By Don C. Johnston
When I was little, my grandmother came to visit. She had been a teacher, so my mom wanted me to read to her. Grandma was sure that she could fix my problem. She would smile and teach me a word, but five minutes later — BAM! — the word was gone from my head. Now Grandma looked worried, and I was scared. What was wrong with me? From Building Wings
My Story
I struggled in school until the 8th grade when my teacher, Mrs. Tedesco, encouraged me to find new ways to learn. This was a significant turning point in my life and changed my outlook for success. The question of, “What was wrong with me?” became “Why do I learn differently?” and since then, my life has been a quest to find the answer, not only for myself, but for students, parents, and educators. In 2006, when I wrote Building Wings, about my own learning struggles, I had no idea I would receive hundreds of letters from educators and students, relating their own learning struggles.
Today’s Learners
When we think of a class of learners, we imagine a teacher standing in front of the room presenting information. Some students are bored, some engaged, and others lost. So much of what happens in the learning process focuses on teaching to the average student, but the bell curve has deflated with fewer students in the middle, making our educational dilemma more about “how to connect” with students regardless of diverse abilities and various backgrounds. This is a challenge at best.
According to the Twenty-Fourth Annual Report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Education, more than 40 percent of our 55 million students attending K-12 public schools are underperforming in literacy. Reading Next reports that 70 percent of middle and high school students have problems comprehending what they read and require differentiated instruction to achieve a better success rate. Let’s take a closer look at the life of a struggling learner and explore strategies to help them reach their optimal learning potential.
Quest for Learning in New Ways
Imagine a future where students who have diverse learning needs will have the opportunity to learn and love learning. Throughout my college education, I took every neuropsychology and neuroanatomy class I could find to understand how the brain works in the learning process. I wanted to know what happens when we fail to learn. My education in the 1960s and 70s offered few answers. It wasn’t until early 2000 that I read Dr. Sally Shaywitz’s book, Overcoming Dyslexia, and began to comprehend how the brain functions. Dr. Shaywitz looked at MRI brain scans of normal readers and those who had dyslexia. She found that “normal” readers have a greater amount of neural activity versus those that struggle to read. She also determined that with the right approach, positive self-image, and extended reading time, dyslexic learners can become successful readers. Dr. Shaywitz’s work showed me that there is a physical difference in the way my brain is wired compared to “normal” learners. When I look back, I recognize that in the 8th or 9th grades, I finally received the right learning supports to stimulate neural activity in my brain for learning.
The New Science of Learning—Brain Networks Primary Role
After reading Dr. Shaywitz’s work, I started learning about the work of my colleagues at CAST (The Center for Applied Special Technology) in Wakefield MA. They developed a concept called Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The foundation of UDL is that it is not the student who is the problem, but it is the curriculum that needs to change.
UDL is a relatively new educational framework in 21st century learning. It is a scientific method to provide “equal access” learning approaches to effectively meet No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements of today’s student population. Using the concepts of UDL, today’s classrooms can be transformed into a learning environment to support all types of learners. The term Universal Design originated in the field of architecture and represents radical changes in the way buildings were designed to assist people with disabilities.
CAST uncovered specific learning approaches to improve the quality of learning for everyone. These principals draw on effective teaching strategies integrated with teacher-friendly technologies and multiple learning modalities to serve all students. A UDL curriculum includes a rich array of teaching materials and alternative paths of instruction to help students make learning connections to subject matter using cognitive abilities and learning styles. UDL underscores the fact that we all need different learning approaches. It is a research-based set of principles that form a practical framework for using technology to maximize learning opportunities. “We have identified three common brain networks and the role they play in a student’s learning process,” shares Dr. David Rose, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Cognition and Learning at CAST. “Identifying this process allows us to effectively design and deliver instructional programs to address students’ needs who learn in different ways, whether they are in special education, general education or come from differing cultures, backgrounds, and socio-economic levels. In short, UDL places the responsibility for adapting to diverse learners’ needs where it belongs: on the curriculum rather than on students. A universally-designed approach is the most practical way to deliver on the promise of NCLB for all students without exception.”
The primary brain networks identified by CAST in their efforts to understand the student learning process are:
- Affective Networks (how we become engaged and motivated)
- Recognition Networks (how we identify what we see, hear, and read)
- Strategic Networks (how we organize and express ideas)
These three networks (affective, located in the center of the brain; recognition, located in the back of the brain; and strategic, located in the front of the brain) synergistically interact to form strong learning neural networks. How we build these neural networks in our students’ brains depends primarily on how we present and deliver the curriculum to students during the learning process.
Affective Network
I believe that the affective network is the most important brain function because it regulates motivation and positive feelings. Without this neural stimulation, learning does not occur. Student engagement and motivation is highly dependent upon how a student feels about himself or herself—how he or she is challenged, excited, or interested. These are affective dimensions—the "why" of learning.
One day, Mrs. Arns wrote the letters H – O – W on the board. Then she asked me, “Don, what is this word? ” I stared at the word. I had no idea. “Pay attention, Don,” Mrs. Arns yelled. “You are so lazy!”
From Building Wings
When I got out of graduate school, my first job was involved in starting an alternative school. This was in the early 1970s when students could be dismissed from school for behavioral problems. The first thing we did was ask a new student to read to us. We discovered that 80 percent could not read. The school was so caught up in their behavioral problems that they didn’t realize the fundamental problem was a learning problem. Yes, there were other fundamental problems (family and environmental), but we decided to focus on the issue of learning.
As students became successful readers, they would help other students who were struggling readers. What a profound experience for these students; the biggest and most troublesome in their last school were now helping other students experience the joy of becoming a reader. It had a powerful impact on their feelings of self worth. With these positive feelings and a will to learn, they became successful. Educators came from many places to see this unconventional school where kids sat in beanbag chairs or in non-conventional school desks. Each student chose the best learning environment and technologies for them. They were frequently in small group discussions or tutoring situations with another student. We felt that if we could get a new student hooked on learning in the first two weeks, we had a 95 percent chance of them graduating with a GED (general education development) diploma, and they did!
Mrs. Tedesco turned to me and said, “Don, nice thought.” For one short moment, everything in my world stopped. Nice thought? This was the first time in eight years of school that any teacher had ever given me a compliment…One simple compliment, that’s all it took for me. I had no upset stomach. Heck, I wasn’t even trying hard. Maybe, I can do this, I thought. Now I really started paying attention in class. Now I really did study hard, and every night I spent hours and hours on my homework.
From Building Wings
Strategic Network
The strategic network is responsible for planning and performing learning tasks. This is the area of our brains where we organize and express ideas. Writing an essay or solving a math problem are strategic tasks—the "how" of learning. My nephew, Tim, was born with cerebral palsy and has significant learning problems. He is in his 20s and an avid reader of books that are written at the 3rd grade level with computer supports. As a child, his parents discovered that Tim could remember what he learned if he could create a song or rhyme about it. Tim needed these strategies to remember what he learned.
The way that I had been reading so far wasn’t working, so I decided to try something new. Mrs. Tedesco had taught me that learning was about thinking. When I thought, I put pictures in my head and sometimes I turned the pictures into movies. Maybe this could work for reading, too. In the past, I would try to read each word by sounding out each letter. If I couldn’t read a word, I kept trying until I could. But I read so slowly that I never understood what I read. If I did read fast enough to understand, I couldn’t remember what I read. When I read Breakthroughs in Science, I turned the words into pictures and a movie. If I didn’t know a word, I made a guess at it and kept on reading. It worked!
From Building Wings
So many students think of using strategies as cheating or not doing it correctly. They keep their strategies a secret because they don’t want to be found out. Once I learned that I needed strategies to learn and that was OK, my school life became a laboratory of trying out strategies.
Recognition Network
The recognition network allows us to identify and interpret patterns of sound, light, taste, smell, and touch. We recognize what we already have experienced and learned through our senses. School emphasizes a verbal and language processing experience. The teacher lectures and students read textbooks. For me (and so many struggling students) the verbal side of learning is our weakest modality. Even today I ask, “What’s for dinner?” My wife will tell me and 20 minutes later I will ask, “What’s for dinner?” If I don’t make a picture in my head of what dinner looks like, I forget that I asked the question.
It is not only a visual experience that helps compensate for a verbal deficiency. I went through four years of college and two years of graduate school rewriting my notes from lectures and books with a fountain pen. Not a ballpoint pen, it had to be a fountain pen. The tactile experience of the scratchy movement of the pen on paper helped me to remember what I learned. This was another strategy I used for learning. Today, there are many valuable textile and multi-sensory technologies, tools, and resources to provide students with the added supports and strategies they need to be successful.
“The more I started thinking about what we were studying, the easier it was to remember the facts. Facts began to stick in my head — and I didn’t even have to try to make it happen. Here’s how I would think about things. I would look at a picture in a book and think about it until I could make the picture change into a movie that I could watch inside my head. If we were studying about the Roman army in England, I would look at a picture of a battle. Then I would see the people in the picture start to move until it felt like I was watching a movie. I might see the general of the Roman army riding his horse and telling his soldiers to charge the enemy.”
From Building Wings
Share A Vision for 21st Century Learning
Our educational system changes when we stop looking at students as a problem that needs to be fixed and start looking at how we can differentiate instruction and find creative ways to adapt our teaching to the unique needs of our students. This is how I became a reader: through the encouragement of my teacher, my will to learn, extended reading time, and approaches to learn in new ways. Let’s start with a vision.
- Students think and learn differently and require different learning approaches
- Building background knowledge strengthens students’ comprehension skills
- Struggling learners need guided, step-by-step scaffolding and instruction
- Technologies that work for students with special needs can work for all
- Universal design for learning is a cost-effective approach to serving all kids
- Promoting student self-advocacy is empowering, replicable, and transferable
For references used in this article, visit the EP Web site at www.eparent.com.
Download a PDF of this article
Don Johnston is the founder and CEO of Don Johnston Incorporated. Since 1980, the company has developed a variety of technologies, tools, and instructional models to improve the literacy skills of struggling readers and writers and to support students with special needs. The company also offers a unique UDL facilitator’s kit. Don received his Bachelors Degree in Psychology in 1972 from Kent State University and earned a Masters Degree in Psychology from George Williams College in 1973. In 2006, Don published, Building Wings: How I Made It Through School. Read along with Don here.
