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The Power of Neurodiversity  -Klingensmith

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The Power of Neurodiversity  -Klingensmith

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Reading The Power of Neurodiversity changed how I see my role as a teacher. I used to think students had to fit into one idea of “normal,” but now I understand that brain differences are just another kind of human diversity—like culture or biology. In my future classroom, I want to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach and focus on helping each student shine by using their unique strengths. I’ll create flexible learning spaces with hands-on options, use assistive technology to support different needs, and make sure all students feel valued. Tools like AI will help me personalize learning, give real-time feedback, and uncover hidden talents. My goal is to build a classroom where every student can succeed by being exactly who they are.

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UDL for School Leaders Asynchronous 2024

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UDL for School Leaders Asynchronous 2024

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I already knew that every student learns in their own way, but this reminded me how important it is to plan for those differences. It reinforced that the real challenge isn’t the students—it’s often in how lessons are designed or how the classroom is set up. Learning more about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) helped me remember to keep things flexible so all students have a chance to succeed. It also made me double down on giving students multiple ways to learn and show what they know, instead of using just one way for everyone. This just confirmed that creating an inclusive classroom should always be the goal.

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I had the opportunity to visit Ms Smoots HBio class this week. Students were working on an evolution investigation.  The student predators had various adaptations to capture prey. Teams of students then tracked their ability to amass resources survive and pass on their genes to the next generation.  The gamification of the concept allowed students to see the consequence of Biological fitness. 

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I had the opportunity to visit Ms Smoots HBio class this week. Students were working on an evolution investigation.  The student predators had various adaptations to capture prey. Teams of students then tracked their ability to amass resources survive and pass on their genes to the next generation.  The gamification of the concept allowed students to see the consequence of Biological fitness. 

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End-of-week exit tickets asked students to share what they had learned, what they were most proud of, and how they felt about the lesson. Many students are reluctant to share, but a few offer insight into their thinking and feelings. The ones who share can be brutally honest, particularly if they reflect on what they feel about the lessons, how I did as their teacher.

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This sounds like a tool that can come in handy for all of my classes - especially Dual Enrollment as they keep Journals

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It was wonderful! Thank you!

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good to know about it... several possible uses

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Lots of ways to help students with organization and options to help with grading.

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Interesting tool for the classroom and personal use! ;)

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I attended the Keep PD and came away with various of ideas of strategies to help students. I was thinking about the transcription ability of the AI in particular for historical documents. 

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I attended the Keep PD and came away with various of ideas of strategies to help students. I was thinking about the transcription ability of the AI in particular for historical documents. 

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I'm shocked I haven't used this more! Such a great tool to use for so many different learners and staff personalities. I can see this being very beneficial for athletics as well with collaboration and teaching out student-athletes who struggle with Executive Functioning and keeping track of their assignments.

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I really enjoyed learning about Google Keep. I was not familiar with it at all. My brain is spinning with all of the cool tasks that I can do with Keep.

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I like how Google Keep automatically syncs between devices! The text transcription and voice-to-text feature can help students access class content. However, I would have to overlook not having "folders" to organize my items in Keep.

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In my personal development class, I used an open-ended discussion question to encourage social conversation. I asked, " What job should we never trust a robot to do?" This question sparked a debate among my students, sharing their ideas about what roles we should and should not trust robots with. In addition, students defended their stance and argued opposing viewpoints with various books, movies, and technology references. Myself and IA only talked to ask follow-up questions, such as "why" or "tell us more" to continue engagement in the social conversation. We had all students participate, the discussion lasted for over 30 minutes, and my teacher-talk-time was no more than a total of 5 minutes. This random, open-ended question sparked a conversation that became student-led and driven, and was very cool to hear!

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Listening to the podcast about improving attendance during the first block made me think that since 1st block does have a unique attendance problem, it isn't a bad thing to offer those students a unique set of solutions/alternatives. I think offering more choices, more alternatives to presentations can be a meaningful way to help get them to school. As I listened however, I also realized that many of their proposals will not work here since we are required to have common assessments across our classes and teams. The volume of IEPs and accommodations also makes it a challenge for me to have multiple lesson options available since I also have to have the supporting accommodations then available for every option they may pick.

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Keep can be used as a tool/app to support executive functioning skills to students as they integrate assignments across core classes.

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This will be helpful for IB students keeping track of their IA tasks and to do lists. It might also be helpful to keep track of their ideas as they do research since they can drag and drop in Google docs later. It would be important to label their work by IA.

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I had no idea this existed so I will be going through some of the resources that have been provided. Lots of cool options to use in the classroom to help with a variety of things. Lots to learn!! :)

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Google Keep is new new to me so I found the PD to be very informative. There was some things that were a little confusing but it was explained in a simple yet funny way. Thanks for the help.

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Too often we reach out to parents with negatives... it is nice to consider reaching out with positives. Parents appreciate this, and when communicated to students I think it reinforces those positives. Win win.

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I spent the lunch block with 3 students (from different classes). We chatted about everything from prom to cute cat pictures. Two of the students (juniors) are friends one was a freshman from another class. They did not all know each other but it was nice to have a fun conversation that wasn't about classwork. I will definitely plan to do it again.

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That was a great video about parenting and how to change our perspective of " troubled" kids.

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Why school refusal may not be what it seems

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Why school refusal may not be what it seems

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Great podcast! Dr. Emily King discussed understanding the underlying causes of school refusal as an active choice, might be sensory environment or anxiety.

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This research gave me tons of information about what should be considered for a special education ( althogh I think it works for every general classroom) visual,sounds,touch and feel, smell, and movement classroom screening tool.

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Tackling Chronic Absenteeism by Asking Students What They Need

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Tackling Chronic Absenteeism by Asking Students What They Need

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Interesting information from students' sights, why they are absent from some classes more than others classes.

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Having students write to other students is a way for me both to get feedback about the course that isn't directly about me and thus the students may be more honest, but it's also a way of seeing the course from their POV. For example, something that came up with students was the idea that our term paper was significantly more challenging than anything else we do in class. I thought that that had been made clear to them to be part of the design of the class but from their pov, it came off like an oversight. That can help me better set kids' expectations about the workload next year.

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When I was in Great Beginnings, one of the instructors shared a strategy that I've found immensely useful and emotionally rewarding. He said that he makes it a point to take a few minutes out of his week each Friday to send a positive note to parents of a student that is doing well. Not only is that rewarding for the parent and the kid, but it also helps the teacher stay even-keeled, so we're not always sending out negativity. I also found that doing this helped with parents' trust because when I do send a negative message to someone that previously got a positive one, the parent knows that I'm not all about negative interactions; I send praise as well.

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A good alternative way to use IXL for skills review. Breaks the routine and reduces avoidance behavior.

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Had multiple positive conversations with parents this past week and even had a couple that started negatively, but finished positively.

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I have been using Talking Points and phone calls more regularly this year to share positive feedback about students. One parent told me that she slept better that night because I shared that her daughter had just written her best paper of the year and how proud I was of her growth. Another parent responded that she could see her child's development over the two years that she's been in my class. Quick emails and talking points messages make a huge difference!

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I implemented a workshop day for my analysis 1 students. Students had the option of watching videos, doing practice problems on deltamath, reading my notes + key, or circling back to previous content to consolidate their knowledge to learn the new day content. (John LaRose)