Is neediness a kind of “disability?”
Estes et al. highlight that disabilities are often left out of standard learner analysis. We should consider student physical, cognitive, sensory, and emotional needs from the start of lesson planning. When planning lessons in the past, I would not consider the emotional needs of students. This is because I was focused on the content, and how to deliver the content to meet the standards in a specific amount of time. However, it seems to me that there are students in my classroom who have unmet emotional needs. These students are disruptive. They are not considered to have clinically identified disabilities. They have no IEPs or 504s, but they are needy. We are also advised that learner analysis is central to instructional design, but specific analysis is often overlooked (Estes, Beverly, & Castillo, 2020). Have the emotional needs of my neediest students been overlooked, even if there is no state sanctioned paperwork?
Hughes & Roblyer advise us to choose the right type of instructional software whether it be simulation, problem-based or gamification (Hughes & Roblyer, 2020). In designing lessons that are social constructivist, many students work well together, but not the students with unmet emotional needs. Again, these students have no paperwork.
In my district, we have access to Discovery Education which includes text to speech options, interactives, video with transcripts. These tools are helpful for all students.
In the near future, I would like to design lessons that transform the experience of all students, not just with technology and the RAT Matrix (Hughes & Roblyer, 2020), but also those students with unmet emotional needs. There seems to be a science of seeing a person too.
References
Estes, M.D., Beverly, C.L., Castillo, M. (2020). Designing for Accessibility: The Intersection of Instructional Design and Disability. In: Bishop, M.J., Boling, E., Elen, J., Svihla, V. (eds) Handbook of Research in Educational Communications and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36119-8_8
Hughes, J. E., & Roblyer, M. D. (2023). Integrating educational technology into teaching: Transforming learning across disciplines (9th ed.). Pearson.
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