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Hello and welcome to our latest episode of What In The World is Dyscalculia and I swear
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one of these days I'm going to figure out how to put a music bed at the front of this podcast.
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If you happen to know how to do that you can email me and let me know and then I can figure
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that out.
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I'm Dr. Honora Wall and I'm the host of our podcast which is presented by EduCalc
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Learning.
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You can visit educalclearning.com for more information about the products, materials,
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and training we offer for Dyscalculia, the math learning disability.
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And we have a lot of information both for teachers, parents and students and we're adding
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to that website all the time.
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You can also check out www.thedtri.org for updates on theDyscalculia training and
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research institute.
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But today I want to take this podcast and do a deep dive into one of the accommodations
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I love to talk about which is separating the topics on an assessment.
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So this one is going to be definitely geared for the educators who are listening but for
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parents or students this might help you advocate for this type of accommodation and give
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you some of the reasons why this is very important for students with the math learning
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disability.
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And also for any kind of neurodivergence if students have ADHD or high functioning autism
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executive function or processing speed issues or sometimes with dysgraphia or dyslexia.
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There are a number of reasons why we want to break down our assessments into topics specific
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areas so that our students can really focus on one or two things at a time without being
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overwhelmed.
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When our students get overwhelmed with too much information the brain gets mentally exhausted.
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That's not just the confusion of having too many things to keep straight.
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It's literally a drain on our mental energy, on our reserves.
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It's very difficult and overwhelms our cognitive load and these are the things that make
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those little mistakes happen.
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If you happen to be the kind of grader who's taking half points off here and everywhere,
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thank you for giving the half points where the work is correct.
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But if you're having to take off a lot of those half points, that's a sign that your
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student is either struggling with too much information, just like if you were carrying
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too many things at once and you dropped a couple of things.
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If you would put some of them down, you'd be able to carry them all without dropping
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any.
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Where you might have a student who is having issues with visual spatial things and some of the
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details are getting away from them, but it's a sign that they're becoming overwhelmed
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when they're making lots of little mistakes.
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This topic came up for me because I was just working with a student in an algebra
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two course.
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This student does not have a diagnosed learning disability.
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She just came to me as a struggling math student.
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She may have something that is not diagnosed, but I will keep my armchair diagnosis to myself
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and we'll just talk about this assessment.
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My student had missed a few days of class and she has to retake the assessment when she
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goes back to school.
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We met last week to talk about the notes from class, go over the information, thinking
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that she would take that test the next day.
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Well, as happens, quite frequently, totally normal.
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The test got pushed to a different day and luckily for us, we had time to have a
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second tutoring session.
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That was great.
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We could really cover what we had previously talked about, see how much she remembered,
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how much still made sense, and focus on the things that were left.
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Well, this is where an accommodation would have been great because this test covered
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graphing parabolas in standard form, vertex form, intercept form, converting between
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standard form, vertex form, vertex form, and intercept form, intercept form, and standard
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form, and writing the equation of a parabola just having three different points along
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that parabola.
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Now I know that the teacher was thinking, okay, this all makes sense to go on one assessment
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because all of it involves axis of symmetry, vertex, y-intercept.
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So having the same work to do seems like it should all go on the same assessment.
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Now, the issue, of course, in the reason why I advocate for separating assessments by
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topic, is this.
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If you teach higher level math, you understand what I just said.
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If you don't teach higher level math regularly, then you know, no, what I'm talking about,
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standard form, vertex form, parabola.
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By the time I got to axis of symmetry, you probably had some of that math PTSD, your stomach
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is tying up in a knot.
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You're not sure what this stuff was, you had heard of a vertex before, but vertex form
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and conversion, and you've checked out.
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So knowing that axis of symmetry, vertex, and y-intercept are your important tools that
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can be used for all these different problems, only works if you are so familiar with the
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content that those words make sense, what they look like on a graph makes sense, how
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you find them in an equation makes sense, and then how you manipulate them makes sense.
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As teachers, that makes sense.
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We know what all of that vocab means and that work is that needs to be done, but our students
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are learning.
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I'm going to say that again for the people in the back, our students are learning.
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One more time, just in case it didn't really sink in, our students do not know.
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They are just learning this information, they do not have the level of comfort with this
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vocabulary.
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They do not have the repeated experience working with this vocabulary with numbers and using
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these equations.
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They do not have the repetition to form in their mind, a vision of what in the world I'm
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talking about.
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For the listeners who teach higher level math, the minute I set a parabola and axis
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of symmetry, they were already forming what that looks like in their mind.
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They were thinking about the letter U, they were thinking about where the vertex goes versus
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the Y intercept, they knew exactly what that looked like in an equation and they understood
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the different forms I was talking about.
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That comes from repeated exposure.
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And by definition, our students do not have that repeated exposure.
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That's why they are in our class.
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That's our job.
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We are introducing them to these concepts.
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Now my student was very overwhelmed during both of our sessions.
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She was getting better, she was getting more comfortable, she still wasn't sure exactly
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when to use what form, exactly what was different between vertex form or standard form.
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And then that made her forget things like the negative B instead of just the B value.
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And again, if you don't teach higher level math, you don't even know what I'm talking
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about, which is pretty much how most of the students in her class must have felt because
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the average test score was a 40 for the students who had taken it on that first day.
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Now educators, I know sometimes we teach this stuff and we go over it a million times
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and we can't believe the test scores that come back.
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And it's very demoralizing, it's upsetting, it's aggravating and we're not sure what
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happened.
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And we have a pacing chart we're supposed to keep going so we can hit all our standards
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before the end of the year.
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But if everybody's getting a 40, it's really time to stop and reflect and see what we
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can do differently so that our class has better performance.
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Now, there's a million reasons why students might have bombed a test as an entire class.
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But I will say one potential reason is that there were just too many different topics
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on this assessment from the student point of view.
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The students had a really hard time.
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Obviously, I'm sure my student is reflective of her classmates feeling comfortable feeling
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masterful knowing what they were looking at and when to use these different tools.
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Now I'm talking about an algebra 2 class, but that feeling of confusion and having too many
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tools and not knowing when to use them or how to use them, that is going to be true
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for every single one of our classes, even if you are teaching addition and subtraction
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for you, it is comfortable and familiar.
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And for your students, it is brand new.
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So they are learning when you count on and move forward and get to a larger number for
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your answer.
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Versus how do you know when you're working backwards and taking away and getting to a
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smaller answer?
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And if you then have to put that into a word problem and then if you have to do it in
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this question's adding, this one subtracting, this one is adding, this one's a word problem.
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Now your brain is bouncing back and forth between all of these different topics.
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So please don't think that it's only algebra 2 that's confusing.
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The part that makes it confusing is that it's brand new for students.
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And that's just based on the fact that they are students.
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They are learning for the first time.
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If this teacher had given some instruction and some practice and an assessment on
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graphing from these different forms, she would have had a much better understanding of
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how her students performed on that task using the skill set for that topic.
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Then do some teaching instruction practice and an assessment just on converting between
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these different forms.
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But not with the graphs added in.
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That visual spatial versus equation piece is a huge difference.
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We're talking about very different parts of the brain.
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We're throwing in the numerous scene making sure that we're combining our numbers properly.
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We're throwing in the negative sign, the different letters that are placeholders and
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our equations.
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So there's a whole lot of switching between areas of the brain when we're doing that
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kind of work.
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Frankly, it was obviously just too much for this class.
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And now the teacher really does not know which of the students have mastered any part
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of this lesson.
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She doesn't really know who's good or bad at graphing.
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She doesn't really know who's good or bad at converting between equation form and how
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we write different formats.
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Because she doesn't know if the students struggled with that or if they struggled with
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being overwhelmed or did they struggle with paying attention to the details when there were
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so many other big idea topics to include.
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That'll be true in middle and elementary school as well.
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The more topics you have on an assessment and the more you bounce back and forth between
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question types, the more you are overwhelming cognitive load, you are overwhelming the
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mental capacity of your students and you are not getting accurate information about
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their understanding of the material.
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Your data is flawed.
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Now we need to use data to drive instruction.
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I will save that for a separate podcast, but we can use data to drive instruction if we
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have bad data.
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Our results are only as good as the information we're using to analyze results.
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If you want to know how your students are truly doing, you need to separate those topics.
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You need to either give one topic per assessment or you at the very least need to separate.
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Read a five questions that are just adding.
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Then three to five questions that are just subtraction.
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Then three to five questions that are just word problems.
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And now you can see from those results where your students had mastery and where they
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did not.
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Now of course this podcast is about people who in addition to all of everything I just said
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which is true for every student, they also have a math learning disability that makes
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their prior to low, lose math information over time.
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All of that that we've talked about plus having to remember basic facts plus remembering
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steps and procedures plus remembering out of all these different forms in their head, which
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one happens to be called vertex form, which one happens to be called standard form and how
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do you know the difference?
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That extra added piece is why the accommodations are crucial.
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So calculator use, worked example, reference sheet that says vertex form and has that
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equation, standard form, has that equation so that they can say yes yes yes yes.
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Now I know what I'm doing that's how I need to write it.
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Let me go find out where those numbers come from now.
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That's the kind of accommodation we're looking for.
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Now teachers sometimes you're going to have to make your own assessments if you're going
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to use this accommodation because you might be using a math program or a textbook or a computer
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based or online program that is not separating by topic and you're going to have to step
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in.
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I hate for us to have to do more work, we're already working hard all day, but truly that's
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the only way we're going to know where our students are hearing and understanding what
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we're saying and recalling information in the right way.
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If you have students who have dyscalculia, you have got to use this accommodation where
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you are separating topics on these assessments.
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It's the only way they're going to know exactly what they need to do and do or do not.
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If you give them an assessment that is only graphing parabolas in three different forms
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or only answering word problems or only looking at the slope of a graph, whatever level
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of math you're teaching, that one topic let them perform that skill and then you will
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know whether or not they can do that skill.
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A different assessment has a different topic that way you know whether or not they have
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that skill.
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Fixing them all together, very, very bad move outside of the world of dyscalculia.
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If you're finding that there's a topic that your entire class is bombing, try this out,
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try separating out your assessments and get some more refined information and then you'll
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know where your students really are.
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So that was a lot of talk about one topic assessments and what are some of the ways our assessments
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can support or act as a barrier to student success.
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I'd like you to try this out.
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Let me know how it goes in your classroom, email me, hanoa at educalclearning.com, find
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educalc learning on Facebook or on LinkedIn and message me through there and let me know
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what happens in your classroom or with your students.
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If you're a parent or you are a student with dyscalculia, ask for this as an accommodation
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that your assessments have limited topics and direct straightforward instruction.
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And let's see whether or not that makes a difference.
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In my experience, it always makes a positive difference.
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So let me know how it goes for you.
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I'm Dr. Honora Wall with educalc learning and I thank you for being a part of the
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podcast.