Cognitive Disability
- Is also known as an intellectual disability or learning disability.
- It's classified in 2 ways (functional disability and clinical disability).
- Clinical disabilities Include Autism, Down Syndrome, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Dementia. Less severe include attention deficit disorder (ADD), dyslexia (difficulty reading), dyscalculia (difficulty with math), and learning disabilities in general.
- Main categories of functional cognitive disabilities include difficulties with:
- Memory
- Problem-solving
- Attention
- Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension
- Math comprehension
- Visual comprehension
- The technology enhanced strategy that will be used is having students play educational games. The first one is called IQ Safari MATH. With this app kids can practice the four basic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This app will help students with cognitive difficulties, by developing their analytic and cognitive skills, but the children will think that they’re just having fun. This game includes memory cards that focus on memorization and will help the students build core math skills.
- The second game is another educational app called Math Galaxy Fractions and Decimal Riddles. This app will help students that have cognitive difficulty by helping the brain train and practice fractions through problem solving. Kids will enjoy playing this game because of the riddle problem-solving component of it. They become so focused on trying to solve the riddle, that they won’t even realize that they are learning math. The game also includes tutorials that help students better understand the concepts of fractions and it provides students with real world connection such as measurement, which can be applied when measuring ingredients when cooking.
- Arithmetic is an interactive simulation that allows students to practice multiplication, division, and factoring skills with limited physical demand. Math simulations like this also help students with dyscalculia visualize math problems and concepts. As a result, students can better understand the application of a particular type of problem, since many students struggle with the conceptual aspects of math.
Physical Disability
- Is a condition that permanently prevents normal body movement and/or control.
- There are many types of physical disabilities. They include:
- Muscular dystrophies
- Acquired brain and spinal injuries
- Spina bifida
- Cerebral Palsy
- MathPad is a mathematics tool that is used as a support to help students with disabilities with basic math skills, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and world problems. Teachers can use specific features in this program to meet student needs. This app is great for students who have difficulty doing paper and pencil math. It is accessible through a variety of modalities such as switches, keyboards, and InteliKeys.
- MathTalk is a speech recognition software program for math that can help students with a range of disabilities. From arithmetic to Ph.D. level mathematics, students can perform math problems by speaking into a microphone on their computer. The program works with Dragon NaturallySpeaking programs for voice-to-text functionality, making it ideal for students who have fine motor skill disabilities. Students with blindness or vision disabilities can use the integrated braille translator and students that have physical disabilities with writing.
Sensory Disability
- Is also known as sensory impairment. Its when one of your senses such as sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and spatial awareness are no longer normal. It generally refers to disability related to hearing, vision, or both.
- A person doesn’t have to have complete loss in sense to have a sensory disability.
- Wearing glasses means you have a sight impairment.
- Hearing aid means you have a hearing impairment.
- TeachMe: 3rd Grade is an engaging educational app which uses TeachTech to read student's written math and spelling answers. Students write their answers for math and spelling questions and the app reads them and if the student needs help it will show them how to write the correct answer including the proper stroke order. An app like this can help students that have vision impairment by having the app read to them.
- Talking Calculator is a comprehensive featured calculator with the ability to talk. The idea behind it is to make simple calculating tasks much more convenient and efficient to students who have vision impairment and who cannot easily read a standard display. This app integrates with the iOS VoiceOver feature: As you move your finger over the screen, the names of buttons are spoken to you.
At-Risk Students
- Are students or groups of students that are considered to have a higher chance of failing in school academically or by dropping out.
- Circumstances that jeopardize this are:
- Homelessness
- Incarceration
- Teenage pregnancy
- Serious health issues
- Domestic violence
- Persistent health issues
- Transiency
- Learning disabilities
Interactive technology can be used to enhance student achievement by providing multiple means and methods for learners to grasp traditionally difficult concepts. Students see content in many forms as it comes alive with maps, videos, hyperlinks to definitions, additional content, and more.
- Brain Pop Jr. is an interactive technology that provides curriculum-based content geared specifically for K-3 students. The site offers a growing library of movies and interactive features across multiple subjects, which includes math. These engaging resources meet students' different learning styles and abilities.
A number of studies have found that students demonstrate stronger engagement, self- efficacy, attitudes toward school, and skill development when they are engaged in content creation projects. Among other examples, this can include engaging in multimedia content creation to communicate ideas about the material they are studying by creating reports, graphic representations of data they have researched or developed, websites, PowerPoint presentations, video production, digital storytelling, and other means.
- Geoboard is a tool for exploring a variety of mathematical topics introduced in 3rd grade math. Students stretch bands around pegs to form line segments and polygons and make discoveries about perimeter, area, angles, congruence, fractions, and more. Students can use this app to create projects by designing different types of polygons and using other apps to complement it. Students creating geometrical shapes will motivate students and help them believe in their ability to succeed.
Gifted and Talented Students
- Are children or youth who perform or show potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment when compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment and who exhibits high performance capability; possesses an unusual capacity for leadership; or excels in a specific academic field.
- Demonstrates outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains. Domains include any structured area of activity with its own symbol system or set of sensorimotor skills.
- Mathematics
- Music
- Language
- Painting
- Dance
- Sports
The strategy will be to use computer-based games and activities to assess the higher-level skills of the gifted students. Since the students are in lower grades there will be higher levels of satisfaction with using the computer-based games compared to the higher grades. The 2 games that will be used are:
ABCYa Counting Money is an educational game that helps students practice counting money. This activity becomes more difficult as the student’s progress. There are 2 levels, Beginner and Expert. This game is intended to challenge students who may find the basic levels of counting money to be easy, therefore motivating them to take on a bigger challenge and to succeed.This game will allow the teacher to assess the student’s math skills and their ability to focus.
Measurements Word-O-Rama is a computer-based online flash game. It’s a great way for students to work on various math vocabulary. Students can work on math vocabulary for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and other advanced facts.
Resources:
http://webaim.org/articles/cognitive/
http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=306&id=1874#1
http://www.onetoonesupportservices.co.uk/Deafblind%20sensory%20impairments%20definitions.htm
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/special_ed/disabilities/sensory_disabilities/
http://www.pathstoliteracy.org/technology/accessible-math-apps
http://edglossary.org/at-risk/
http://angleton.tx.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=13075
http://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources/definitions-giftedness
https://jr.brainpop.com/support/about_brainpop_jr/what_is_brainpop_jr_.weml
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/geoboard-by-math-learning/id519896952?mt=8