College exclusively for neurodivergent students
An assistant professor working in a college specifically for neurodivergent students has embedded a variety of inclusive teaching practices.
Examples of these integrated teaching practices include a sensory area with a hand maze where students can go if they feel overwhelmed, and flexibility over deadlines and software for reading data and lab instructions. Designing learning to be inclusive for all students provides support across the wide range of types of neurodiversity. This enables student learning by helping them feel emotionally safe in their environment and allowing them to focus on and progress through learning materials at their own pace.
Each inclusive element supports students in different ways and helps to reduce anxiety, allowing them to focus exclusively on learning. A flipped classroom model means students access learning materials prior to lectures, enabling shorter lectures and more independent exploration in labs. Students arrive at lectures with their questions in hand, providing opportunities for classroom collaboration and leadership. The learning space is used flexibly, meaning students can return later or the following day to continue, without the disruption of other students if they work better individually. Offering flexible deadlines and the ability to submit 鈥榙rafts鈥� for formative assessments is particularly helpful for students with executive function challenges. These students may prefer not to submit work, rather than to submit and be judged on incomplete work. Assessing 鈥榙raft鈥� work provides them with a safety net to submit something, even if they don鈥檛 end up making any further revisions. A condensed teaching schedule of 12 weeks within a 15-week semester provides in-built catch-up time.
The assistant professor is continuing to develop this inclusive teaching environment, in which students rarely have to request adjustments formally because they鈥檙e already anticipated in proactive approaches to teaching. The college also continues to explore ways in which technology designed for addressing needs relating to physical disabilities can be used to support neurodivergent students.
Most students don鈥檛 request a formal accommodation because we鈥檙e typically doing everything they need because we've built in the accommodations to both the class and lab.