Second Last Class!

Second Last Class!

Excited to be almost done but also excited to still learn more in the last two classes!

First up today, we began with a presentation relating to the paper we read this week on teaching reading comprehension to Autistic children.

Teaching Children with Autism to Read for Meaning: Challenges and Possibilities

Judi Randi, Tina Newman, and Elena L. Grigorenko

Reflection on Paper:
-Goal for teaching comprehension would be to have children with ASD move beyond just decoding skills and to have them "shift cognitive resources to meaning-making." 

-Children with ASD can use their strengths, like attention to detail and ability to accomplish tasks and learn how to navigate comprehension activities..."Based on the cognitive profiles of children with ASDs, it is reasonable to expect that they may have different ways of accomplishing tasks than typically developing children." (Randi, Newman and Grigorenko, 2011)

-Could benefit from visual cues, or other cues during reading process in order to better understand relationship between what they are reading...reading and understanding narrative writing pieces may help to improve children's social and pragmatic skills where as these are reflective of life experiences. 

-Reading comprehension strategies have been typically not emphasized whereas phonics has been a focus

"Teaching children to read for meaning is no easy task as reading comprehension involves a complex set of skills and processes and is sensitive to individual differences, often requiring different kinds of instruction for different learners." (Randi, Newman and Grigorenko, 2011)

"Future research might investigate whether or not instruction in concept formation may guide children with ASDs to more abstract forms of reasoning and category formation based on prototypes. Thus, children with ASDs may be able to acquire more abstract reading comprehension skills through guided instruction that refocuses attention where it matters and provides appropriate models for imitation." (Randi, Newman and Grigorenko, 2011)

-Through Direct Instruction, Collaborative Learning, and Computer-Assisted Instruction children with ASD can benefit and be taught to use the cognitive processes that are used for reading for meaning.

Reflection on Video Presentation:
I love how Yvonne started out her presentation to us by looking at and considering a strength based view of Autism. I feel like this is the best practice when considering any student, and after going through her list, it's clear to see why it is the most apporpriate place to start when considering programming and technology for students with ASD. 

-I also really appreciated her dispelling the common myths surrounding Autism and thought this would be helpful for people to realize what "Autism is not..." 
-Some of the main points I'd like to remember here are:

• Autism is a complex neurological difference, not a mental illness.
• Autistic brains operate differently but that they sill operate!
• Autism is not related to parenting!

-Theory of Mind- Simon Baron-Cohn
-'mind-blindness" lack of perspective taking and social cognition
-prediction and inferencing...hard for children with ASD to put themselves in those positions.

-Central coherence and Comprehension:
























Executive functioning
-High level cognitive functions that help us organize behaviour over time...plan and organize activities, sustain attention and persist, manage emotions and monitor thoughts in order to work efficiently and effectively.

-Students are able to process text at a sentence level and understand better with visual cues and images.

-Reading and understanding expository texts may be a way for children to understand better

Suggestions and Recommendations to support students with comprehension:
-UDL UDL UDL! Planning for all will help ALL students in the classroom. The things you will do to teach Autistic children is really just good teaching!

-Direct teaching of these things will help ASD students and everyone else in the class...perspective taking skills, socialization, emotion coaching or teaching, direct teaching of idioms, have students create their own visuals in response to a story.
-Teach text structures, use film as a preview to a story
-Visuals, use real concrete objects to match items to create visual memory
-Color-coding, checklists, electronic dictionaries, graphic organizers...

After the presentation, we posted to a collective discussion board in class on Showbie to share our ideas about apps that are available to help students with ASD in supporting reading and literacy comprehension. A very informative list was made! One thing that is so great about this class is the quick and amazingly comprehensive list of things that can come together and be shared in such a short amount of time. It's awesome!

Second part of class..

-We were introduced to a few VR tech tools that really excited everyone in the room. These were relatively inexpensive, tangible things that would for sure be an amazing engagement tool to use in the classroom. 

-We first looked at something called a Merge Cube. This is a virtual reality tool, used with an iPad or iPhone. The merge cube is held and by viewing the app through the device, the user is able to see images and different information in a 3-d picture on the screen. It was very engaging and eye catching. 

-We first looked at a picture of a brain and I immediately thought of teaching Mind Up in grade 5 this year and how this type of technology would be extremely engaging and helpful for students to be able to visualize what areas of the brain we discuss in the program. 

-Students with ASD do better with use of visuals paired with information they are receiving so having a merge cube available to further explain and allow the student to explore a topic in greater visual detail would be a great way to improve comprehension. 

Quiver-interactive hard copy coloring pages that students can color and then using the app, can see their pictures come alive. I think this is a really amazing technology. All students would be able to appreciate the "cool" factor of having a picture come alive in front of them. This would be a great engagement tool as sometimes, students are not interested in coloring so this could be a way to reach those students. 

-Students will ASD would again benefit from the visual component here and would be able to connect to the material being learned in a different way. 

3d-Merge 360 Educational Videos- My first thought was tech time gone wild! I think this would be such a fun engagement tool to use in classrooms with all students. 

Part B to Assignment #2 -We (Amanda, Allison Wendy and I) created an iMovie trailer to pitch this Assistive Tech class for future colleagues to take. It was a very fun and involved everyone's input and personal style. It was really fun to watch all of the trailers afterward and it was a great hands on learning experience for people to see how iMovie trailer can be a great tool in the classroom. 

-I am currently working with some students who are creating both iMovies and trailers to complete a project after having read the book 'Wonder' in their grade 5 class. It is amazing to see their creativity come out with it and they love using the technology to show what they know!

Stay tuned for the final class blog!