…And Then What?
Considerations about problem solving in education for students with learning challenges
I love problems.
I should probably restate that- I like solving problems. While this skill set benefits me in some cases, like helping students in my school, it can also backfire. I’ve been told that I don’t need to solve every problem that arises, but that’s a story for another time.
Depending on where you work, your school likely has a team that is charged with helping teachers support struggling learners. It can be a game of acronym salad: IST, RTI, MTSS, CST… they all come back to a team of professionals figuring out ways to support kids who are having trouble learning.
I was told that the current iteration of this team is designed to support the teacher, not identify challenges with the student and what they need to be doing. It’s a specific kind of inversion, and I think it makes sense because there is power in talking about what support teacher a teacher needs to reach a struggling student as opposed to fixing something the student isn’t doing well.
There are a myriad of reasons that a student can have challenges with learning. It can be something “organic” in that they have an attention deficit or developmental disability. There can be challenges with vision or hearing. There can be harder to diagnose (at least using standard school based measures) challenges like dyslexia. In the field of speech/language therapy, there can be more controversial kinds of challenges like Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD).
Regardless of the challenge, support professionals and teachers must work together to figure out what is slowing learning for a student and then used targeted interventions or compensatory strategies to help going forward.
As educators, when we come to these crossroads, how do we handle it?
More specifically, what kind of questions do we ask?
What process do we use to identify the problem?
How do we identify an appropriate solution and then see if it works?
These are big, gnarly questions that need to be treated with seriousness and respect. Assuming that anyone is going through this process with fidelity and thoughtfulness is dangerous. This is not due to malice, or even something neglectful, but rather because of constraints that exist within the education system. Time, resources, access to knowledge, and capacity all affect the implementation of a solid problem solving and solution creating kind of process.
Time:
Just like everyone, a teacher’s day is limited. There are curriculum constraints (i.e.; you have an hour a day for Math) that stop further exploration of a topic. During the elementary years, there is a purpose to these time limits. There are multiple topics that students need to get through and only so much time. In the world outside of education, there are time limits too, however, some projects require changing the time limits. Maybe today you devote 2 hours to your architectural project and answer less email or push a meeting to another day.
In education, you either have the time limited periods of middle school and high school or the prescribed blocks of time of elementary school. With teacher discretion you can sometimes extend a lesson or plan a day to work through parts of a longer term project. However, there’s less flexibility to say- we are doing this for awhile, now, and we will get to the other topics or lessons when we get to them.
In the book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World,” the author Cal Newport makes an argument for the importance of deep work as opposed to shallow work. Deep work requires intense focus for a longer period of time whereas shallow work is not cognitively demanding work that is done with less intensity and even done intermittently with distractions in between.
When you consider the modern classroom, both with the blocks of time dedicated to specific subjects as well as the various distractions that can occur, it follows that deep work would not be a priority.
I am not trying to be ridiculous and make a statement that current educational system needs to be scrapped. I am not saying that an elementary aged student needs to be working through hard topics for the prescribed 4 hours of focused work that productivity gurus would recommend.
On the other hand, I am looking for the synthesis between fresh ideas and what currently occurs in schools. Ideas that circulate around problem based learning would lead me to believe that students need to begin to develop deep work kinds of skills. I can argue that students need to be exposed to more time working on difficult tasks with less distractions. Setting this kind of foundation of both challenge and increased focus would give students a head start into later schooling and work life.
While we can understand the nature of the time limits for teachers, isn’t there something missing in working on hard problems for more than a small set of time? This is even more true when we consider challenges in learning. Isn’t there something to be said for identifying learning challenges in a student and then working with them until they “get” the concept? Put in more deep work when needed instead of glossing over a topic or hoping that the student got it because the curriculum requires you to keep moving through it?
Resources:
Of course, some schools have access to more things that others. It could be hardware, software, or printed teaching programs. It’s a reality that resources are not distributed evenly, and if they were, we can’t guarantee that they would be used (or used well). I am fortunate enough to work in a place where resources are not limited- however, this abundance doesn’t always translate into success for students. There is also something to be said for the nature of limited resources and how that can increase creativity. If you don’t have a lot, you need to be able to make things, or find more efficient ways of getting things done.
This is not an argument to say that low-income areas aren’t being creative or more efficient with their resources. It’s clear from any kind of large scale research that poverty has a significant impact on student’s learning. Not to be too simplistic, it’s a multi-faceted issue that goes beyond what resources there are in classrooms and it’s more about the whole picture of the community, family dynamics, and resources within the school.
My point is that reduced resources can cause educators to flex their creative muscles to get more out of what they have. When educators are stretching themselves in this way, it follows that the outcomes for students would improve as well.
In his new book, “Scarcity Brain,” the author Michael Easter talks about research out of Johns Hopkins University in which participants were shown to use more creative solutions to problems when they were presented with less available resources. We are so used to throwing “more” at a problem when sometimes it makes more sense to use what we have in a different way.
Easter goes on to talk about how the challenge of using existing resources to solve problems (instead of buying something different per se) can lead to feelings of the task being more rewarding, and therefore, more likely to stick in our minds as a true accomplishment. For me, this goes far beyond finding the next new teaching program to help a student and empowering educators to get the job done with what they have- from there, they feel feel even more accomplished when helping students with different learning challenges.
Access to knowledge:
The idea of being a “lifelong learner” is often discussed within my school. Lifelong learners are consistently reading, watching, taking classes, experimenting in their classroom, and trying get better at their craft.
Not every teacher is a lifelong learner.
For whatever reason, and there are many reasons, some teachers grow stagnant. This is not a knock against them as a person, it is just how they handle their work.
Lifelong learners come to table ready to discuss a student and have tried different supports. They are willing to try suggestions. Stagnant teachers want a child to be evaluated for special education. They want support professionals to get involved because the child’s challenges are too great.
Both as a professional, and as a parent, I want students to be with a teacher who is a lifelong learner.
Capacity:
There’s a concept in education circles known as building capacity. This term talks about helping teachers get better at what they do. This can take a few forms, such as training, mentoring, and inter-professional practice. In this way, teachers learn more and/or observe other teachers performing their craft to help improve their practice. You can only read so many articles before you have to put ideas into practice- watching other people do what they do well is a quick way to improve teacher outcomes and build capacity.
A teacher who is more capable can be that frontline of support before needing to ask for help.
It’s clear that there are factors which affect the rank and file teacher- whether it’s resources or building capacity, these factors will have some impact on how a teacher approaches a student with learning challenges.
These factors are important, however we have to examine how schools look at learning challenges in that how do schools approach any kind of problem? Let’s return to the ideas and questions from before:
What kind of questions do we ask?
What process do we use to identify the problem?
How do we identify an appropriate solution and then see if it works?
In my experience, teachers will present general or semi-specific statements about a student. This is when specific questions can be most helpful.
General statements could be something like “trouble following directions”, “doesn’t grasp concepts,” “unclear expressive language,” or “inattentive.” As with any general statement of a problem, we need to drill down. What’s the child’s reading level? What behaviors are noted when difficult tasks are presented? What’s the support level from home? Is there something medical that we are missing (i.e.; vision or hearing challenges)?
Specific data points are critical at this point. We want to see a reading level, scores on tests, or any behavioral data such as what might be collected from a behavior modification approach. Often called a “BMOD” in my school, these approaches will use some kind of token system or delayed gratification model to see if students can maintain some kind of positive behavior instead of using maladaptive behaviors.
When we want to effectively identify the problem and possible solutions is where the idea “…and then what?” can apply. In his interview with Shane Parrish, the author/investor/entrepreneur/professional experimenter Tim Ferriss discussed the idea of “…and then what?” While Parrish describes the idea of bringing in a new email system for a business team, the concept remains the same.
What will our solution involve for both the student and the educational team?
Let’s try working through this concept and asking “…and then what?”
Any specific statements from a teacher should lead to a proposed solution to the problem. I will use the acronym ATW to signify the process of asking “…and then what?”
- It might be observation for a period of time (ATW- there will be more information brought back to the educational team. There will also be a drain on time and resources in that a specialist will be taking time to see this student which could impact other parts of their day. Additionally, any time spent in observation is not time intervening.)
- It could be a specific intervention with a specialist like a speech/language teacher or reading teacher (ATW- intervention begins; good! Right? However, is it the right intervention? Did we define the problem well enough that we picked the right intervention? How long will the intervention be?)
- It could be a time in which special education evaluation is considered (ATW- What will the information from a full evaluation give us that we don’t know already? Is there any advantage to taking this time? Consider that the student will miss time in class and there will be another drain on time and resources for the teachers and evaluators.)
The most crucial distinction at this point is: have we refined the problem with our student well enough that we are able to make the next best decision?
The idea of “…and then what” allows us to be more discerning with the course that we pick. On the other hand, if we don’t have the best information in the beginning of the inquiry, we could be setting ourselves up for more time being misused.
In the final analysis, we need to consider all of the factors involved in helping children with learning challenges. Most importantly, we need to turn the focus from the child per se, and to the supports and the systems around the child.
Teachers need to have resources, desire to be learners, and be given opportunities to build capacity over time. Problems need to be refined beyond the general observation of difficulty learning and brought to the specifics of data, observations in certain tasks, and trying solutions out.
When trying solutions, we need to ask “…and then what?” to ensure that whatever we are picking to help isn’t impossible to manage or not actually helping.
We must do the best with the time that we are given with a student. Through questioning and being discerning with solutions, we can make the best out of a tough situation.
