Date
23 March 2024

Support self management and independence

Suggestion for implementing the strategy ‘Enable access and participation in learning’

Teach how to use supports and options effectively

Teach how to use supports and options effectively

Provide students with the tools, options, and supports they need to develop self management skills.

Ensure all students know what’s available and how to use resources effectively.

Explore more ideas to support self-management in the UDL guide.

 

  • Task instructions that they refer back to at any time.
  • Visual breakdown of the steps needed to complete a task.
  • Agreed signal for getting support from the teacher.
  • Access to workspace options that support attention, concentration, and collaboration.
  • Access to a quiet space to calm down, pause, or recharge.
  • Access to learning tools that support planning and thinking (for example, graphic organisers).
  • Access to spare pens, pencils, paper.
  • Access to power outlets to charge devices.
  • Access to curated toolbox of online tools including links to text-to-speech tools, glossaries, graphic organisers, essay sentence starters.

Offer different learning spaces

Offer different learning spaces

Steve Collis describes organising physical and virtual caves, watering holes, and campfires.

Students can then make considered choices to match their preferences and needs.

Use visuals

Use visuals

Visuals can reduce student frustration and support independence.

They are a simple alternative to repeating yourself all day.

They also help students to see what you mean.

Reduce stress at circle or listening time

Reduce stress at circle or listening time

Teachers need to consider the amount of time, and why, they are expecting students to sit still, be quiet, and listen.

This does not come easily for many children, including older students, and can trigger behaviour that interrupts learning.

Consider making available:

  • an inflatable cushion that allows students to wiggle a bit while remaining seated on a chair or the floor
  • hand fidgets that keep hands busy and out of trouble
  • a time timer which can help students “keep it together” by giving them a visual cue about how much longer they are expected to be quiet or focus on a given task
  • a weighted lap pad or weighted vest or blanket to provide calming sensory input as well as a physical cue to stay in place.

Source: Sensory Smarts (opens in a new tab/window)

Self-assessment

Self-assessment

Are these strategies emerging, partly in place, or established in your practice?

Illustrate your response with examples from your own teaching

  • Use charts, visual calendars, colour coded schedules, visible timers, and cues to increase the predictability of regular activities and transitions.
  • Encourage students to use their mobile devices to schedule alerts and reminders for regular and novel events and task deadlines.
  • Offer stickies to remind students of tasks or what to do next.
  • Teach mnemonics to prompt memory and the retrieval of important concepts or approaches they can use.
  • Model and make available graphic organisers and flowcharts to support planning and thinking in all curriculum areas.
  • Break tasks and lengthy assignments into small manageable parts. Schedule workflow using tools such as Trello to organise what needs to be done and when.
  • Provide options so that students can submit work online.

Useful resources

Useful resources

Website

Timeline tools

Summary of tools to create timelines using web and mobile devices.

Publisher: Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

Visit website

Website

Visual task schedule

A UDL-aligned collection of visual class and individual visual schedules. Use as a reference to create your own.

Publisher: Goalbook

Visit website

Website

Avoiding sensory overload at school

Read time: 11 min

This chapter from the book, Raising a Sensory Smart Child, by Lindsay Biel and Nancy Peske offers practical suggestions to reduce sensory overload in the classroom.

Publisher: sensorysmarts.com

Visit website

Next steps

More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Enable access and participation in learning”:

Return to the guide “Behaviour and learning”

Guide to Index of the guide: Behaviour and learning

Strategies for action:

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