The link between AD/HD and executive function

A new post from the Beyond BookSmart blog about AD/HD and EF issues - A great explanation of how these issues are connected!

The Relationship Between Executive Function and ADHD in Children

UDL Redesign Part II: how "disabled" students can teach us to do better design!

Practice Positive Educational Thinking Poster

Barbara Graham Cooper wrote a wonderful dissertation about AD/HD students and college writing classrooms.   If you're interested in how our brains function (and dysfunction!), how AD/HD and other learning differences impact writing, and some history around AD/HD diagnosis and compositions studies, it's worth a read.

Here are some takeaways from Cooper's paper, "At the Brighter Margins: Teaching Writing to the College student with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder".

In this paper she does some great work: interviews current and former college students with AD/HD, digs into definitions of and research on AD/HD, and shares personal anecdotes, quotes and concepts that come right from the students.   Here are some of what I gleaned:

• There is a real lack of research into the issues of college students struggling with LD and AD/HD in particular.   
• A lot of college composition research looks into students who have been underserved or underprepared through social injustice, but there is less work around neurodiversity.
• AD/HD is great to study, because it is sort of a perfect storm of executive function issues.  (Executive Function or EF guides our ability to plan, manage time, act strategically and monitor or moderate emotions.). Students with AD/HD display a lot of the issues that I see in my students: smart students struggling to organize work, synthesize ideas, plan time, or generally turn their good ideas & understanding of a topic into a finished product.  OFten AD/HD students also have a specific learning disorder as well!
• It is not helpful to tell these students to "try harder"...trying is not the issue.
• What is helpful is structure & scaffolding.   Modeling well-done assignments, helping break down, plan & chunk out work, and providing templates and models are really helpful.  (See p. 176 in her article for more elaboration!)
• AD/HD students often are successful when they have found a system that works for them.
• They can "hyperfocus" when they are interested in a topic.

This paper helped me realize that when I talk about UDL, I mean that I specifically want to design for students with EF and LD issues (and also ELL).   Following the UDL concept of "predictable variability," it seems like designing a course with AD/HD students in mind would all students with EF issues (which is to say, more or less all of us :P ).  

This paper also really helped me understand AD/HD students (and my friends!). It doesn't just mean that they are easily distracted or hyper (common stereotypes), but rather that planning and pulling together their thoughts can be a challenge for them...and they have to work twice as hard as a more "middle of the road" person to get the same work done.  So while I might in the past have rolled my eyes at self-descriptors like AD/HD, now it makes me feel real respect for friends (and students) who feel so challenged by some of these tasks...but have managed to get advanced degrees, open their own businesses, etc.  And bringing fun, creativity and energy to the planet as they do it!   

UDL Re-Design Part I: The research begins, and How reading about AD/HD students can revolutionize the college writing classroom

Hi!  So this is Part I of my summer series about re-designing my Critical Reading & Writing course as a blended courses designed around universal design principles.   I am also researching a paper for my UDL course this summer on more or less the same topic.   I was worried at first that I wouldn't be able to find enough sources specifically about UDL & college composition, but I'm feeling optimistic now.   I"m realizing that I can use sources about UDL itself, UDL vs. the medical model, papers from the Landmark Institute (college specifically focused on learners with LD), papers on neurodiversity and online learning, and, best of all, there ARE some papers about college composition, LD & UDL!

I'm also trying to model the process for my students, so I'm trying to be conscious about annotating, note taking, and organizing my paper.   I'll see what kinds of tools I end up using, and perhaps sharing some of them here!

In terms of the papers I've found on UDL & college writing: some are fairly basic, merely describing UDL and laying out a few strategies.  However, I think I hit the goldmine when I discovered this doctoral thesis from 2008 (I'm looking for more recent stuff because of developments in thinking about executive function as well as technology!).   I have so much to say about this paper - not the least of which is that it is elegantly and engagingly written - something I realize I"ve been missing as I'm reading academic papers!   So grateful to Barbara Graham Cooper for this work she did - so far I can't find out anything else about her, which is a shame!

I"m going to try to lay out some big takeaways from this paper (clocking in at 300 pages, which I devoured!), but if you teach writing and are curious about her well-thought-out suggestions for supporting neurodiverse writers - dont' be intimidated!  Follow the link, download the file, and skip right to p. 176.   Cooper's "At the brighter Margin: teaching writing to the college student with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder."  (Just open the link on this page to download the file).

Redesigning Critical Reading & Writing: blending, gamifying, universally designing....

Hi kids, I'm back!

I had a pretty intense injury this spring where I broke 3 fingers (dispersed among both hands), and so I'm still hunting and pecking instead of touch typing.  Please excuse typos!

I'm also diving in to applying what I learned, which means re-designing my writing/reading course to a) function as a blended course (giving working students more options to participate & scaffolding online work)
b) attempting to use this format to incorporate universal design principles - I want to try to figure out how to make my course accessible & friendly to my ridiculously wide range of students.  All Brains Welcome!  (more on this later).
c) attempt to gamify to increase options for student choice in the intensity and content of their work, and to reward affective, non-grades-based achievements (badges, here I come!).
d) attempt to incorporate fun technologies into my assignments to give all different kinds of students ways to express themselves.  (see b).

I'll be researching and writing about this process all summer...interested to see where it takes me and what kinds of roadblocks I run into .... watch as I model a growth mindset!

Do you know of anyone who has run a cool, tech-focused, engaging, or universally-designed writing class?  Especially for college students?  Let me know in the comments!

Tools for teachers - End-of-Semester round up of my favorite teaching tools!

Hi all!

I'm doing a "tool roundup" of current favorite web teaching & collaborating tools..

As a non-tenure track professor, I often feel I don't have the time to go and investigate new teaching tools.  The reward-benefit ratio felt unbalanced - especially if I was looking for something to quickly use in class.  However, taking this instructional design course has helped push me to learn new tools - to my delight, it hasn't been that hard* and actually really *fun* (a word I don't always associate with adjunct composition teaching :/  ).   Can't wait to think about how to integrate some of these into next year's classes!

 *I also learned that for almost any purpose, there is someone out there who has put together a pros/cons or top 10 list of tools JUST for that purpose!

Here's my current faves:

1.  Google docs suite
Why'd you use it: why wouldn't you?!

Some potentially dicey political thoughts...

I just posted about my friend Katie Raddatz's amazing work with mobile technology in her writing classroom.  For any of you that aren't writing teachers, know that the kinds of creativity, engagement and collaboration that are happening in her classroom are, like, lightyears ahead of what most writing teachers are able to offer (including ME!)

I think one takeaway for me is the amount that individual teachers are pushing things forward in terms of technology in higher ed.

One thing that's really sad for me is often how invisible this is within the institution.  In some ways, yes, it's true, invisibility buys us freedom to experiment.  And Katie did receive institutional support in terms of classroom resources.

However, all of her learning - playing with the iPad, consulting with other experts, reading and experimenting, is totally outside of what she's paid for as a non-tenure track (NTT) instructor.  That's right - she did this learning and prep unpaid.

 And for all the work she did and all the cool pedagogical work that's happening in her classroom, not only will Katie not be eligible for a raise or promotion (there is no designated career path for NTT faculty), but just like me, we aren't guaranteed work from semester to semester, (often losing classes because of enrollment at the last minute) and definitely not paid a Boston-level living wage.  Neither of us know if there will be work for us in the fall, and if so, how much.   Doing this kind of development might make us more "marketable" and sure, could lead to more or different kinds of work, (and clearly Katie's been recognized for her expertise within our university) but there's no built-in way to recognize instructors for doing stuff like what Katie's doing - and a lot of us are still living paycheck to paycheck - but still innovating just because we love it so freaking much.  


 How bass-ackward is that, higher ed?

How to engage students in first-year college writing course? - with iPads, of course!

Just completed an interview with my amazing and talented co-worker Katie Raddatz.  A few years ago she took the initiative to start learning about mobile learning and using iPads in her class.

Now, she has a whole cart full of iPads that she uses with her students, and it has transformed her teaching and their engagement in the classroom.

Check out key takeaways and illustrations of how she uses some apps here, at her Prezi: https://prezi.com/uy6s_q--ycl1/ipads-in-the-critical-reading-and-writing-classroom/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

For the full conversation, where we discuss how she got started, barriers she encountered, how she dealt with roadblocks, and how it's transformed her writing pedagogy, check out this interview with Katie on my YouTube channel.

You can contact Katie at Kathleen.Raddatz@umb.edu