Title: Co-adapting a Design Thinking Activity to Engage Students with Learning Disabilities: Insights and Lessons Learned
Teaching students with learning disabilities about design thinking can prepare them to be active co-designers of learning tools and resources that will ultimately benefit them and their peers. In this paper, we outline an introductory design thinking activity conducted with students with learning disabilities and share two specific and contrasting student interactions that occurred during the activity. The two interactions highlight how being able to engage in open, respectful, and constructive idea sharing can lead to a more sophisticated and evolved design prototype. Student collaboration observed also provides insight into improved ways to scaffold learners in introductions to design thinking. We share lessons learned and ideas for how to modify this activity to better support a positive introduction to design thinking experience. more »« less
Bostic, J.; Vostal, B.; Folger, T.
(, Mathematics teaching and learning)
Barlow, A.
(Ed.)
All students have strengths, which can be leveraged through universally designed instruction. We share a lesson planning tool, called the Thinking Through Universal Lesson Protocol (TTULP), that teachers used to create and enact mathematics lessons that support students with and without learning disabilities.
People with disabilities are underrepresented in STEM as well as information, communication, and technology (ICT) careers. The underrepresentation of individuals with disabilities in STEM may reflect systemic issues of access. Curricular materials that allow students to demonstrate their current fraction knowledge through multiple means and provide opportunities to share and explain their thinking with others may address issues of access students face in elementary school. In this study, we employed a sequential mixed-methods design to investigate how game-enhanced fraction intervention impacts students’ fraction knowledge, engagement, and STEM interests. Quantitative results revealed statistically significant effects of the program on students’ fraction understanding and engagement but not their STEM interest. Qualitative analyses revealed three themes—(1) Accessible, Enjoyable Learning, (2) Can’t Relate, and (3) Dreaming Bigger—that provided contextual backing for the quantitative results. Implications for future research and development are shared.
Burgstahler, Sheryl
(, The Northwest eLearning Journal)
Some students with disabilities cannot fully engage in digital learning opportunities because of the inaccessible design of many online courses. In this commentary on policies and administration, I describe how the Universal Design in Higher Education (UDHE) Framework can be used to guide the design of accessible and inclusive online courses and share examples of best practices in applying it. I also present potential roles key stakeholders can play in applying the UDHE Framework. Taking meaningful steps in this regard can improve online learning opportunities by making them accessible to and inclusive of more learners.
Horne, Lydia; Manzanares, Amanda; Atalan-Helicke, Nurcan; Vincent, Shirley; Anderson, Steven_W; Romulo, Chelsie_L
(, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences)
Abstract As future decision-makers, students must develop interdisciplinary, systems thinking skills to make effective management decisions; however, systems thinking remains challenging for many students. Here, we use the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus as a framework to examine how drawings can help students cultivate systems thinking skills. Drawings can be tools to make implicit mental models of systems connections explicit for instructors to better comprehend student learning. Our goal was to understand how drawing can help students make connections across systems compared to using only verbal explanations. In 2021, we interviewed undergraduates, asking them to draw and verbally explain the FEW Nexus. Analysis revealed that student drawings showed an increase in the number of connections that half of students could describe when compared to verbal-only explanations. Instructors may benefit from this study by recognizing areas where students might struggle to understand FEW Nexus connections, where additional course emphasis is needed, and how drawings can help assess student learning.
Park, Sunyoung; Edson, Alden J
(, Mathematics education research and practice)
Learning mathematics in a student-centered, problem-based classroom requires students to develop mathematical understanding and reasoning collaboratively with others. Despite its critical role in students’ collaborative learning in groups and classrooms, evidence of student thinking has rarely been perceived and utilized as a resource for planning and teaching. This is in part because teachers have limited access to student work in paper-and-pencil classrooms. As an alternative approach to making student thinking visible and accessible, a digital collaborative platform embedded with a problem-based middle school mathematics curriculum is developed through an ongoing design-based research project (Edson & Phillips, 2021). Drawing from a subset of data collected for the larger research project, we investigated how students generated mathematical inscriptions during small group work, and how teachers used evidence of students’ solution strategies inscribed on student digital workspaces. Findings show that digital flexibility and mobility allowed students to easily explore different strategies and focus on developing mathematical big ideas, and teachers to foreground student thinking when facilitating whole-class discussions and planning for the next lesson. This study provides insights into understanding mathematics teachers’ interactions with digital curriculum resources in the pursuit of students’ meaningful engagement in making sense of mathematical ideas.
Harden, E. Lynne, and Moore, Emily Brooke. Co-adapting a Design Thinking Activity to Engage Students with Learning Disabilities: Insights and Lessons Learned. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10137384. Interaction Design and Children . Web. doi:10.1145/3311927.3325316.
Harden, E. Lynne, & Moore, Emily Brooke. Co-adapting a Design Thinking Activity to Engage Students with Learning Disabilities: Insights and Lessons Learned. Interaction Design and Children, (). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10137384. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311927.3325316
Harden, E. Lynne, and Moore, Emily Brooke.
"Co-adapting a Design Thinking Activity to Engage Students with Learning Disabilities: Insights and Lessons Learned". Interaction Design and Children (). Country unknown/Code not available. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311927.3325316.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10137384.
@article{osti_10137384,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Co-adapting a Design Thinking Activity to Engage Students with Learning Disabilities: Insights and Lessons Learned},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10137384},
DOI = {10.1145/3311927.3325316},
abstractNote = {Teaching students with learning disabilities about design thinking can prepare them to be active co-designers of learning tools and resources that will ultimately benefit them and their peers. In this paper, we outline an introductory design thinking activity conducted with students with learning disabilities and share two specific and contrasting student interactions that occurred during the activity. The two interactions highlight how being able to engage in open, respectful, and constructive idea sharing can lead to a more sophisticated and evolved design prototype. Student collaboration observed also provides insight into improved ways to scaffold learners in introductions to design thinking. We share lessons learned and ideas for how to modify this activity to better support a positive introduction to design thinking experience.},
journal = {Interaction Design and Children},
author = {Harden, E. Lynne and Moore, Emily Brooke},
}
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