This Tasks
Galore Publishing blog entry continues addressing the questions we
ask when designing tasks:
• Does the
task address the student’s educational goals?
• Is the
task multi-modal?
• Does the
task incorporate student’s interests and strengths?
• Is the
task created using visual cues that will be meaningful to the individual
student?
• Are
pieces of the task organized systematically?
• Is the
task designed so that the student can manage it independently?
• Has the
student mastered the task?
We addressed the first
question in the blog entry on July 13, 2016, the
second question in the blog entry on August 9, 2016, the
third in the entry on September 18, 2016, the
fourth in the entry on October 23, 2016 and the
fifth on January 15, 2017. This
entry will discuss the fifth question:
Independence
We spend time assessing skills and,
then, adapting tasks because we want our students to complete assignments
independently. They feel proud when they can do something all by themselves.
After designing structured tasks, watch your students and see whether they can
complete these without help. If not, think about new or prerequisite skills to
teach or ways to restructure the task so they can manage both the skills and
the task independently.
One of this student’s goals was to learn to measure.
Here,
he is to match the measuring cup to the appropriately labeled container, fill
the cup with the proper amount, pour into the container, and replace the
matching lid. His teacher observed, however, that the step with which he was
not yet independent was filling the containers with the correct amount.
He needed to level the amount in the
cup to get the proper measurement. The teacher’s physical assistance and verbal
cues were not helping him learn this step. She, therefore, decided to design a
task to teach the concept of a level portion in a measuring cup.
In
the new task, he looked at pictures of measuring cups and decided whether the
amounts were leveled off or rounded. This teaching step helped him return to
the measuring job, fill the cup, and level off the amount. His teacher’s taking
the time to teach this concept enabled the student to become independent in
using measuring cups.
During writing assignments, another
student needed continual reminders about putting spaces between his words. His
teacher made a spacer out of a tongue depressor with a favorite character sticker
attached. The student then independently used this visual tool to monitor his
word spacing in writing assignments. Eventually, his teacher realized that he
learned the routine of spacing his words and no longer needed this visual cue.
This is a clever task design that allows students to work
independently without their teacher’s overseeing the work. After students
finish this independent work, their teacher checks whether the spiders they
sorted by color fell into the correct cups mounted under each slot.
Continually assessing students’ performance, the teacher
notes if any student makes multiple errors. If that is the case, the task is
redesigned so, perhaps, only two colors are used or objects are used instead of
pictures.
