ECE 503 – Chat 2 Questions

1. What are some learning characteristics, academic demands, and setting realities that
make it difficult for adolescents to succeed in middle school and high school?
Learning characteristics – deficits academically, lack of motivation, or problems with study
skills… academic demands – gaining information through lectures, independent work, and
expression through writing… setting realities – lots of content, difficult materials, and diverse
learners in the classroom

2. What are some motivation strategies that are available to help low- achieving
students?
Time to listen to their mp3 player, tokens for rewards, extra lunch, positive call home,
homework passes

3. What are some parameters and features of effective learning strategies?

Learning strategies consist of three parameters: content, design, and usefulness.
Content strategies will lead to a given outcome, are sequenced, remind students to use
specific processes and appropriate procedures/skills, and are performed in a reasonable amount
of time.
Design strategies will include a brief and simple wording involving memory, begin with
an action word, and will be no more than seven steps.
Usefulness strategies address important and common problems, as well as demands that
are faced over time, and it is applicable across settings and situations

4. What are some accommodation techniques that can be used to help students with
learning difficulties to better adapt to the general education setting?
Determine what is required to be successful in the class, make it clear what requirements the
student is not meeting, identify factors that are holding the student back from being successful,
brainstorm classroom modification, select a plan of action, implement it, and then evaluate how
the plan went.

5. List and discuss some types of advance organizers and how you have used them in
your lessons.
These are materials that are presented to students BEFORE the lesson to help prepare them for
the material to come.
In my classroom, I have used advance organizers such as a K-W-L chart, a step-by-step guide as
to steps that will be used, as well as a chart. Diagrams and tables may also be used as advance
organizers.

6. What are some learning characteristics, academic demands, and setting realities make
it difficult for adolescents to succeed in middle school and high school?
Learning characteristics – deficits academically, lack of motivation, or problems with study
skills… academic demands – gaining information through lectures, independent work, and
expression through writing… setting realities – lots of content, difficult materials, and diverse
learners in the classroom

7. List and discuss instructional procedures that relate to acquisition and generalization of
skills and strategies.
The student should be committed to learning the strategy and fully understand the 
purpose and benefits (If the student cares, the information will be retained longer).  
The physical and mental actions covered in the strategy should be fully described 
and explained (make sure that the student knows how to think about the strategy 
and does not leave with questions).  The student should be taught how to remember 
the strategy to facilitate the process of self­instruction (if the student can monitor 
themselves, it will make for a smoother learning process).  The student should 
understand the process of learning the strategy and participate in goal­setting 
activities to anticipate and monitor learning (the student should be able to tell 
whether the goals have been met along the way).  Multiple models of the strategy 
should be provided and an appropriate balance between the physical and mental 
activities involved in the strategy should be achieved (make sure that the student is 
using think­aloud techniques to demonstrate learning).  The student should be 
enlisted in the model and become a full participant in guiding the strategy 
instructional process (the more ownership they have, the more beneficial – don’t do 
all the work, but instead force them to be proactive).  The strategy should be 
understood fully and memorized before practice in the strategy is initiated (the more 
familiar the student is with the strategy, the more effectively they can implement it).  
Practice should begin with controlled guided practice ad conclude with advanced 
independent practice (scaffolding the student’s learning will assure that they are 
correctly carrying out the strategy and they learn to do it on their own).  A 
measurement system should provide ongoing information that will demonstrate to 
the student and the teacher that the strategy is being learned and used and that the 
demands of the setting are being met (through evaluation, it is possible to determine 
possible adaptations or growth opportunities for the strategy implementation).  
Though generalization should be promoted throughout the strategy acquisition 
process, specific efforts to promote generalization should follow strategy acquisition 
(this will help the student continue to apply the strategy across settings and 
situations.
Team Questions

1. Carla recently arrived to the United States from Italy. She is a very bright 12-year-old
who has developed English language ability quickly. However, Carla is not doing well
in school and is extremely disappointed with her latest report card. Her motivation to
learn is starting to be affected. Her skills are strong but she confesses that she does not
understand all of her assignments and that test taking is extremely difficult.

a. What do you think Carla needs in order to improve her grades?

I think that Carla would benefit from content enhancers, as well as opportunities to gain
motivation. She will be able to see how she can succeed and it will help inspire her.

b. What are some activities that you would employ to help Carla? Make sure you provide
one example of an intervention for each area of need.
Organizers, visual displays, study guides, mnemonic devices, and alternative instruction, such as
computer-assisted, or peer-mediated would benefit Carla. It would also help her to have
simplified texts, so that the language barrier isn’t too large of an issue. For motivation, I would
use the homework as a specific point because she has trouble understanding it. I would gauge
her progress, effort, and understanding of concepts during class, and based on how she was, I
would knock off some of the homework problems for her that night. This way, if she does well
in class, she will not have to stress out about it at home if she forgets something from class.

2. What are some accommodation techniques that are used with students with learning
difficulties to better adapt to the general education setting.
Determine what is required to be successful in the class, make it clear what requirements the
student is not meeting, identify factors that are holding the student back from being successful,
brainstorm classroom modification, select a plan of action, implement it, and then evaluate how
the plan went.

3. Describe some motivation strategies that you can use in lessons.

Based on how the class acts that day will determine minutes of recess, homework problems,
minutes of free time, etc. If they are able to work well in groups for a certain amount of time,
they can listen to an mp3 player while working, or if they are able to work independently for a
given amount of time, they can then get with a group.

5. Describe how you can use each of the seven content enhancements in your lessons.
Advance organizers – K.W.L. Chart; Visual Displays – hierarchical/central chart to show how
math concepts are related; Study Guides – given as group work so that they can use the guide to
study and also their classmates as a resource; Mnemonic Devices – FOIL (First Outer Inner
Last); Audio Recordings – Podcasts on iTunes, however it is difficult if students don’t have
internet; Computer-assisted Instruction – math games that improve reasoning and basic skills;
and Peer-Mediated instruction – if a student is done with their work while their classmates are
working, they can go around and be “mini-teachers”, helping those that need assistance.
6. What are some ways you can adapt texts and materials for your students?
Reduce the complexity and length of units, provide highlighted sections, use advance organizers
to help them sort out important information, concentrate on vocabulary and content, and create
charts/graphs/drawings/models to help the student follow along. If a student ahs limited reading
skills, you can also rewrite the text so that it uses basic words and short sentences. It gets the
point across more efficiently.

7. Discuss some Mnemonic devices and how you can use them in the classroom.
Distributive Property: FOIL – First Outer Inner Last; Classroom Management: CHAMPS –
Conversation Help Activity Movement Participation Success

8. What is the most important thing that you learned new in this chapter?
Content enhancement can be beneficial to all students, even if you are not in a special education
classroom. It really helps get the most out of the class periods