1. Introduction to the Active Learning Approach
Iowa Educational Services for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Summer Institute – August, 2018
Presenter: Susan Brennan, PhD
Materials prepared by Susan Brennan and Cindy White-Botello

2. Introductions & Housekeeping
Who am I?
Who are you?
Scheduled breaks
Your questions are very important to everyone’s learning! So please ask!
How well you know your children helps us develop appropriate AL activities

3. Active Learning Session Objectives
Understand the Active Learning approach
Instruction and Intervention
Examples & Resources
Make & Take

4. Remember Piaget’s Learning Theory?
Learning involves discovery through the manipulation of objects and interaction with people, places and things…..

5. And Piaget’s Stages of Intellectual Development?
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete
Formal operational

6. Many of our kids are in the initial stages…
Sensorimotor Stage:
Using sucking, grasping, and gross-body activities in order to build schemes (make sense/organize) of their lives
Gaining object permanence
“Thinking” with their senses
Solving problems by playing with toys and using everyday “tools” such as a spoon to learn to feed themselves

7. Many of our kids are in the initial stages…..
Preoperational Stage:
Depend on concrete representations
Moving to symbolic representation (such as pictures and language)
Use immediate surroundings as a frame of reference
Accelerate language development and start to internalize (think about) events
Judgments are made based on how things look

8. How does learning take place in these early stages?
Children under the age of 3 constantly move in and interact within their environment
They examine and are motivated to learn by tasting, touching, smelling, listening and looking.
Through this interaction process they learn to use their sensory systems to gather information, coordinate purposeful movement and make sense of their environment.
Piaget learning involves discovery: manipulating objects and interacting with people places and things.

9. Accessibility
This type of “active learning” within an environment that is accessible, is the critical foundation for all learning and all learners.
If you can’t bring child to the environment, take the environment to the child.

10. What does this mean for children with complex sensory disabilities?
Many children fail to develop foundational concepts because they cannot interact independently with their environment
Or they are not aware the world exists beyond their bodies. Their world may extend only as far as their hands, feet or mouth can touch/access
Additionally, stressful life events may severely impair cognitive and emotional development
Realizing there are other things in their environment to be explored is a natural motivator/teacher
Moss, Kate, 2010 Taking a Look at the FIELA Curriculum: 730 Learning Environments by Dr. Lilli Nielsen

11. Active Learning
Is based on the notion all children learn exclusively by doing until the developmental age of about three.

12. Recommendations for the child’s learning environment
Conduct ongoing assessment
Raise the ante; don’t just give the child his/her favorites
Give the child opportunities to practice and/or to compare.
Shush
Do not grab hands
Wait
Children need to be able to repeat an
action many times in order to learn.

13. Active Learning
Dr. Lilli Nielsen offers strategies to advance learning for children who are visually and multiply impaired including deafblindness (MI/VI/DB) by supporting their ability to access information in carefully constructed environments that encourage children to actively learn/explore by doing.
Schafer, Stacy, 2003 An Introduction to Dr. Lilli Nielsen’s Active Learning

14. Awareness and Interest Completion of Learning OR Habituation
Dynamic Learning Circle
Stage 1
Awareness and Interest
Stage 2
Curious and Active
Stage 4
Readiness for a New Challenge
Stage 3
Completion of Learning OR Habituation

15. Active Learning
The actions of examining and experimenting with objects using their bodies, is the foundation for the development in cognitive, motor, problem-solving and social skills.
Moss, Kate, 2010 Taking a Look at the FIELA Curriculum: 730 Learning Environments by Dr. Lilli Nielsen

16. Active Learning
Teacher’s Role - to create environments that build on skills the child already has, to encourage him to use his body and mind for higher-level tasks.
Important to note that before beginning to work with any child, a thorough assessment of his/her skills and emotional development is needed, so that you know where to begin.
Compiled by Rona Pogrund, 2003.

17. Active Learning
If you start too high, you will likely frustrate the child and if you start too low, you run the risk of losing the child’s interest and motivation.
Dr. Nielsen has developed a comprehensive assessment tool, the “Functional Scheme” (Nielsen, 2000), and a curriculum to help teachers called the FIELA Curriculum – 730 Environments (Nielsen, 1999).
Compiled by Rona Pogrund, 2003.

18. Active Learning Includes Research based strategies such as:
multiple trials
slower pacing
clutter reduction
presenting new materials in the “zone of proximal development”
scaffolding
decreased stress
highly structured activities
active participation
increased motivation
Lilli’s work is empirically researched (gained through direct observation or experience) NOT qualitative or quantitative (not systematically approached with enough information/case studies to produce evidence that lends itself to widely held as “evidence based practice”.)
Smith, Millie “Informed Choices: Accountability and Individualization”,
by Millie Smith, TX SenseAbilities,

19. Five Phases of Educational Treatment
Phase I - Technique of Offering
Phase II - Technique of Imitation
Phase II - Technique of Interaction
Phase IV - Phase IV: Technique of
Sharing the Work
Phase V - Technique of Consequence
From: Are You Blind? By Dr. Lilli Nielsen

20. ”Five Phases….” Group Activity
Group activity: divide into 5 groups, each group takes 1 phase. Summarize the following information from each phase to the group from the article:
Children at this level
The role of the adult
Purpose of offering technique
Points that should be emphasized at this level
Other helpful information/insights
Use markers and large sticky pages/paper to post info.

21. ”Five Phases….” Group Activity continued
Consider which phase your student might be at.
Why would you select that level?
Thoughts on picking the “right” level?

22. Designing Instruction
Active Learning equipment to consider once the level has been chosen:
Little room
Dens
Position board
Scratching board
Tipping board
Vest with objects
Resonance board
Resonance bucket
In you same groups, report out on the environments
Schafer, Stacy 2010, Active Learning and the Exploration of Real Objects

23. Set the Stage for Self-Directed Learning
Use the same objects and the same process each time to provide familiarity and security
Find the “hook” for your student – what triggers your student to use his/her vision?
Sound, temperature, texture, smell…
Introduce old and new objects through hands- on experience and verbal description

24. Setting the Stage
Allow plenty of time for the student to see and to respond to what is being seen
If the student is attempting to visually interpret an activity, give him/her the time to process the information. If he/she is interrupted, it is likely that he/she will need to repeat the sensory integration process from the beginning.
Allow breaks

25. Important considerations…
Observe the child
Provide the child with activities and objects similar to those s/he enjoys
Give the child opportunities to practice and/or compare
Provide a few materials and activities that are at a slightly higher developmental level to provide challenge for the child
Group activity AGAIN! Share out and discuss as a group – 7 categories
Moss, Kate, 2010 Taking a Look at the FIELA Curriculum: 730 Learning Environments by Dr. Lilli Nielsen

26. Important considerations continued
Do not interrupt the child by talking when the child is actively engaged in playing
Slow down when interacting with the child
Let the child have control of his/her own hands
Moss, Kate, 2010 Taking a Look at the FIELA Curriculum: 730 Learning Environments by Dr. Lilli Nielsen

27. The “Offering Technique”:
Use hand under hand technique when offering, modeling or guiding
Minimize taking control of the child’s hands
When you do take control of his/her hands (body) give advance notice that you are about to do so with an auditory and/or touch cue.
Let me show you…..
Moss, Kate, 2010 Taking a Look at the FIELA Curriculum: 730 Learning Environments by Dr. Lilli Nielsen

28. Active Learning objects
Auditory qualities should be such that the student can produce various sounds with the same objects
Vary in weight and temperature
Inspire counting games
Be present in such quantities that the student has the opportunity to
Choose
Combine his/her experiences
Play various sequence games
Develop orientation to the space

29. Objects should have a “same- but-different buddy”
Buddies
Objects should have a “same- but-different buddy”
Comparable objects should be placed next to each other both within the used area of reach and beyond
Examples: wood spoons/metal spoons, funnels of different sizes, plastic measuring cups/metal measuring cups, dish brush/toilet brush

30. Sample Active Learning Materials
Let’s take a look at:
Little Room
Resonance Buckets/Active Learning Buckets
Resonance Board
Independent Play Areas
Scratch Boards

31. Little Room
Items should be present in such quantities that the student has the opportunity to:
Choose
Combine experiences
Play various sequence games
Develop orientation to the space

32. Lilli Nielsen Little Room

33. Little Room
Moss, Kate, 2010 Taking a Look at the FIELA Curriculum: 730 Learning Environments by Dr. Lilli Nielsen

34. Little Rooms/Independent Play Areas
When hanging objects, use elastic because it:
Encourages muscle strength
Encourages experimentation on how far the object can be moved from its original position
Auditory and visual effect will be different depending on where, in relation to the original position, the student lets go of the object, so is motivated to learn about the different use of muscle strength
Avoid use of “baby” toys

35. Little Rooms/Independent Play Areas continued
Take into account the senses of smell and taste
When the student makes things move and swing, they will be more visually interesting
Items should be changeable in shape
Brushes, gloves, chains, thick clothes line

36. Why does it work?
Objects in a Little Room should have a reason it works
A jingle bell cannot reveal that a ball rattles inside to make a sound. A cow bell, however, will reveal that when the fob is blocked the bell does not make a sound.

37. Hands Off! DO NOT TOUCH, TAP, OR MOVE OBJECTS ONCE IN PLACE
ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS AREA MUST BE THE RESULT OF THE STUDENT’S ACTIONS AND MOVEMENTS

38. Active Learning Buckets

39. Active Learning Buckets

40. Resonance Board

41. Active Learning Spaces/ Independent Play Areas

42. Independent Play Area
Image from:

43. Active learning sensory space
Image from:

44. Scratch Board

45. Think outside the box

46. Elastic Board
Image from:

47. Essef Board

48. Tipping Board *
Image from:

49. Active learning bib/apron
Image from:

50. Active Learning vest

52. Remember…
Active Learning is an educational approach – it is not just specific equipment
Active learning principles can be applied in most educational situations or activities
Active learning is about the child learning in their own way and own time
Wait time, wait time, wait time

53. Questions???

54. Resources Active Learning Space website www.activelearningspace.org
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired website
National Consortium on Deafblindness (DB-link)
Washington Sensory Disabilities Services
Perkins School for the Blind
Iowa Braille & Sight Saving School braille.k12.ia.us

55. Contact Information
Susan Brennan
Cindy White-Botello