Different Paths to Success: An Individualized Approach to Effective Teaching

Abstract

After giving a presentation at a recent conference, I left with an uneasy feeling that some teachers in the audience were hoping to learn the one best way to teach their students. Perhaps everyone who teaches wants to discover exactly how to teach a skill, whether it be braille reading or finding a travel destination. However, this hope can obscure the reality that the best way to learn is not the same for every learner. There can be many good ways to teach a skill, and they may all be effective with different learners, under different conditions. As an example, consider the range of ways in which people typically accomplish a routine task like washing dishes. If you ask friends and colleagues how they wash dishes, you will hear many opinions. Some people wash by hand in the hottest water they can bear, and some insist on using a sponge instead of a dishcloth. Proponents of dishcloths and dishtowels swear by the fact that they wash and dry dishes as their mothers did, defending their choice by the fact that cloth can be tossed into the washer after several uses. Still others believe that only an automatic dishwasher can produce water hot enough to kill germs, and often they rinse every dish before loading the machine. In spite of these strongly-held beliefs, most of us lead full lives that are largely unaffected by our varied choices of dishwashing techniques, aside from occasional debates with family members or roommates. So it is with the methods we use as instructors. A skilled instructor recognizes that a variety of methods can be used to teach a skill. Different approaches may be used, with variations in materials, setting, physical adaptations, motivating factors, and pacing. The best teaching method may be different for individual learners and under various conditions. This issue of the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB) includes a triad of practice items that remind us that one size does not fit all when it comes to teaching. Two Practice Perspectives articles relate the experiences of two teachers who used Diane Wormsley's I-M-ABLE approach, which incorporates meaning and motivation into braille reading instruction. Rachel Schles, a teacher of students with visual impairments in Falls Church, Virginia, describes her successes with Ajay, a boy with autism and decreasing vision, for whom English was a second language. Her success in teaching him braille was clearly related to the use of an approach that allowed her to shape instruction around Ajay's unique characteristics and preferences: he was interested in a tape measure, which became one of his early vocabulary words, and he was motivated to write, so much of his early learning focused on writing stories that focused on meaning rather than precise spelling. Similarly, Jill McMillan, a teacher from Morrisville, North Carolina, had success in teaching her student Kay through the I-MABLE method because the approach could be adapted to the student's individual needs and interests. …