Video
Strategies for Inclusive Science Education
Selma Walsh describes a range of strategies that she has used to include students with visual impairments in science classes within the public school system.
In this webcast, Selma Walsh describes a range of strategies that she has used to include students with visual impairments in science classes within the public school system. Selma is a regular education science teacher who has put a lot of time an energy into developing lessons that are accessible to students with visual impairments.
Presented by Selma Walsh
Length of time to complete: approximately 30 minutes
- Introduction
- Modifications to Enhance Accessibility
- Clouds: A Practical Example of Lesson Modification
- Considerations for Classroom Setup
- Suggestions Around Structure
WALSH: My student who I worked in this school for eight years. And the student who was visually impaired, he was one of my students since kindergarten. So I had him for five years. So I learned with him, and we grew together, and I learned from him what worked and what made science more accessible.
Initially, I started teaching,I would take my old lessons and modify them for the student. And it was taking me an hour to two hours a week to do that. And so then eventually, I just thought, let me try the other way around. I’ll teach with the visually impaired student in mind, or other special needs students. Start with them, and then modify it or tier it up for the typical students.
It took me less time, and it was easier to add on, because then I was starting with a base and just making it more complicated. So I would start with the student with visual impairments, and I would ask myself, how could we do this lesson without describing visually, without describing colors or sorting by colors?
NARRATOR: We see an example of a typical sorting exercise accessible to most students without a visual impairment —the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.
Across the top of the page are four rectangular cards.
From left to right, the cards display two red triangles.
The next card has one yellow star.
The third card has four blue diamonds, and the fourth card three green circles.
The cards are numbered below, 1 through 4.
A fifth card is displayed below the row. On it are three yellow triangles, and there is a question mark below.
If the student is asked to sort by shape, the correct match would be the card with two red triangles, if by color, the yellow star, and if by number of objects, the three green circles.
NARRATOR: Next, we see a bin of plastic pieces in various shapes, sizes, and colors.
Using these shapes, a teacher could create a sorting exercise based on shape or number of objects that would be accessible to a student who is visually impaired.
WALSH:These students were with him since kindergarten. Some of them probably even knew him in preschool. But sometimes, they would argue over who wants to help him. So sometimes, they wanted to help him too much.
I’ve had a few paraprofessionals that I loved working with that would let him be as independent as he possibly could. But every once in a while, you might get a substitute paraprofessional on a sick day or whatever that would help him too much. My whole goal was as much independence as possible. So I would rather have the other students communicate with him as someone their own age than help him, which was nice. If I said today you can pick your partners, they usually would argue over that they wanted to be his partner.
Younger students are really kind and really helpful, and sometimes too helpful, actually. Sometimes, I would discourage them, because I said let him do it. Let him do it himself. He needs to do it himself. Science is messy for everyone, so it doesn’t matter if you have a little spill here or there.
CHAPTER 2: Modifications to Enhance Accessibility
WALSH:Well, when I was trying to decide what lessons I should use as an example, I started asking myself what were the components that were consistent. And it just seemed like structure, structure, structure and model, model, model. And I even found that when I was working with the students, if the students showed up late for whatever reason and I skipped the demonstration or I skipped the models, then they were totally confused.
So then I finally just embedded in my brain — model, model, model. No matter how old they are, you have to model everything in the sense — actually showing them how to do an activity, but also in using physical models so that they can touch it, feel it, see it.
I had a very specific situation that I remember being like the epiphany. It was teaching life science for first and second grade. So when he was in first grade, the students were learning about classification of animals. And I used to have this activity where they sorted picture cards of animals. And they would look at the cards, and first they would sort by number of legs the animals had, or they would sort by how does the animal move. And this is all before they received scientific classifications, before they know what a mammal is or before they know what a fish is.
When this little boy was in the classroom, I went out and purchased plastic animals for him to sort. And the other students were envious and asked when they would be able to use the animals. So I ended up finding buckets of smaller version animals, and they were able to sort the plastic animals with their cards.
NARRATOR:The following video clip shows Selma Walsh displaying a box of the picture animal cards and several of the plastic animals that she bought for her visually impaired student to use. The animals include a giraffe, an elephant, a whale, an alligator, and a shark.
WALSH:They are good for characteristics like number of legs, or possibly how the animal moves, but not so great for the covering of the animal, because this is not real fur. So you might need larger animals for other characteristics. But these are definitely great for sorting and organizing by number of legs and how does the animal move.
So at the time, my visually impaired student, he wasn’t reading and writing. That was in first grade. So he would basically sort the plastic animals in the different categories.
When he got into second grade, I had another activity which was about habitats. It’s for life science. They study habitats. What I use as stations– stations is another one of my favorite ways of structuring the classroom. So I use the stations, and at each station was a different habitat. And again, we were using cards, visual cards that had descriptions of the animals in the habitats that they lived in. And the students would have a different habitat for each table with posters and artifacts. And they would have to go and put the animal habitat cards in the correct habitat.
So for this little boy with visual impairment, I gave him bucket of plastic animals. And because it worked well in first grade, I ended up giving all the students, say, five or six little plastic animals in a bucket plus five or six research cards. And they would go from habitat to habitat and find which habitat did the animal live in. Table number 1 would be ocean. Table number 2 would be desert, and so forth.
And then what I also added for the habitat lesson was cues for the visually impaired student, tactile cues. So the aquatic habitat had a bucket of water. The Arctic habitat had a bucket of ice. The desert habitat was a bucket of sand I had branches and small trees for the forest habitat. And then I had either real grass or a layer of artificial grass for the grassland habitat.
These were cues. But the cues worked for all the students, and they all wanted to put their hand in the sand, and they all wanted to rub the grass. Yes, I’m in the grassland. That was another situation where it started out with visual cues, and I switched it to tactile cues for the visually impaired student, and then all the students were so excited and so happy to visit the habitats.
CHAPTER 3: Clouds: A Practical Example of Lesson Modification
WALSH: So I became extremely creative, starting with the visually impaired student. How can we include him in this concept of clouds that out of 12 weather lessons, it could take three or four of the lessons just on clouds? Because it’s a tough concept for all children. And so I came up with many strategies for modifying the cloud lesson.
NARRATOR: In a video clip, Selma Walsh describes the modifications she used to teach visually impaired students about clouds.
WALSH:This is a typical cloud sheet for first grade.
NARRATOR: She holds up a sheet of paper that has illustrations of three types of clouds — cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. There is a space beside each illustration to create a tactile representation with cotton balls.
WALSH: What you can do is take cotton balls and stretch and glue the cotton balls in the shape of the clouds as a tactile model.
I also found inflatable clouds are awesome for shape.
NARRATOR: 
Selma Walsh holds up two small, white, inflatable clouds — one with a low horizontal profile, the other a more vertical shape.
WALSH: So you have a stratus cloud and a cumulus cloud. You have to explain to the visually impaired student that there’s no plastic in the sky. But if you peeled away the plastic, the condensed air with the moisture would make the cloud.
NARRATOR: On a desk in front of Selma is a shallow blue plastic tray, in her hands a can of shaving cream.
WALSH: I’ve also made shaving cream clouds. You could fill the tray with water. The water represents the air, and the cloud floats in the air, just like the shaving cream floats on the water. And the cloud — the shaving cream cloud could be in your hand. It’s light. It’s fluffy. it’s wet. So it’s just a little heavier than a real cloud.
And the last one was a solar bag. This is a whole class activity. It’s 25 to 50 feet long.
NARRATOR: She holds a box that contains the solar balloon she describes.
WALSH: You fill it with air. When the sun heats the solar bag, the solar bag rises. So again, if you peeled away the plastic, the condensed air with the moisture inside would be like a cloud.
Oh, and when I do my demonstrations or my modeling, I would also give the paraprofessional who was his aide a copy or duplicate materials so that while I was talking to the whole class, he would be able to feel the materials and become familiar. So he didn’t do the actual lesson at that point. He was just becoming familiar with the materials.
I would say and explain and model the activity for the day, but then he would be touching, feeling, and being engaged in the introduction as well.
CHAPTER 4: Considerations for Classroom Setup
WALSH: Each class started the same way. The students were in a single file in the hallway. They line up. They come into the classroom, and they would sit on the edge of the rug in the order that they entered the classroom. There was a spot for the student who was visually impaired, and that remained open. Because sometimes he was early, and sometimes he was late, or sometimes he didn’t show up at all.
And if that spot was squeezed out, then there was arguing among the other students as to who was going to sit in that spot, but also because if he showed up late, then he could come in, and he would know exactly where to sit and that that was available for him. And there was no anxiety on his part as far as where am I going to sit, who am I going to sit next to.
I actually started that process before I even was working with him. Because the students would fight over where they sit. I labeled before I had autistic children in the classroom. I labeled before I had a visually impaired student in the classroom. But I always labeled just with picture numbers. So each table was numbered.
I had 500 students. So that also helped, because I didn’t always know everyone’s names. So each table was numbered. Each chair was numbered. And if I were going to distribute jobs, I could say all the number 1s are going to be getters today. All the number 2s are going to clean up. I could say number 1, it’s your job to use the large hole screen, number 2, middle hole screen, and number 3, the small hole screen. All the number 4s will be getting water and using a funnel.
So I could specify jobs just by saying chair number without having to memorize everyone’s name. But with the visually impaired student, I had to modify the labels. When he learned Braille, they could be written in Braille. When he didn’t know Braille, when he was in kindergarten and first grade, we would use self stick foam shapes. So each table could have a different shape. Or you could have raised pictures of scissors where the scissors were.
I worked with his teacher. He had a special teacher that would help me modify the labels. So the labels existed, but then they had to be modified so that he could recognize them. Again, before he could read and write, it had to just be by shape, by texture. And then when he learned Braille, we started making all the labels in Braille.
I labeled materials that they had to use on a regular basis, if that were scissors, the pencil sharpener, tissues. And then we would practice our routines in the beginning of the year. So I would use a simple activity and practice the routines. They knew what the general structure was for the lessons and for the classroom.
The lessons aren’t exactly the same, but the routine is predictable. They’re just more engaged. And sometimes, they even finish your sentence for you. Or the children will tell you you forgot to do XYZ, or that’s not usually where you do that.
I found that in my experience, when I would try to shortcut and leave out modeling or leave out labels, it was confusing for the students. And then sometimes, it was hard to pick up the pieces and go back.
CHAPTER 5: Suggestions Around Structure
WALSH:I always stood in the same spot. I always would stand in front of my lab table at the end of the rug, give a 10-minute introduction. So the introduction would be either a short story, a review of the previous lesson, or it would be an enquiry question. My student who was visually impaired as well as the other students, they knew it was time to calm down and listen, that I’m ready to begin. But also, he knew where my voice would be coming from. I thought that was very helpful. And to have either a key word or a bell or something that told the students when it was time to transition, or when it was time to change stations or go back to their seats.
We also practiced these routines in the beginning of the year. We practiced walking into the classroom. Sometimes, we’d go back out into the hallway three or four times before they knew what the routine was going to be. We practiced changing stations. We had a scavenger hunt in the beginning of the year. So they had to find where the materials they would be using would be found.
Setting up stations, again, I would say, is my all time favorite strategy for structure. What would happen is each station would have a different category from a classification, whether it’s a classification animals, rocks and minerals. It could be plants, anything that you can categorize.
And I would say to the students stand behind your chair. So they’d push in their chair, stand behind their chair. And then I would say point to where you’re going next. So it also helped kinesthetically to know what direction they were moving in the classroom.
And then I would say carefully move. When they got to the next station, they would have to wait for me to say you may begin. So then they would begin the activity, and there would be, say, a 5-minute time frame at the station. And then I would either ring a bell or I would say freeze. But usually, I would say, OK, we’re halfway there, or you have a two-minute warning.
If it was a lesson that was going to take two weeks, they might have 15 minutes at a station. But if it’s a lesson I wanted to complete in 45 minutes, they usually would only have five or six minutes at a station. So when they finish observing, recording, I would say stand behind your chair, point to where you’re going next, carefully move, and then you may begin. So I did this for every single station. So they knew how to move from station to station.
More information about making science and science lessons more accessible can be found on the Perkins e-learning website at Perkinselearning.org/accessible-science.
