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Jeff Grove Posts: 5
5/6/2022
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Jeremy Henry-Dixon wrote:
Think of a student with a disability you have now, or have had in the past. Identify their disability. Describe the way in which their disability affected their learning. Describe at least one or more ways you successfully accommodated or modified instruction for this student:
I have a student who is dyslexic in my advanced theatre class. Knowing that we read plays out loud, she generally needs to have the play at least a week in advance to read through it and make notes that help her be confident, and then I encourage her throughout the process to take her time. She generally chooses roles that have less lines, and has been successful in not letting the disability get the best of her. She has been in the theatre class for all 4 of her high school years.
Those are really good strategies. Sometimes when working with dyslexic theatre students, I have anecdotally shared stories of a close friend - a former teacher himself - who performed in community theatre, but who had difficulty with cold-reading auditions and with line memorization because he was dyslexic. He learned to speak up for himself at cold-reading auditions, letting a director know about his condition, and asking for a little time outside of the room to look over a passage before getting up to read. I worked with him to help him memorize lines, reading them aloud to him so he could learn by ear rather than through visual stimuli on the page, which led to more accurate memorization. I recommend these strategies to my dyslexic students, and sometimes pair them with line-coaching buddies from the class to help out. I also like to point out to them that some very well-known actors, such as Tom Cruise, have openly discussed the challenges they have faced with dyslexia, and how they worked to overcome them - having such role models lets students know that they can succeed.
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Marjorie Kammerlohr Posts: 1
5/10/2022
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I had one student with a IND. In my class we crate a lot of original content. She really struggled with writing assignments, but was super creative and love to come up with story ideas. I would have her work in groups. Working in groups, I would have her group members record the ideas, while they assimilated all of their ideas together so she could participate in the story creation process, but didn't feel the pressure to do all of the writing in class. When she would do solo projects, I would have her create outlines instead of writing each line out individually. Eventually, the student began feeling comfortable enough creating these outlines for her group members.
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Jeff Luty Posts: 5
5/23/2022
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I have a student in my current theatre class who is on the autism spectrum, and because of this, they have a poor behavior reputation with other teachers at school. I had been told about their behavior issues (but not the autism issue, more on that later) before this school year from their prior teachers and chalked them up to having a Behavioral Disorder.
I originally seated them away from other students in class who they were known to interact with to provide them with the least distractions. However, as I got to know and interacted with them, I began to suspect that they didn’t have a behavioral disorder but an autism spectrum disorder. They had a sensitivity to sound that their parent clamed was slight deafness; they had an inability to recognize basic social cues; delayed cognitive and learning skills; delayed language skills (“baby talk”); and random outburst in class, which would set off the other students. So the first thing that I did was move them to the front of the room so that I could keep a closer eye on them and personally assist them when they needed help. From my communication with our administrators and support staff, who confirmed my thoughts, I found out that the parent didn’t want their child labeled as autistic due to the assumed stigma that came with it, so there are no specific accommodations on file for this student.
Specific accommodations that I have made with them is more one on one interaction to check for lesson and assignment understanding, turning off my classroom microphone or lowering my speaking volume when interacting with them to make them more comfortable, specific praise for good work and task completion, and redirecting them back on topic when they start up with their off-task outbursts.
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Jeff Luty Posts: 5
5/23/2022
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Great idea to pair them up!
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Jeff Luty Posts: 5
5/23/2022
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Wonderful way to redirect and focus them!
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Steven Tuley Posts: 3
6/10/2022
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I had a student in my Theatre 1 class, I'll call him John, who has cerebral palsy. He was confined to a wheelchair, had understandable speaking skills, but had great difficulty writing. My class was his only GenEd class each day. He had an ESE aid who brought him to class and helped him in taking and studying notes. I had to physically organize my classroom to accommodate his wheelchair, but I already had a ramp access to the right side of my stage. He was a very excited and eager student. He was known and well-liked by many of the students in the class, so when it came time for group assignments I paired him with peers that I thought would be patient and help him. I provided him with large print script materials, and gave him smaller parts so that he could be successful at memorization. He was able to move himself in his wheelchair, but I still gave him roles that might have more limited movement. He and his parents were very proud when he played a part in the end of the year show for parents. He was excited enough to enroll in Theatre 2 the next year. This was his senior year, so ESE was trying to give him more independence. He did not come to class with an ESE aid the second year, but I continued to provide him with the kind of note assistance his aid had provided the year before. He had to navigate his chair across campus by himself. He continued to play roles in plays, and has remained in contact with me even after his graduation.
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Steven R. Tuley
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Amanda Valdes Posts: 3
6/10/2022
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Teaching Elementary Art can be challenging at times with the range of students you have in one class, so there is a lot of differentiation that needs to occur on a regular basis. One particular student I had this past year was a Kindergartener that would come into my classroom and would either be having a good day, or a bad day. [Being that he is in Kindergarten he was going through the process of being evaluated. By the end of the year, I believe he was diagnosed with an Emotional/Behavioral Disability.] On the bad days, he would climb under one of my tables and kick out all of the chairs and then start yelling at his classmates. The first time this happened, I tried to talk to him and he was not responsive, at all. I ended up having to get the school counselor to come in and help me, since his class was leaving and I had another grade level coming into my room. [Which is one of the tricky parts of being a special area teacher, that you can't always dedicate the time you need to each student (and each situation) because you are under a time constraint.]
The next day, (we have our kids for a week at a time on a rotating basis) I had a conversation with this student and made a connection with him through his sisters that I also teach. He was able to choose to sit in his big sister's chair and sometimes I would even let him hold one of my stuffed animals during class, so he could teach my bear how to draw what we were doing that particular day.
At the end of the day, I feel that no matter what, each student deserves and respects that I try to make some sort of connection with them. (Especially since I teach close to 600 students.)
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Seta Kejelian Green Posts: 4
6/13/2022
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I have had a student who was on the autism spectrum. He was also suffering from germophobie. In addition to that my student had severe apnea and high levels of anxiety. He was moved to my class from a different section. I prepared a special place for him on my table. With a special (his favorite) hand sanitizer and air sanitizer. He was very anxious the first day, but then as we went to activities and work in class, he realized that he can get productive without having to be like the other students, he can be himself and still learn. He wrote me a cute thank you letter at the end of the school year. I'm very thankful that students like my student get the chance to learn at this day and age no matter what struggles they go through.
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Mry Karbowski Posts: 3
6/13/2022
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I had a student in one of my classes that had Autism and ADHD. He is a very sensitive person and loved drawing and the arts. He was easily distracted and would sometimes distract his classmates too. I wanted to engage him and keep his focus on the activities I planned for the class. SO, I had the whole class develop an alien after doing some research about an assigned planet. I allowed this student to choose his planet first, as I limited the number of students per planets, and then helped him with using the rubric to develop a rather fantastic alien and backstory for it. He even described how it would survive on Earth if it came to live here. Lots of fun!
edited by Mry Karbowski on 6/13/2022
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Seta Kejelian Green Posts: 4
6/13/2022
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I had a student "Timmy" who had a speech impediment and he struggled with it the most when he was not comfortable with what he's about to read or say. He had lots of friends and he was great at football (a promising athlete). "Timmy" had given up speech therapy at school because of embarrassment and "Timmy" was not planning on going back to it anytime soon. As the academic year moved forward, "Timmy" noticed that I'm not calling his name to participate in class and he came to me by the end of the first quarter to thank me for not embarrassing him in front of his friends like other teachers have done. I thanked him and asked him to share his thoughts with me. He admitted that he'd like to be leading his junior football team but that requires him to be very confident in his speech. "Timmy" allowed me to start baby steps in class. He was encouraged to buddy read out loud (and if he couldn't say a word his buddy would cover up, etc). Then we moved to more independent talk in class, until one morning "Timmy"s mom called the school to request speech therapy for her son.
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Joe Sniegocki Posts: 3
6/23/2022
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I taught a student from Czechoslovakia who was physically abused as a child and was adopted by a couple when she was only 4. She was a sophomore in high school who struggled a great deal although her speaking voice and English were good, she struggled formulating new or original thoughts into communicated ideas. She had learned so much by rote that any kind of critical thinking was a challenge to her. We worked a lot on using uncommon connectors. I would take two things that did not have any commonality and ask her to combine them somehow into something new through improvisation and when she was working on a monologue. Sadly, we found out late in the school year that she was actually 21 yrs. old and her parents had changed her age to help get her through school.
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Shanon Braden Posts: 3
6/24/2022
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I had a student with autistic characteristics and was very bright. He didn't like to confirm to group activities but was always listening. He would get his box of things he liked to play with while I gave instructions. After the class started, I encouraged him to try the craft. Most of the time, he would join the table with the small group and work on the craft. I gave him a little extra 1:1 and encouragement in the group, and he completed the projects and proudly displayed them.
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Ron Lambert Posts: 6
6/25/2022
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I once had a blind student whowas an exceptional multi instrumentalist, He could play drums, bag pipes, organ, clarinet, saxophone and could sing any pitch that he heard. His Parents were very good at supporting and developing this talent long before he came to a structured educational environment, so he was thrilled to be in my classroom where I was able to challenge him to use all of those skills to not only perform as a soloist, but to blend into ensembles both on stage, the football field and on video. As we have learned, he didn't look at his Visual impairment as a negative as the people around him often do. He loved life, loved music, and was not in anyway inhibited by his inability to see. He simply challenged everyone with his perfect pitch, constant and focused attention and joy. Accommodations that were made were braille for sheet music, focused attention from me to him using his name, and assigning buddies to help him get from place to place, and to help set up instruments for him. Aside from that, he was a highly functional and highly achieving students that often lead in a group setting.
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William Ronald Lambert
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Becky Pusta Posts: 3
7/8/2022
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I had a highly intelligent student on the autism spectrum who was a an incredibly gifted musician (perfect pitch, synesthesia, played by ear & composed beautifully on the piano). She was a highly regarded artist, however, in Acting Class, she struggled with group and ensemble activities. She wasn't used to things not being automatic or easy and was regularly frustrated and often frustrating for ensemble mates. The challenge for all of us was finding verbiage that would allow her to look at the challenges in a positive way--as if it was a success. We focused on turning the idea of every struggle as an opportunity to grow into an even stronger artist--every challenge as and attempt to learn even more. And I found when I could relate things to her musical ability or to look for the musicality in the work, she felt more confident with made the ensemble work easier and more successful for everyone. She eventually became comfortable with the struggle and even enjoyed it. I believe she developed useful life skills and her ensemble mates grew from the experiences a well.
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Audrey Schmidt Posts: 3
8/31/2022
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I have taught our ACCESS Theatre class for the past four years, this is the class that caters to our students with disabilities on a modified curriculum. I have had the privilege of teaching a couple of these students for two years. One that stands out to me is a student with a severe visual impairment, orthopedic impairment, speech impairment, and an intellectual disability. On the surface so many people would assume this student would not thrive in a theatre environment. However, this student still enjoys, participates, and learns with us every step of the way. On choreography days we present the movement on a large screen in the auditorium and he is on the front row, with a traditional student directly in front of him doing the choreography so he can follow along. We help him problem solve to find ways to adapt the movement to account for his physical restrictions while still telling the story of the song. During improv games he sometimes just needs help staying focused and reminding him when its his turn to contribute in a large group setting. Repetition of an activity has been so important for him to master the skill- so we often repeat and come back to many of the same acting exercises- and over the last two years to see his growth and development in these acting skills as it becomes part of his daily routine has been amazing.
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Nancy Oukasse Posts: 3
8/31/2022
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Last year I had a student with autism in my Theatre Improvisation class. He had difficulty staying on task and tended to blurt out inappropriate things at odd times during scenes. He also had difficulty focusing on the action happening on the stage. To help him learn collaboration and process the scenes he was in as well as watching, I asked him to draw the scene he was seeing, then describe it to his classmates. They were wonderful at encouraging him and asking questions about what he thought was going on in the scene. He loved to draw and it kept him involved in the scene, but with something to do while others were acting. He would sometimes want to do a scene with the actors recreating what he had processed. There were some great moments in the new scenes as he was able to pull out what the other actors either implied or ignored as they moved through their scene. It really gave him and the others a sense of the ensemble we were trying to build.
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Jennifer Wills Posts: 3
12/22/2022
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For two years now, I have had a student with autism. He loves theatre, writing and performing, however has difficulty grasping the concept of "pretending." He is not shy about saying how improv, scene work, and playing a character is "stupid." He already believes that he is a great actor and has nothing more to learn! Thankfully, there are many supportive students in the class and they are very patient with him. Over the years, however, I've noticed that he does have a very active imagination, provided it is about something he is passionate about. I give him a lot of freedom in choosing the topics for his work and he never surprises. I also don't require him to submit written work for original monologues or scenes, as his best work seems to be performing in front of the class.
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Dustin Adkins Posts: 3
1/4/2023
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I have had a student in the past with autism. The student is very positive and always trying to be active and involved in a variety of events. One of the main issues this student faces is dealing with the understanding and concept of "acting" and that individuals in plays and productions are putting on shows that are "not real". Sometimes my student will get lost in the role in which they are playing and will think the play is actual real life events, and then becomes too emotionally invested in the role as they cannot differentiate between reality and theater productions. However, we have a great support system within our class and there are a variety of peers that assist and help this individual understand the differences and nuisances that come with acting and pulling off a production such as plays and musicals performed for our school.
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Lannys Suarez Posts: 3
1/26/2023
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I currently teach Theatre and sometimes my students who are autistic have a hard time collaborating with their peers. I have a specific student (who we will call Kyle) who is autistic. In addition to being autistic, Kyle has a language impairment. I have seen Kyle face challenges when reading a script and performing with his peers. On my part, there is a lot of verbal motivation that needs to take place to avoid Kyle getting overwhelmed.
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Stefanie Manning Posts: 3
1/31/2023
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- Think of a student with a disability you have now or in the past. Describe ways in which their disability affected their learning in your class.
I teach Theatre and I see all students in our school. I have had students with all varying disabilities, but one that stands out to me was a girl in my 5th grade class who has Other Health Impairment (ADHD). She struggles with focusing in my class and has a difficult time learning her lines. In the past, I have given her scripts early so she can start learning them/reviewing them earlier, and I have voice-recorded myself reading her lines so she can listen to them to learn them rather than having to sit and read it. She usually excels with movement, so choreography is not a struggle, however during music review it becomes difficult for her to stay on task.
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