Making my digital platforms effective for all learners

Sophie Burtenshaw

21st December 2021

This reflection was contributed as a submission for a 2 Star Badge in Dealing with Difference and Diversity (Adopting)

Give a brief description of your work context and responsibilities, e.g. your teaching background, experience, type of organisation (e.g. FE college, ACL), subject/curriculum you teach/lead, your learners (skills level, any particular inclusion needs, age range of group, size of group)

I teach maths (and some English) in an ACL context to adults who are working towards an accredited qualification, mostly Functional Skills Maths L1 and 2. I have been teaching online for the last couple of years, but have recently started a new face-to-face course. Our face-to-face courses take place in a range of contexts, but the one I am currently teaching is happening in a community... more

How did you use the learning from this module in your teaching context?

I think Rosenshine's Principles are really interesting, and on the whole how I try to teach anyway.
I have tried to think particularly how these might apply to learners with barriers, especially learners with dyslexia as we do get a lot of these in our service.
I do use recapping a lot as I find this helps all learners but most especially the dyslexic learners who struggle a lot to remember and who need even more repetition. I use quizzes on Google Classroom a lot, because it allows opportunity for repetition and I find that some dyslexic learners like them. I do try to keep them short and sweet, and use them as checks on understanding as per Rosenshine's 6th principle.
For more repetition, I use videos on the Google Classroom as dyslexic learners in particular have told me that they find these really useful as they can repeat them as many times as necessary in their own time. Usually I can find good quality videos on the Internet (YouTube etc), but I have also made a few of my own as sometimes the ones on the Internet are slightly different from how I have taught something, or I can't find a good enough quality one. I plan to do this a bit more often as learners have responded positively to it.
These videos as well as links I post help to provide mathematical models and scaffolding for learners who need it as per Rosenshine's principles. I think mathematical models are incredibly important for learning, and I do try and use them as much as possible.
It provides a visual/kinaesthetic accompaniment to the explanations I give, and does help all learners to learn, as opposed to rote learning where most learners will forget the process and not really understand it.
In addition to the above, I have added a text to speech reader to the top of my Google Classroom classrooms and directed learners towards it. This can help learners who struggle to read to access the maths questions given. (However, this comes with a word of caution, as the courses I teach are exam courses, so learners cannot become too reliant on this as the majority of them won't have questions read out to them in the exam.) I have also added a link to an online dictionary to reinforce learning and provide more opportunity for reinforcement.
I make sure I use dyslexia-friendly texts such as Ariel and Calibri which are both available on Google Classroom, and I have learnt to change the background colour in documents to make it easier to read for learners for whom black/white is too much of a contrast.
Finally, I have changed the presentation of my Google Classroom classrooms to make them look more accessible to learners. I have put all information material together under one heading so that learners can click on this and access it as and when needed, as opposed to spreading it all into separate items which can look a bit daunting. I have also created an 'Extension' topic where I can provide learners with the opportunity for more (self-marked) practice on topics.
I have found the whole process useful and am happy with the results. less

What worked well?

Streamlining my classroom has worked well, as well as adding more 'short and sweet' quizzes and assignments to the Classroom as opposed to longer ones. This allows for more repetition and is more accessible for learners.

What would you do differently next time?

I need to change the background colour on many of the assignments I have already uploaded to GC. I will first speak to the learners and ask them if this will make a difference to them, and if so, what colours would work best.

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This reflection was inspired by the following modules

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