Adapting for Students who Require Additional Support within the Classroom

At the beginning of every semester, teachers start out with fresh class lists and the anticipation of a great year. After about the first three weeks, many teachers are beginning to worry about students who seem to be struggling. Teachers will recognize these students as they are often

• trying to take down notes but falling behind

• trying to organize their notebooks but being unsure of where to begin

• exerting the effort it requires to keep up but continually falling just short of success

Most classes include a percentage of students who seem unable to handle the course material as it has been prepared. These students will inevitably require additional support within the classroom.

What To Know

Students who require additional support within the classroom, are usually struggling with cognitive load.

Cognitive load essentially refers to all of thinking a person is required to do at once.

Students who struggle with cognitive load become unable to achieve success when they are overloaded with information and tasks.

For example, a student who requires additional support may struggle when asked to write a summary of an interpretive essay. The student will be working to understand the information presented, the difficult vocabulary, the author's purpose and the proper way in which to write the summary. Once the student has experienced this type of information overload, often he will become frustrated and simply avoid finishing the assignment.

For this reason, it is essential that teachers adapt their instruction in order to limit situations where the information may become overwhelming for students.

Our Resources

Within our pages on adaptive dimension, we have tried to provide teachers with some practical suggestions regarding the adaptation of curriculum content and instructional process within their classrooms.

To view activity suggestions for adapting classroom instruction and curriculum content for students who struggle, click on the links below. Each of the pages presents an activity from one of the lessons on this website and suggestions for how to adapt the activity for struggling students.

• Classroom Instruction

• Curriculum Content
  - Activities
  - Assignments

Making changes within your classroom to avoid information overload will ensure that more students have the chance to achieve success!

Additional Resources

For more information on topics discussed on this page, please click on the links below.

• Cognitive Load - definition of cognitive load

• Explicit Instruction - philosophy and strategies of explicit instruction

• Plain Language - definition and specific strategies

• Bloom's Taxonomy - Bloom's six levels and sample questions for each level