Teaching, Supporting and Managing the Neurodiverse classroom

Hey,

When I attended the Education show for 2017, I went to the talk Teaching, Supporting and Managing the Neurodiverse classroom by Victoria Honey Bourne.

What is Neurodiversity?

Neurodiversity is a different way of thinking and the idea that not one way is better to the other. Also, that you don’t need to conform to the way that everyone else is learning as that method may not work for you. We are all different in learning, like we all have different genes from each other; such as, someone might have blue eyes but another person has brown eyes. We all learn differently and that is ok!

What is meant by Normal?

When looking are this question you find that you will discover more questions, such as; what happens when we expect more out of one child than the other, how does this help in defining what normal is. In teaching, you find yourself focusing on labels more than the actual person and therefore are not focusing on what that child needs. How can there be a definition of ‘normal’ if we expect more from one than the other and when we are focusing on labels more than the child themselves.

Neurodiversity is still considered a problem as when teaching a class of 30 pupils you can really only teach in a certain way. When thinking about how not one person is less than the other, there are some benefits such as society and understanding of each other.

We also need to remember that some people think differently and therefore it is only natural to believe that they would also learn differently. To identify those who need extra help a teacher must first use the resources accessible to them to teach and from there they will be able to recognise those who are behind or struggle in the knowledge being taught. There are than resources that can give and extra hand in learning which could be: technologies to help them once they had learnt how to use them; pencil grips to help with handwriting; talking dictionaries to help with both reading and spelling and finally help make children more aware of things around them.

Environments have strong effects on learning so creating a physical learning environment is important in education. This could be: using the resources available; creating routines; creating displays with not too much information that have a visual appearance; communication friendly which is not just for those with speech & language issues and quiet areas.

Now let’s talk about the different teaching habits and what can be improved to benefit those who need a bit more help than the average pupil. Teachers could design worksheets and presentations that show there objectives clearly so that the pupil knows what they need to do and therefore may have a greater understanding of what needs to be done. They should have visual instructions and use clear language in explaining what the pupil needs to do and while doing this make sure to clearly explain new vocabulary that you may come across. Before asking the pupils to do the task give extra processing time so that those with difficulties can fully understand what they need to do.

Now following on from teaching habits I will talk about organisation skills and how being a teacher, you should use them. A big part of organisational skills is about being visual and therefore a teacher should create visual as well as clear instructions and then go through the work needed to be done so that the pupils understand what is needed of them, it helps to break down the work. It is recommended that the teacher writes down the outline of the lesson so that the children know what is to come. It is also good to have a visual timetable in the classroom which you can refer back to during the day as well as breaking down the day with: task boards, tick lists, pictures and writing. Not only should a teacher be organised so that they know what they are doing, but they should also be teaching self – management techniques to their students such as to do lists or using reminders on phones.

Finally, let’s discuss the idea of accepting individuals as this is what I feel is probably one of the most important elements in teaching, as recognising pupils’ strengths gives a way to help the students learn the confidence to make mistakes and learn from them. It is also important to recognise strengths as it creates a different kind of learning that can be creative as we need to remember that strengths are not just found in English and Maths and to not always focus on these subjects so strongly even though they are an important part of learning. You should set meaningful targets for your pupils and have person to person talks with them to help them improve as well as to understand that pupil. A teacher needs to remember that there is no right way of being and therefore no wrong way of learning. Being who you are is what makes you human and different from others as no one is the same.

These are just some of the ways that you could help gifted children engage in the classroom.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post

Any comments or questions please use the contact box

Amy x