I agree. Sometimes it takes awhile to determine if the student's issues are just 'life' related or if indeed it is a learning deficit. If you do find that it's their life circumstances that are affecting their performance in the course, you're right,counselling students (which often just means being a good listener to their 'woes') helps them work through those life issues and be able to deal with the challenges of the course.
Perhaps my challenge is getting the students to address their disabilities with me. I start my classes by giving them private opportunity to talk with me about any accomodations they might need, but seldom do I have anyone take me up on my offers. My school is populated by mostly young men who might see their disabilities as an embarassment.
Jason,
yes, getting the struggling learner to truly open up & to seek help is a significant challenge.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Jimmy,
yes a key question to ask is what has helped them to be successful in the past? What strategies have proven useful? If we can discover these, we are in a much better position to help them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I think the greatest challenge to working with students with leaning disabilities is really understanding where the student has the most challenges, how strong their challenges are, and how you best can assist them. Instructors have a challenging time if their experience in working with students with learning disabilities is minimal.
I think the biggest challenge that I've found, is communicating to the students that this isn't something to be ashamed of, and also something that they shouldn't be trying to tackle on their own. Our school does a great job with the students that do recognize they need some extra help, but still there are students that are shy and attempt to continue to self help themselves.
Kelly,
this is very true. The best thing we can do is to demonstrate that we want to help them as much as possible & show our openness to support them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I agree with you Andrea. I have not faced a student with a learning disability as of yet in my 5 years of teaching. My students are more difficult to work with when they have financial, and personal issues that they cannot control. All I can do is listen and refer them to our Aspire program for help.
It's hard because not a lot of students come forward with their disability. It's hard to have to guess.
greatest challenge is meeting that particular students needs. Working with the student additionally to meet the goals of the rest of the classroom is an everyday task.
Monica,
this is definitely true or getting the student to disclose this fact. Many are fearful of this & the stigma it places on them, but we need to encourage them to open up so we can best help them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
My personal experience has yielded two sides to this.
You have the side of the student that needs the additional help and you assure them that you are there to aid them in any way (within the rules) to accomplish their goals. It takes time to gain that trust from them but it does happen.
The other part of it is getting the rest of the class to understand that I am not showing any favortism with any particular student. All they see is that he/she gets a slightly different approach to things at times. Unless the student tells the others why this is, it is aganist policy for me to give them the real reason why this is taking place.. When I encounter times like this, I always have my supervisor come in and explain it to the class.
I feel the hardest aspect is the student coming forward with the problem. I think that I am working with someone who is borderline in comprehending words. I am careful not to single him out from the other class members, but I have chosen to sit with after lectures to make sure he has absorbed the material. I will say he is intelligent.
Ryan,
yes, we must make sure that we are maintaining the open lines of communication with our students so we know how to help them most effectively.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
The greatest challenge to working with students with learning disabilities would be getting the student to acknowledge that they do have a disability.
Initially, it's the effort and time needed to adjust your materials to the individual's needs. After that, it's maintaining an ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of those adjustments for the students success.
I rarely have students approach me, to let me know they have a disability. One student did recently, and I asked her to provide documentation to the dean, so we could give her special accommodations, but she never did. When I first mentioned it, she seemed very eager, but two weeks later, when I asked her about it, she just said "Oh, no, I haven't done that". What I am able to do, is offer tutoring outside of class time. I find that the one-on-one, or at least a small group of students, can be much more effective in helping individual students. They are often much more willing to be honest about whether they are understanding something in smaller groups.
first is getting the student to trust you enough to tell you about his or her disability then show them that we can accomplish our goal
by working together. trust is the key word.
To me the greatest challange to working with students with learning disabilities is knowing what to do to help them. I am an instructor for a particular dicipline, I am not a special ed teacher nor a counselor. I want to help the student, but I am not always even sure the student has a learning disability especially if it is not documented in their personnel information file. Often a students learning problems are cultural or socio-economic. When I have a student with academic problems I will confer with them to try and find the cause, be a learning disability or any other cause. If I can not work out the problem I will find someone in our organization that can help. I certainly do not try to take on issues I am not trained to handle.
The greatest challenge is to know the exact extent or the degree of this learning disabilities,so you can think about the ways to help.
