing up to class with the wrong stuff, or, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, so I mean, it depends on the individual. And I think it just comes back to the need to get to know our students and to listen to their families into themselves to hear the kinds of things that they experience, to, you know, ask them questions about, you know, what, what they like and don’t like, and what’s working well, and not Well, and, and sort of putting that together in conversation with families in our own observations to sort of see what are some of the skills that we can maximize, you know, maybe the, the creativity and the the inspiration and ideas and sort of sparkling connections between things that can be really quite different and interesting, really divergent thinking in a positive way? And then how can we put some supports around some of that other stuff, to get them to turn some of those to get Aaron does this with me a little bit, to turn good ideas into completed things? So yeah.
Cameron Malcher
You mentioned that sentiment that if you’ve met one person with ADHD, then you’ve met one person with ADHD. While autism exists on a spectrum, and there are many different manifestations of it with ADHD and some of the many comorbidities that are identified with ADHD. How would you define? You know, how would you define what’s at the core of, say, an ADHD diagnosis? For example, when it has so many different manifestations and so many different overlapping conditions that go along with it? Yeah, I mean,
Russ Fox
it’s the A, the D, the H and the D when we’re talking about Attention, attention and hyperactivity. So I mean, the day’s been disorders of course, but it’s like this is this is about attention and hyperactivity, which is sort of more that ability to focus and and engage in prolonged work, not just with, you know, building a Lego thing, as you might see in my background, but like, all manner of different things. And then, of course, the hyperactivity or impulsivity, so it’s managing the attention and attention and the hyperactivity or impulsivity, or the experiences of those that really are core, I mean, it sort of shows up in their in the label. But then, obviously, the other things that come along for the ride
Cameron Malcher
is there still a distinction between a DD and ADHD? Or is what did one sort of evolved into the other?
Russ Fox
Now, the my understanding, I’ve got to be careful here, because I’m not a clinical psychologist or, or a psychiatrist. So I, there are distinctions that are made, at least in the diagnostic process around whether someone is classified as both ad HD in terms of the attention deficit and hyperactivity side of things. And so there are my understanding of it. And again, I’m big caveat here is that there can be an attention deficit without necessarily the inattention and hyperactivity side of things as well. Or impulsivity, sorry,
Erin Leif
I think what we’re seeing is that more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD, because the hyperactivity component is what gives it away. It’s sort of like the hyperactivity component is the more difficult component for people to manage, and the more disruptive component. And so when children present with hyperactivity, they may be more likely to be diagnosed. I think the attentional component on its own sometimes flies under the radar as just a distracted kid, or just a lazy kid or just an unmotivated kid. And that’s, I think, historically, what we’ve had a tendency to do with different with different sort of conditions as we sort of chase the cause inside the child. And we look at this as, you know, a personality construct or the child is willfully misbehaving or is willfully not participating. And so I think we maybe don’t see as much of the Add diagnosis without the hyperactivity, because those kids tend to fly under the radar. And they may actually go undiagnosed, or they might be labeled as having some other issue that doesn’t meet the criteria for diagnosis. You know, it’s interesting, because we’ve seen quite an increase in diagnosis of autism and ADHD. And it’s a difficult there’s a lot of conversation about why, like, why are we seeing more and more children who are presenting with difficulties were meeting the criteria for diagnosis. There are a number of different factors, what we do know is that these conditions are not caused by vaccines. They are not caused by bad parenting. And they are not caused by eating certain types of food. What we do know is that there seems to be a strong genetic component, but also an environmental component, and how that genetic and environmental component sort of come together can look really different for different kids. But the diagnosis is really tied to being able to get funding and being able to access support. And so people now they know more, they’re more aware of of what these conditions are. Medical professionals are more aware and and are more likely to diagnose and people are more likely to look for a diagnosis because it’s tied often to funding and additional supports. And so that makes it actually hard for kids without a diagnosis, but who have learning difficulties to perhaps access supports. And so what the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and what the Department of Education I know here in Victoria is doing is looking at providing supports based on functional need, rather than relying solely on a diagnosis as sort of that gatekeeper to be able to access support. And that’s a very new way of thinking about how we support kids with different types of disability or neuro divergence.
Cameron Malcher
And look what you’ve just said there really goes to the heart of why I wanted to have this conversation in the first place because we do know that there is a big gap between the prevalence and the dying versus rates of students in schools. And I suppose just one final question to wrap up there. You know, with a condition like dyslexia, for example, it’s estimated that approximately one in 10 Boys particularly has some varying variation of dyslexia, but only a fraction of those actually get diagnosed and get the support and treatment they need. With conditions like autism and ADHD, do we have any sense of how big the gap is between recognition and prevalence?
Erin Leif
Look, I think the gap is closing, I think we’re getting more accurate, well, we’re getting more diagnosis, because there’s so much awareness now, increased awareness about autism, and more clinicians who can provide a diagnosis. So I think with autism, and perhaps ADHD, that that gap is closing. And the because of that prevalence rates have really increased over the last, you know, two decades. Other sorts of learning disabilities like dyslexia, and dysgraphia, may continue to be diagnosed less frequently, there may be less awareness about how those different conditions present in the classroom, there may be fewer professionals who actually are trained to diagnose those types of conditions, because they’re not as they’re sort of not as talked about as autism and ADHD. Often things like dyslexia, dysgraphia, just calcula, they’re all sort of lumped under the category of specific learning disability. And so they don’t sort of get that attention that some of these other diagnoses are getting more mainstream. So I do think kids with these specific needs might be getting left behind a little bit. But fortunately, again, there are some we have research that really points us in the direction of high impact teaching strategies that can that can benefit kids with a range of different learning and behavioral difficulties at school.
Cameron Malcher
And I suppose one thing that always I find interesting in these discussions is looking at the impact of policy decisions as well. You know, you mentioned before that students need a diagnosis of a condition to access additional support in school, even though we know that every almost every teacher will probably have a student with an undiagnosed condition of some sort, needing support in the classroom. But then also, you know, with dyslexia particularly, and I’m sort of going off the top of my head here, so feel free to correct me, but it was only recognized as a disability in Australian law sometime in the mid 90s. So while we’ve had, you know, over a century of discussion about autism, for example, because of the severity of manifestations of autism, we didn’t even recognize Dyslexia as a condition to be addressed until, like the mid 90s in Australian law. So the sort of policy decisions in the background that have left generations of kids out in the cold, right, because they haven’t even had the mechanisms to access support in schools.
Erin Leif
One on one kind of interesting related point is that Australia, although Australia has the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is really unique and is moving towards more of that functional needs approach to funding supports for students with disabilities in schools, Australia still doesn’t have sort of hard and fast legislation around exactly what types of supports should be provided to students with disabilities, including autism and ADHD. So there’s this term reasonable and necessary, right? Students school should provide reasonable and necessary accommodations and supports, but it’s a very poorly defined term that’s really open to interpretation, which means that the type and quality of those accommodations and supports can vary drastically from school to school, whereas in the United States, there is legislation there’s something called the IDE a Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, as well as FAPE, which stands for free and appropriate education, which very clearly outlines the types of supports and accommodations that students with disability are eligible to receive depending on their unique needs. It also sort of outlines the conditions under which a student would have an individual education plan, and it outlines how that education plan needs to be implemented, monitored, and then reported back to the state to demonstrate that what the school is doing is actually working for the students. These pieces of legislation have been really instrumental in the United States. It’s not perfect act and can be really hard to get these things implemented in some places. But there is nothing similar yet in Australia that really sort of governs how these how these supports are delivered in sort of a consistent way and in an accountable way. Schools,
Cameron Malcher
I mean, certainly not at a federal level that every state and territory sort of handles it in their own way, slightly differently with different degrees of accountability as well. It’s something I’ve encountered in my work in different states. Yeah, that they all have very different approaches, right.
Erin Leif
And it can make it hard, it can make it hard to collect data on prevalence of kids with disability, it can be hard to collect data on, you know, how different types of accommodations and supports that are being put into place, it can be hard to say, how are we going as a country to actually lift educational outcomes for students with disabilities, like, just don’t have those data. And that makes it hard to know what we’re doing well, and where we need to improve. So what we really rely on is media reports and parent advocacy, Royal commissions to sort of shine the light on what’s not working well, rather than having data to tell the story.
Cameron Malcher
Well, let’s, let’s focus on the classroom of which is what we primarily here to talk about. When it comes to teachers, supporting neurodivergent students, you know, whether diagnosed or not, what are some of the big broad strokes, things that a teacher can do to really, you know, you mentioned making the classroom a more inclusive environment, What can teachers do to really hit the ball rolling at the start of the school year?
Erin Leif
Yeah, we always talk about for all kids with disability, we talked about the importance of early intervention. And so what that means for kids in schools is that we don’t want to take a wait and see approach we want to take up why wait. So often, there’s a tendency to say, it’s just a kid, let’s wait, he’s just a boy. He’s just immature, let’s see if he grows out of it, let’s just, you know, see if he catches up by the end of the year. And by not acting, what we’re doing is we’re sort of, we’re setting up a situation where that learner is going to fall further and further behind. And then we’re transferring the issue to a new teacher and a new in a new classroom at a new grade level. And I think it’s because historically, particularly with younger children, there has been a tendency to take a wait and see approach. And so raising the flag early that a child is struggling, and putting a team around that child to identify what types of supports we can implement now, to help that child close the gap and catch up with their peers is really, really important. The other kind of critical point is when the child transitions from one year level to the next year level. Often what I hear from teachers is that they get very little information about the child and about their needs. And so we might consider another form of early intervention to be what we do during that period of transition, to make sure that the new teacher is going to be well prepared to set that student up for success early in the school year. And so that could be things like just having a central hub where information is shared, convening a team meeting to talk about the students, facilitating visits, where the the teacher can visit the student in their current classroom and observe. And then building you know, building a positive and trusting relationship at the beginning of the school year. So we want our classrooms to be places that neurodivergent kids want to be rather than places that they want to run away from. So if we find that we’re in a situation with the learner where they don’t want to come into the classroom, they don’t seem to enjoy coming to school, they don’t seem to, you know, want to come in. And we really have to look at what can we do to establish the classroom as a place the learner wants to be where they can be successful, where they have opportunities for positive relationships with other people, we kind of have to start there as our foundation. And so I think that that element of looking at how we set up an environment where we can support the students success earlier in the year, and that might include things like, you know, what’s the seating for this child? Where does this child need to sit in my classroom so that if they need support, I can easily identify that and give them support? What are the things that they’re distracted by and how can I minimize those distractions in my classroom? Are there things that they find really difficult or overwhelming? How am I going to plan for that before I even set foot in my classroom, so that I can break those things down so that they’re not as cheap challenging, they’re not as overwhelming for the student so that the student can be in this context and feel successful. And we can set them up for success. So I think some of that is around that period of transition, which is sort of the critical time to get off on the right foot. But maybe I’ll turn it over to Ross, and he can talk a little bit more about some teaching practices.
Russ Fox
Yeah, thanks. I think what Aaron’s talking about there is a whole bunch of specific practices that we’ve heard labeled over the years, you know, we’re talking about clear expectations and routines and teaching, prompting, modeling, and making sure that when students engage in our classroom routines and norms that they’re seen, and that they’re seen in ways that are important to them. And that might not look like a token for everyone or anything tangible like that, it might look like quiet, just a quiet little acknowledgement. It may not be praise from the front of the room, because not everybody experiences that as something that they find encouraging or rewarding. And so it’s, again about knowing that we’ve got some things that we want to set up for all learners to provide really clear, it really clear and understandable set of expectations. And we’re going to build and teach and shape those routines over the first part of the year, not assuming that these are just things that people are going to come to school and, and having their pocket, and I think to the part of that for students who are neuro divergent is recognizing a trajectory of skill, it’s recognizing, and being able to shape and build towards things. And I think an example of that might be that, if we’ve got a set of routines in a secondary school, that involve transitioning from one one, learning space to another with a with a range of different materials required for several lessons, that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s celebrating the wins that you know, the more materials when we might have a scaffold there where there’s, you know, a list of materials, like little checklists that were that would benefit all students, it’s not just students who are neurodivergent, we don’t want them to be like labeled with that. And I’ve seen it too, you know, the landlord, or the, you know, Russell’s checklists for materials and things like this. And it’s a fine balance between giving people supports that they really would benefit from, but also making sure that that’s something that is socially acceptable, and that they have the space and dignity and right to be cool and have friends and all of that sort of stuff. But then, as we move towards the space, if we’ve got some materials, let’s celebrate the wins, rather than look at what we didn’t bring, let’s look at what we have brought and see if we can build on that. That’s not about softening expectations, and, and having a completely different set of expectations for neurodivergent learners, because that becomes a discrimination in a different way, you know, we sort of create a tyranny of soft, soft expectations, but it’s just recognizing that what we’re working on may change, and that what we’re working on, is a really important question as the like, what’s important in this lesson is the is the important thing here that I want people to make eye contact with the speaker, because if that’s the goal, then that may be what where someone might spend all of their energy paying attention in that, like particular way of paying attention. And so if we want them to have individuals to have the headspace the cognitive space to be able to engage in more complex tasks, then is that really what we want to spend their energy on. So again, it’s having high expectations, it’s teaching routines and structures that support clear and organized classroom spaces because they are less threatening, and, you know, there are calm learning space in the first place. But it’s recognizing that we might need to sort of build a trajectory towards success without softening the expectations. And then ask ourselves as teachers, what do I want these learners to be working on right now? Because if it’s, you know, to make listening, look, or appear a certain way, then that may be what I’m working on today. And so is that really what I want to work on? Or are there other ways to get the same outcome for that particular learner that might look a little bit different, but lead to the same place and still facilitating a really productive learning environment for the rest of the class? But it just may not look the same? And that’s where we’re getting to adjustments. And so yeah, it’s kind of what’s our goal? What is it that we’re working on? And part of that like knowing what we’re working on? Comes From the conversations with the families and from the learner themselves, you know, if there are certain things that are particularly difficult, well, then we might look for ways to support that and scaffold that sort of becomes like a differentiation of, of supports, what kinds of things we offer as supports, and, and again, then how we might prompt and model and, and make sure that when the student engages in those steps of the process for them, that they’re really seen for that, that they’re, they’re acknowledged in ways that are important for them.
Cameron Malcher
Yeah, well, one thought that comes to mind, you know, particularly when you talk about the lack of data that often gets passed along, and, you know, I teach high school, and the, almost the almost complete data vacuum that often goes from primary school to high school, especially, and I really want to keep the conversation focused on those students who might have a particular need or neurodivergent condition, but don’t have a diagnosis. And, you know, I’ll say something’s potentially a bit in politic, but sometimes often are facing resistance from their own family and getting support or investigation, whether it’s a matter of embarrassment, or whether it’s a matter of not believing, you know, there are people out there, you mentioned a few things at the beginning, Aaron, where people have some very unusual beliefs about conditions like autism and ADHD and don’t want to get support for those reasons. But for those students who don’t have the support outside of the classroom, one of the great challenges for teachers that I’ve certainly experienced, and it’s common discussion with colleagues is, you know, those supports that need to be put in place. It’s sometimes very hard to identify the individual needs of a learner very early on in the year when you’re operating without any information. And the student themselves may be resistant to even discussing their own learning needs. Do you have any advice or suggestions for how can teachers approach you know, keeping our focus on the start of the school year new students coming into the classroom? Are there any particular strategies that are open and inclusive to all learners, especially for those students who may have up until that point kind of slipped through the cracks of the system?
Russ Fox
Yeah, I think, and some of this stuff. You know, as a teacher, I’ve heard people say this stuff in the past, and it can feel like oh, but that’s just good teaching. And I think so much of what we’re talking about comes back to how do we how do we ensure that everyone gets access to really high quality instruction in the first in the first instance, at the beginning of the year? And that’s not to say that teachers don’t go into the the beginning of the school year with that intention that you know, but people when they start the school year, that’s when we’re freshest, right? Like, that’s when it’s like, it’s like that first morning, morning coffee. It’s like, right, like, energy is high, we’re motivated. But it really does come back to all then what does high quality instruction look like? What like, do we do routines? Like really well? Or is it something that we focus on in week one, and then we fade like when we’re doing our expectations? And when students aren’t meeting our expectations? Is it just a reprimand only? Or do we take the time to restate a positive alternative, and then make sure that students get the opportunity to demonstrate that then and there, and then they’re seen for doing it in that moment. And so it is about really high quality practice. And so we would say that as teaching expectations, and holding high expectations, it’s it’s error correction that involves, you know, an opportunity to respond, and then the delivery of feedback on that students opportunity to respond. And then I would say it’s just about really high quality instruction. Now, I think an Aaron spoken about this in other media that that well being and engagement and these sorts of things, these can come from really high quality instruction, you know, it’s not like, we have to have everyone in a Zen state, before we can get engaged in effective instruction, that sometimes doing really high quality instruction is what builds engagement and tasks participation, it’s and it’s the success that comes from scaffolding student learning and providing really high quality instruction that leads to success and progress. And I think sometimes, we can do teachers a real disservice by saying that we you know, because the classic is our will, did the teacher engage them? And I think, you know, I think quite often we conflate entertainment with engagement and it sort of sounds like the teacher needed to do sort of song and dance and, and like whip the cloth crown off the Master Chef dish of their lesson at the end like the grand reveal and a little bit of sort of fruit that the smoke comes off the dish and you know, there’s to use the dry ice to get the effect and it It’s just about making sure that students can can find success, if they are able to continue to progress and see their own progress in their learning that is engaging, it doesn’t have to be like, we can be engaged in pretty mundane, like topics or tasks if we’re able to see our progress in it. And we can recognize that that progress is building towards something broader and an important a valued outcome, if we will. And so I think it’s a bit of a rant. But essentially, it’s like good teaching, that allow students to make progress that’s within a structured and calm environment. And again, like I said, before, some of this stuff, just love is just good teaching. It’s like, Yeah, and if we do it really well, and we’re paying attention to it, and we’re really clear on what we’re working towards, for all learners in the first instance, then we can watch how students respond to that high quality, beginning the clear expectations, they’re great, kind, compassionate error correction that gives people an opportunity, and lets them know they’re seen. And then we can see what how did students respond to that? An example would be if we’re giving students an opportunity to respond, and someone isn’t finding the answer immediately, well, maybe I’m going to prompt them. But I’m going to ask them third, hey, I’m going to ask you this same question. I’m going to come back, I’m going to ask two more people and come back to you. I mean, these are teaching practices that experienced teachers will be like, Yeah, you’re not telling me anything, we don’t know. But it’s how do we put these together and do them really well, day in day out, and not chase the cause inside the learner, but continue to look at ways to test with these practices, to see if we can better meet the needs of our cohorts. And I think teachers work incredibly, diligently at that task. And it’s no small task. It’s a complicated thing, particularly in the face of the kinds of challenges you’re describing beforehand, where there might be a bit of reluctance, or even non cooperation. And we get that to within our teaching teams, and might be that there are certain things that are working really well in some spaces, and then they’re not sort of applied broadly across our team. So finding ways to communicate together and to show progress. I think and that’s not a judgment thing on other teachers, it’s not teach like me, it’s just, here’s what I’ve seen is really working for this learner. How else might we be able to facilitate that same outcome across? I’ve done work with high school teams around behavior. And in a primary school, you go and meet with a teacher and an assistant principal in the high school, you’ll meet with like, 10 teachers that Take That teacher learner over the course of a year or more, and it’s how do we get this functioning for that learner across all these different subjects across all these different parts of the day and parts of the timetable? So it’s, it’s not a small thing? And I think it does come back to what sounds like well, that’s just good teaching, but it’s making sure that it’s like driving on icy roads, Aaron and I have a colleague, Professor, Ms. Sharma, who says that this is like driving on icy roads, striving, we just have to be really diligent, we have to brake a little bit early. And occasionally, we might need to steer into a skid. So but you know, that steering was the same the accelerators the same? So it’s just yeah,
Erin Leif
I would just add to that, that, I think, I think when it comes to this topic, we have to provide suggestions and advice to teachers, that is doable. And if a student comes into the classroom, and the student doesn’t have a diagnosis, and the parents are sort of, there may be some resistance to engaging openly in that process of sort of recognizing where the student needs additional support. The fact is, the teacher isn’t going to have a lot of information. So they can’t actually do a lot proactively to plan for that students transition. So that is absolutely a very real experience for probably a lot of teachers, particularly as kids get older. And so I think some of the most important things that we can sort of give away to teachers it’s advice is when introducing new skills, I think we need to continue to focus on helping kids walk before they run. And so how can we look at planning our lessons where we can break our skills and assignments and tasks down to small, tangible components, and make sure that we’re really giving kids the building blocks skills before we move on to the more advanced types of activities and skills? I’m a big proponent of using strategies that include a lot of modeling scaffolding rehearsal Practice guided practice formative feedback to students. And that means both a lot of positive recognition of of correct responding as well as error correction, treating, you know, errors as an another learning opportunity for the student to practice correct the error and receive that positive feedback. And that gradual release of responsibility model as students become more independent with this new skill. And so I think sometimes what happens is when we skip over some of the building blocks, or we assume that our students come into the classroom already with some of those foundational skills, that we set up a situation for some of our neurodivergent or suspected neurodivergent learners, where we’re asking them to do things that they just can’t do. And when we ask them over and over and over again, to come into school and do things that they can’t do, then we’re putting them in a situation where they don’t get a lot of positive recognition. They don’t develop those relationships with people, because relationships are formed through those warm and positive interactions. They can’t participate in the task. And so disruptive or challenging behavior becomes more likely option for them. Because those behaviors either allow them to get out of the classroom, or allow them to get access to things that they need to be able to participate, or allow them to recruit forms of attention from their peers and their teachers. And so those behaviors, I think, I think when we see students presenting with disruptive and challenging behavior, we often first ask ourself, what is the task that we’re asking them to do? Do they have the skills to do it? And if not, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to give them that additional instruction to set them up for success and be able to participate. And so what we would often sort of recommend is implementing instructional approaches and support in what we call a multi tiered system of support. So what we want to do is deliver high quality, like Ross mentioned high quality instructional practices, high impact teaching practices, to all students at what we call the universal tier. So we can maximize the likelihood that all of our students are going to succeed in the first instance, then for our students, where we do see that they have some additional learning needs, we can, we can either intensify the practices that we’re delivering, so we might provide them with more opportunities to practice a new skill, more opportunities to receive positive reinforcement and positive recognition, more opportunities for error correction, more formative feedback on their learning. Or we might look at sort of whether they need an accommodation or a modification, and so on accommodation, we would keep the task the same. But we would give them some additional support to be able to do the same task that everybody else in the class is doing. So for example, if we’re doing a writing task, and our student has fine motor difficulties, and they struggle with writing with pen and paper, than perhaps we allow them to use a keyboard, or a talk to type software system. So we’re having them perform the same task, which is perhaps to write a persuasive essay, but we’re giving them an additional way to accomplish that end goal. Whereas a modification involves taking some element of the task and changing it so that the person can participate. So that might involve you know, changing some element of the overall expectation in terms of you know, the number of math problems solved, or the difficulty level of the math problem solved, sort of, we think about meeting the student where they’re at, and giving them a task where they can be successful. And then again, maintaining those high expectations and scaffolding, the difficulty level of the task once the student is, is successful. And then for students where those types of strategies still don’t really seem to be addressing their needs, then I think it’s really important at sort of that tier three level is that we build a team around the learner, no teacher should feel like they have to go it alone. And if the teacher has done the best that they can with the information that they have, and they’re still struggling, I think schools need to look at the systems that they put into place to respond and build those support networks around both teachers and students. And so that could be having a really strategic way of working within teams to problem solve. It could be that there connections with other specialist teachers such as speech pathologists, psychologists, or learning specialists who could come in and consult and provide some additional support and recommendations. So again, I think we want to start with the basics at that universal tier and make sure we’re setting our kids up for success. And we know from research that those same strategies will benefit kids with learning difficulties. And then we intensified supports. After that we add more intensive supports to the universals and think we need to take this approach rather than coming in and having to differentiate instruction for all students in the first instance. Which is really hard.
Cameron Malcher
Yeah, can I just pick you up on that? Because I know that I know that differentiation is a little bit of a hot topic in the education space at the moment. But the other, you know, the other idea of, of the universals of learning, is when we think about students who have particular needs, one of the, and I’ll say perceived tensions, because I know that a lot of teachers feel this way, whether it’s more a matter of perception than reality. But if you’re setting up something to support students who have these special needs, how do you also potentially cater for the other aspect of neuro divergence, which is those students who are sort of gifted in high potential students who often may actually also be students with undiagnosed autistic or ADHD conditions as well? But how do you avoid what might be classified as dumbing down to less than or oversimplifying a lesson, in order to make it universal and accessible without potentially then, you know, putting students who are more capable through a grind of what might feel to them like busy work and not mentally challenging?
Russ Fox
And I think this I’m sorry, the answer to this will have to differ across the school across all years of the school across primary and secondary years. And I’ll give you an example. So if we if we take someone like, Friend, friend and colleague at another institution, Dr. Nathaniel Swain, who taught prep last year, and he’s he’s now at Latrobe University. In his prep class, it was really explicit instruction, it was really highly structured. But it also move everyone along. And when you’re getting everyone in at that, sort of like prep, foundation, kindergarten, reception, whatever we’re calling it across the country, I know you’ve got this this from all over. When you’re working with learners at that stage, they sort of don’t come with years and years of learning history differences. And so you can sort of take an approach like that and build out with this cohort as part of their first experience of school. But that, that that will be a different experience in year seven, or year nine or year 10, depending on in sort of, you know, the learning history they’ve had through primary school and early years of high school. But we do know that that type of approach that’s really, really clear in the first instance, particularly when delivering new material, is is it’s just evidence, it has an evidence base, it’s a proven way to to get students engaged in succeeding, particularly around new material and, and providing scaffolds and supports might look different, like Aaron noted before, but building on that explicit approach in the first instance, and then being able to expand out provides a lot of opportunity for teachers to then identify where different students are. But it’s when I say that thinking it’s just some Oh, that’s just what you do, you know, we wave the wand, and then you know, everyone’s got their needs met. But we do know that and it’s not it’s not a, like a loose works for the most argument. It just does have evidence for not only the students who neurodivergent, but also then it allows you to build on the learning that the the students were further along in their knowledge or understanding on a particular concept, build on that, and then expand out into some more open and project and complex type stuff, areas, anything you’d add or modify.
Erin Leif
I think I think it’s a hard question to answer because I think there’s a lot of different opinions about what we should do, and the role of the teacher and all of that. And so, I know that there’s a lot of questions about the tension between teacher autonomy, and having a whole of school knowledge rich curriculum with materials already prepared for teachers. And I think that we can’t expect that teachers are going to be responsible for custom designing their own curricula and their own lessons for every day of the school year, every year, and also be able to differentiate in the first instance to meet the needs of students who have widely differing abilities within their classroom. rooms, there is not enough hours in the day. So if schools were able to adopt a whole of school knowledge rich curriculum, that really underpinned the teaching across your levels within that school, where materials lessons were already prepared, where there was consistency with what was being taught and how it was being taught across classrooms and your levels, and the teachers didn’t have to do that work, then perhaps, then they could really get into the creative work of before setting foot in the classroom, how are they going to create adapted materials to suit the different abilities of the students within their classroom so that they can actually modify a task so that it meets a student with disability where they’re at as well as modify a task so that it meets a gifted student where they’re at. So we have to sort of think about the expectations of teachers, and what options are actually available to us to perhaps make this work doable. And just expecting that a teacher on their own is going to do all of it from scratch every year in their classroom. I just don’t think it’s doable. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. So we have to, we have to think about where’s the compromise?
Russ Fox
I also think, too, it’s leveraging teams across schools and across the levels. And I know that my direct teaching experience was in primary schools, but I’ve done a lot of work across secondary schools, and it’s, how do we get, and I’m sure that this is something you’re familiar with, too, you know, you have colleagues come in, it’s like, Hey, listen, I’ve got this learner, and I need some help, like two years above that, that’s where they’re, you know, that’s where they’re flying, can you can you help me. And so it’s about continuing those collaborative conversations and being active, and supportive team members across you levels if required. I think this also
Erin Leif
raises questions about school choice, because right now, with an inclusive education, obviously, we want kids with disability to be able to go to their local neighborhood, mainstream school and to get the support that they need and to be included, and for every family and child, but that’s their preferred option that should that should be available. But perhaps there are, if there are options for schools for gifted and talented students, for example, where they can go to a school that is better prepared to meet their needs, you know, in the first instance, as a gifted and talented student, or is there still a role for specialists, schools? For kids with disabilities? Should we should we have choices of different schooling options available to kids? Or is the goal really to have one mainstream schooling system that is able to cater to the needs of everyone in a single classroom? And I think that that’s another sort of, you know, ideological conversation, and I can see the benefits to both. And I think that these are the really hard questions that we have to reckon with to be able to design an educational system that is inclusive, and that meets the needs of everyone in the best way possible. And I don’t I don’t know the right answer. But we have to be willing to put all options on the table and really look at what’s available to us, and what ultimately works best for kids. So that’s kind of I think, another consideration in the conversation,
Russ Fox
like systemic changes, is it like Aaron talked about before the systems that support issues to be able to provide or at least to recruit support within a school that those kinds of cysts systemic changes, I think, are ultimately where we’re going to find that teachers are supported to make the changes or supported to deliver the kinds of environments and instruction and that like everyone can play their role to meet the needs of all the learners that are in our school and there’s some there’s some good evidence of systems and structures like Response to Intervention and, and school wide positive behavior support as ways to help create really effective environments in the first instance, that idea of like, what does good instruction and good behavior support look like in a school environment and not focused on like, just straight out compliance? These are systems to create compliant children? No, no. These are systems that are that are designed to support learners to build in their skills skills that are important for life. And as part of that, then they’re able to engage successfully in relationships and collaboration and academic engage like tasks and find success socially, academically, build wellbeing. And yeah, there’s really good evidence that they do work for students with different diagnoses, over and above other approaches, and there’s still work to be done, there’s still stuff that we can certainly improve, and building in sort of Family and Student, sort of collaboration and ways to make the supports even more tailored. But again, it faces other challenges like you described before, but systems and structures that support teachers, and all the folk in schools, or the people that are doing good, hard work across schools, they have really good evidence to show that having everyone play a role within that. And it’s not just the responsibility of a single individual in a school or two or three individuals in a school, it actually spreads the load and provides the structures, the professional development, the the monitoring and assessment of our progress. When do we need to pivot when when we when are we gone far enough up a dead end with a particular set of practices and things that we actually, and we’ve given that a really good go, and now we need to try something else? And where are some likely avenues of like fruitful change in that. So it’s like the systems really will make a big difference for teachers to be able to sustain the work of meeting the needs of all learners.
Cameron Malcher
So for teachers who want to learn more about some of these universal approaches to learning or these inclusive practices, where would you recommend they look to start reading?
Erin Leif
Yeah, look, I think I useful framework that teachers may want to have a look at is universal design for learning. So there are a lot of nice sort of teacher friendly books and blogs and different resources about Universal Design for Learning. That I would recommend, I mean, just Google it. I don’t know Ruff, what do you think
Russ Fox
you there are a number of practical resources that I think can be really, really useful for teachers to adapt, I know that we’ve got some stuff coming out from the Australian educational research organization or aro. They’ve got some tried and tested stuff, along with some recent work on multi tiered systems of support, which I think the multi tiered systems of support stuff, I think, is just really, really interesting, and really nicely done. And the, they have included in that some working with secondary age students who may be further behind with literacy skills, and bits and pieces, which is like that can be a bit of a challenge for secondary teachers, particularly if you’ve got a subject area that requires students to have well formed literacy skills, or well developed literacy skills or content knowledge to be able to access. Like, let’s say, we’re talking about, you know, year nine history or, or some of these other sort of subjects that build on literacy skills. And so it can be a difficult thing, but I point to those in the first instance, there are some practical books. I think brandy Simonson is a, an author and researcher out of the US with Diane Myers, her colleague and co author who have written some practical books on engaging in evidence based behavior supports that I’d recommend and I can share that. I’ve got them behind me that I think that’d be a real nerd move just to turn and kind of like, so I’ll share those with you the titles. But again, they’re from an American context. And it’s about recognizing that we need to make sure that these things fit the schools and the systems that we use. It’s we can’t just take practices and plunk them into the Australian context and expect they’re going to float in the same way. And, yeah, so there are some resources that I point to, or you can reach out to us and
Erin Leif
I also just wanted to give a quick shout out to my colleague, Professor Nicole Reinhart, with her amazing team has developed a platform called all play, learn, and all play learn is a hub of resources, all about ways to support kids with autism and ADHD at school. Very teacher friendly, and all free from the old play learn website. So that’s another great place for teachers to go for some practical strategies and resources.
Cameron Malcher
Excellent. Well, I will make sure there are links to those various websites and authors in the show notes for this episode. Aaron Ross, I feel like we could have kept talking for another hour. So thank you very much. time this evening and we look forward to hopefully speaking to you in the near future thanks for your time
Erin Leif
thank you