Learning+Space

Challenge

Maria Pratt is a special education teacher at Columbia School in Los Angeles. She has been teaching in this school for 10 years in many classes including inclusive classrooms with students with different disorders. This year she is feeling very challenged because she has to teach mathematics considering the wide-ranging needs of the 25 students in her class. She knew it was going to be very difficult. The list of students with special needs included ADHAD(Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder), gifted and Asperger Syndrome. So many of these students have learning disabilities and difficulties to be focused on a subject. The main problem is also to teach mathematics. The students in general don’t like mathematics and have real problems with the subject, even those who don’t have discapacities. So it was going to be a real challenge, not only to try to find a way to get all these different students concentrated, but also to teach them the most difficult subject. The double challenge excited her and she had to find a solution.

Solution Maria Pratt had a real good friend whose son suffered from Asperger Syndrome. He is really gifted, but has strong social problems and difficulties to concentrate. He can focus on a particular matter during a long time, but can’t change it easily. It is difficult for him to focus, but when he is concentrated, he can stay concentrated during a long time. One day, when she was at her friend’s home, she saw her son playing on a video game and wondered about his long concentration. She has been thinking about it and thinks it would be a good idea to integrate video games into the classroom so to help people to focus on mathematics problems. This solution includes multiple forms of representation, because Maria includes different games at different levels. These games are really diverse and care about focusing people on the game. The way of representing mathematical problems are very different. It also involves technology because computers and video games are used.

Final: Maria is amazed how easily her students are improving. Those who had problems to focus now can stay hours and hours on the computer solving mathematical problems. The kids who have Asperger Syndrome can now go over their social problems and create their own technological world including mathematics. Technology helps Maria to adapt the methods to each students with the computer and the game. Maria has done it. The students learn a lot, understand everything and enjoying being in class. They also forget their attention problem. Mathematics, now, for them, is all about fun. The challenge has been solved: a new way of education: learning and enjoying.