Someone's URSA Experience 2022

This week I dove further into how my curriculum that I outlined in last weeks post, and I wanted to fully clarify how this material should be taught and how the projects can be modified so all students can fully participate in every aspect of this class. All of these projects are simple in nature so modifications shouldn’t have to be super extreme, and I would personally recommend holding off on making large modifications for just one student so they do not feel lesser than and they can be equal with their peers. If you are seeing that your students are not understanding one of the topics very well and you have neurodivergent students failing, there is a pattern that most likely leads to improper teaching techniques or miscommunication between your students. 

For each week there are different accommodations that teachers can provide to students in need of some modifications or help with the topic. The baseline accommodations are usually provided through the school through a form submitted by the child’s parents. These accommodations are typically something simple, such as extra time on tests and separate testing rooms, so the basic modifications won’t be listed in the table below with each week. 

Note: Weeks 16 and 17 are not listed in this table because the last two weeks are for the final project. The final project shouldn’t require too many modifications since it is a group project that will allow all students to be comfortable and shine in their strengths. Week 14 and 15 in this table are listed as the optional two weeks with the electricity unit. These two weeks will cover electricity basics and circuits and the project for this unit will be building a potato clock or potato/lemon battery. There are no standards that fit this project very well, but they can vary depending on the project that the students pick for this unit.

Let’s go over all of the modifications and go more into depth on each. Alternative assignments can include one on one talks about the content covered in the specific unit, or write-ups can be done instead o essays, which would have shorter word requirements. Accessible materials include different printouts instead of presentations, softer materials when working on projects, and specialized worksheets if necessary. Help with building or one on one teaching would just be a teacher or aide helping the student singularly so they can get extra help and understanding on the topic. All of these modifications are meant to help the student, but if the student can do the topics as they were written then try to limit the modifications taken for each unit. Modifications should also be renewed and considered with the turn over of each new unit. The ultimate goal is to make sure the student feels comfortable and gets a fun and enriching experience.

More to come soon,

-Chloe

This week I took all of the background information I have been researching and studying and finally start our STEAM Neurodivergent-friendly curriculum. With these past two weeks of what I wanted the curriculum to be shaped like, it is time to get some baselines down and get everything set in place for a possible test round. I made the curriculum adaptable to most if not all grades, but more specifically I made it for middle school-age children. Hopefully I will be able to test out this curriculum in the coming months, and make revisions to this curriculum as needed. I wanted to cover a variety of fun and engaging STEAM field topics, such as aviation/rockets, physics, car derby, and other projects that have a little bit of math, science, engineering but still get the kids thinking creatively and solving solutions outside of the box.

Note: This curriculum doesn’t follow a typical class and can be formed into any class that uses STEAM topics, but it is specifically designed for a class-based solely on STEAM projects. This is also just a baseline, and I will go further into details later on each topic covered in the class to further engage students, and this curriculum can be adapted to other classes/topics because of how I have designed it thus far with the ways that it is taught and the project based learning.

If there is extra time in the semester at the school this is class is taught, the other week or two weeks available in class can be spent doing an electricity unit, comprising of teaching the basics of circuits and electricity, and then using that information to then build a low voltage potato clock or lemon battery, by the choice of the students in the class. This unit would be in accordance with many of the standards that I listed above.

When teaching these units, the main focus is always going to be understanding by the students of the material and teamwork and participation from the students. Almost all of the units listed above are group-based projects and are meant to be completed by a group of 3 or more students to foster a team environment where everyone’s strengths are highlighted, and weaknesses are worked further on to improve. Lectures would be kept short and direct, with not too much information all at once and a ‘nobody left behind’ attitude in the class. This means that the class would function much more smoothly if there were teachers’ aides or helpers in the class to make sure that everyone is in understanding and knows how to work with the material or do the assignment.

Here is a rundown of each unit and what the content would entail:

• Unit 1: Physics and Eggs: Covering the basics of physics, including but not limited to, Newton’s laws of gravity, gravity and gravitational pull, mass vs weight, energy and inertia, and motion.
• Unit 2: Beginning Engineering: Covering basic engineering terms and including applications and types of engineering. This unit will also cover therbligs and engineering techniques such as modeling and design aspects.
• Unit 3: Chemistry 101: Covering the fundamentals of chemistry and the beginnings of chemical equations and balancing. The unit will also cover molar mass, the different types of reactions, and chemistry safety.
• Unit 4: Geology and You: Covering the creation of the Earth, different types of rocks, identifying different crystals, and how geologists conduct their research. The field trip option includes taking students out to a beach/rock wall and having them identify 5 different types of rocks with extra credit if they find a real geode that can be later cracked in class.
• Unit 5: How to Design and the Scientific Method: This unit will cover the scientific method and will go over all of the steps and how to conduct research successfully. The unit will also cover design methods and prototyping.
• Unit 6: Earthquakes and Natural Disasters: This unit will cover the basic facts of natural disasters and their causes. The unit will also take an in-depth look at how natural disasters have shaped our planet, and how these disasters are now predicted.
• Optional Unit 7: Electrifying!: This optional unit (if time allows) will cover the basics of electricity. Circuits and breadboards will be covered as the applications of electricity.
• Final Unit: The student/group chooses a STEAM-related project to finish out the semester. As long as the topic covers all of the letters in the acronym (but can be more lenient depending on the project or the student). At the end of the semester, the student/group presents their project.

I will write more on these topics and how they can be taught and modified for students as needed in my next post. All of these topics can and will be adapted to the student instead of the students needing to adapt to the material. The main way that this will be achieved will be through teachers aides and helpers in class or students who understand the topics well are encouraged to help their fellow students and are rewarded for doing so.

More to come soon,

-Chloe

This week I worked further on the curriculum that I am building to better education for neurodivergent students. The main thing I looked at this week was grades and content. I had mentioned grades briefly in my last post, but I felt it needed more explanation and further examination on my part. I also want to cover more on how teachers should conduct class in a way that all students can follow along and how the new curriculum can cater to students at all levels so students who are at the top of the field can still be engaged in a challenging and fun way, while students who at lower levels of understanding can still learn and be engaged.

Let’s start with the grading aspect. I mentioned before that removing grades would be difficult for a couple of different reasons. For those reasons, the biggest issue with removing grading is assessing students in their understanding of the material. Seeing where students are in the content and showing how much they understand is very crucial to their education, but putting values on their understanding is the issue we see here with this process. A’s, B’s, and C’s are all passing, so why categorize them differently? There are already some schools that have removed the F grade, so why haven’t we removed the rest altogether? The main argument from people against this movement says that removing grades would result in lower expectations in classrooms and rigor in classrooms. This notion is ridiculous, seeing that with this new way of educating students, difficulty and rigor would be customizable in a sense, and students at all levels could still learn with that added difficulty to push them as needed. Another thing people bring up often with the cons of removing grades is that grading this way makes students responsible for their work and therefore their grades. With this thinking, the topic of risk is also brought up often, stating that without the risk of getting a low grade, effort in work will decrease and students will become lazy. This also is ridiculous, as there shouldn’t be risks when speaking about education. Students should not have to be afraid of school or anything having to do with school. As we know, learning happens in all sorts of ways and everyone learns differently and at different paces. Pushing grades on students is almost a sort of punishment for them if they do not learn as fast as other students, and with this mindset, it only pits students against each other makes learning a competition when it is not. This competitive attitude makes students feel as though they have to get an A or 100% on an assignment and to achieve that students feel the need to cheat. Eliminating the grading system would put an end to students feeling the need to cheat to get ahead. There are other pros and cons to this debate, but needless to say, abolishing this system will only help both neurodivergent students and neurotypical students alike.

Content in today’s schools is highly regulated. Most parts of education are controlled heavily by the government, locking teachers in core curriculums that simply just do not fit what students today need in education. To solve this, content should not be regulated, but the way of teaching should. Let me explain further. Teaching neurodivergent students requires teachers to adjust the format of lessons and be more clear and precise with how they teach. This should be the case for all classes. Teaching in a simplified format will help all students understand better, and for students that need the extra challenge/are more ahead in the topic, teachers can provide challenging questions or extra credit opportunities for prizes so students are pushed healthily. Making learning fun and enjoyable is also a crucial part of this new curriculum, and pushing students healthily and engagingly through positive reinforcement will only better students’ education. Negative reinforcement should be as removed as possible from this new curriculum, as associating school with something negative puts the competition aspect back in and also makes the student feel less than if they are told they are not good enough or are not as smart as others.

Next week I will officially build the first pieces of this curriculum, and as always, there will be more to come soon,

-Chloe

This week I started researching and putting together a curriculum that could be used to better teaching for neurodivergent students. I’ve studied and done my research on common types of neurodiversity and I used that knowledge while starting this curriculum. The research done on neurodivergent curriculum is very little compared to the other research done on neurodiversity. During my initial first research stage for this week I couldn’t find very much in this topic. It was increasingly hard to find anything on neurodiversity curriculum as I went on, and any studies I found were only covering extremely specific bits. An example that I found a lot of was teaching students with autism spectrum disorder social skills. As I read them, the same thought kept popping into my head, why should we try to bend students to the will of these core curriculums and social constructs when these students are just simply built and made differently? I tried to keep in mind that this new curriculum that I am trying to build needs to be flexible so instead of making students adapt to the curriculum, the curriculum can adapt to the student.

To start, I looked at the current way that schools teach neurodivergent students. I looked up my High School’s methods and even looked at their specific details and guidebook on their policies for special education. Unfortunately, it seems like they are very black and white with their methods and they don’t try to adapt the curriculum in any way except for extra time on assessments. They don’t have a very long list of possible accommodations either. It seems like this is almost the standard, and that special education kids are just supposed to change and adapt to the rest of the students.

When I finally found some good information on the new curriculum, I started off with what the students want and need in school and in teaching. With what I know from my research, many people with mental disabilities need down time. They need to relax, take a breath and be comfortable sometimes. Lots of people tend to have repetitive behaviors or specific routines that they want to follow so they can be comfortable, so with this I knew that making room for ‘me-time’ or just a break even for just 15 minutes every few hours can make all of the difference. Through my research I also learned that making all of the classroom items accessible and in different formats- especially in terms of slideshows and lectures in printed or audio format can be extremely helpful for someone who doesn’t work well with the ‘regular’ format.

I also realized that my own education could have been much improved if the stress of school had been removed. When I say stress I mean more than just daily struggle with homework or upcoming tests, but I mean all of that plus the social stress, the stress of grades, the stress of the competition-like structure that school has become. Dealing with all of these stressors daily for 8+ hours a day is not just overwhelming, but also exhausting. I realize that removing most of these stressors is difficult, but it should be worked towards as much as possible so that we don’t push students too far and burn them out. The first of these that is very easy to remove is testing and homework. I don’t mean removing all of it, but instead of long multi-hour midterms and finals, short weekly quizzes that go along with the current topic/content in the class can reduce the stress from the test but still get the assessment needed for the teacher. Another stressor that we can reduce is grades and competition. The way grading is now, can make the school environment quite the rivalry between students. To change this system making the grades not something of value, and basing grading more evenly instead of basing more than half of the grading on tests.

These are just beginning steps yes, but it is crucial to make sure that this new curriculum is friendly to everyone and is adaptable to students. In regards to how teachers conduct lessons, the rules should be more lenient, as many teachers complain about how strict the current core curriculum is in this manner. The new curriculum should only have baseline rules on how instructions are given and that all materials are provided in multiple formats so all students can participate easily.

More to come soon,

-Chloe

Last week I was very lucky to meet and interview Naomi Fitter of Oregon State’s Share Lab, where they are using robotics in a very unexpected way. Professor Fitter and her team are working to create different and positive human-robot interactions in all sorts of ways. Her main project now is working with a robotic comedian, who does stand up comedy and actually programs and responds to the crowds. I asked her all about her work and her background as well and what she would tell to prospective engineers like myself who want to further robotics.

I first asked Prof. Fitter about how she got involved and interested in robotics and in teaching. She had started off as a Spanish/Mechanical Engineering dual degree, and then joined a robotics team where she learned how much potential there is in the robotic field. She talked a lot about her goals of both being able to conduct ground-breaking research and also teach. It was very interesting to talk to her because I saw a lot of my own goals and aspirations in what she was saying. Next I asked her about her research and projects, specifically her favorite and her least favorite. Prof. Fitter said that her robot comedy was her favorite and she enjoyed that it was a real world project, but still meaningful. She said the hardest part of working with the robotic entertainer was testing and learning how to better the program. The robot in early stages had trouble reading the room and adapting the comedy set to what the crowd liked/didn’t like.

I also asked about the hard parts of being a researching professor. She said that its a handful dealing with all of the deadlines and the trade off of both having to teach, and do her projects. She said that the fun parts and the fact that she can do research that’s out of the ordinary and be a part of the potential for robotics makes up for all of the negative bits of her job.

Towards the last part of our interview I asked Prof. Fitter about any advice she would give to people wanting to join the robotics field. She said that getting involved in research as an undergrad and building experiences and building network is key. Making yourself known and getting experience while still in the early years of your career can make all the difference. She also said that going into grad school and doing more research is extremely important and can really boost your career. She said that as a professor and researcher she had to learn to apply for grants and money for her research. She also said the try different things and maybe try the industry to see what is best for you.

The last question I had for her was related to the research I’m conducting now. I asked specifically how robotics could possibly be used to help neurodivergent people or people with ASD. She doesn’t conduct specific research on this, but she said that there is some studies on how robotics could help teach children with ASD social skills, and that the early stages show that robots might be more effective at teaching social skills than humans. This could be novelty effect though, as the children might engage more with the robots because they’re more interesting to look at and are something very different than what these children are used to. To say the least, there are many open ended questions and many options to explore with robotics and neurodiversity.

More to come soon,

-Chloe