Being SDI-Focused

In a nutshell: Specially designed instruction (SDI) is a Federal requirement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for all eligible students with disabilities who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). It essentially calls for instruction to be designed by a special education professional that includes:

  • – Access to the general education curriculum
  • – Individualized instruction based on the student’s disability and needs
  • – A collaborative approach that brings together the entire IEP team, including general and special education teachers, parents/caregivers, paraprofessionals, and related service providers

It’s More Than a Lesson

There is danger in thinking this means a student should receive, for example, one-on-one instruction in a particular skill as the solution. We can’t slap a sticker on a lesson and say, “that’s an SDI lesson.” Instruction is more nuanced than any one lesson and SDI requires a holistic, ongoing, and results-oriented approach.

IDE’s Approach to Supporting Teachers in Delivering SDI

IDE Corp. uses a results-oriented approach to supporting teachers as they work to implement specially-designed instruction. This image can be a support to administrators and mentors, in addition to teachers.

Let’s deconstruct the image:

The Learner is at the Center

  • – Carefully read the student’s IEP.
  • – Talk with the student to learn about interests, skills, and ideas.

With a strong knowledge of the student, focus on the basics to support SDI:

Standards: Scaffolding

  • – Map the students’ disabilities to the curriculum.
  • – Ask yourself, what prerequisite skills or concepts will this student need to master this curricular standard? i.e. If the curriculum is understanding multiplication, has the student mastered skip-counting?

Strengthening Executive Function

  • – Recognize that learning is difficult with weak executive function (read chapter 1 of Building Executive Function: The Missing Link to Student Achievement.)
  • – Celebrate that the part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) that handles most of the executive function skills is neuroplastic, meaning, it can change, adapt, and grow!
  • – Strengthen executive function skills through activities, structures, and teacher facilitation (blog) that should be intentionally built into the instructional design.

Intentional Use of Data

  • – In order to individualize instruction, use ongoing formative assessment data to make decisions.
  • – Gather data through assessments, conversations with the student, observation, student self-assessment, and so on.

Begin with standards scaffolding; a constant eye on executive function; and gathering, analyzing, and using data. Now consider how to affirm the students’ needs and design for individual success.

Accessibility: Students with Disabilities

  • – Acknowledge that “accessibility” may be different from the cognitive needs presented under “Standards Scaffolding.”
  • – Ask yourself what the student needs to be able to understand the curricular materials and lessons? Chunked text? Larger font? Audio option? Hands-on manipulatives? etc.

Accessibility: English Language Learners

  • – Recognize that students with limited English ability in a classroom where instruction is taught in English may appear to not understand a concept or skill when in fact it could simply be the language barrier. (For me, if someone said, 请在纸上写下你的名字 — Qǐng zài zhǐ shàng xiě xià nǐ de míngzì — I would give them a blank stare, and the teacher might think I can’t write my name on the paper. I can, I just didn’t realize that’s what was being said.
  • – Lean into cognates — words that sound the same in English as they do in the student’s first language.
  • – Use images that illustrate meaning.
  • – Use hand gestures to describe what is being said.
  • – Label common items in the classroom and point to them, saying the English word.
  • – Use language translators.
  • – Research and adopt any other strategies for making content accessible to English Language Learners.

Student Agency

  • – Given the student is at the center of the learning, empower students to take part in shaping their IEP and learning plan.
  • – Provide students with choices for learning: Would you like to read the book, watch the video, or use the learning center?
  • – Allow students to select the order of learning. During a language arts session, that might include phonics, reading, and writing; but allow students to select the order.
  • – Have students self-monitor their own progress with checklists or charts.

Having taken into account the student, it’s time to draw in the real world.

Real-Life Applications

  • – Use real-world problems to provide context, because nothing cements learning like real-life application, whether it’s solving a real-world problem through PBL or brainstorming how a skill could help a student in their life
  • – Consider how the content relates to real life and introduce that as a question first, to provide students with a felt-need to learn. e.g., We will be going to the book fair and you have $10 to spend. Let’s figure out how many books you can purchase?

Cross-Content Connections

  • – Make those connections across the subject areas! Nothing in life is so segmented as school! The subjects are taught in silos; in real-life, more often than not, skills are combined across subjects.
  • – Identify what is being taught across the subject areas and make connections based on the content the student is learning. (A sixth grade student left a social studies lesson on ancient Greeks and said to the math teacher in awe, “Did you know the Greeks invented geometry?” The two teachers high-fived in the hallway.)
  • – Make connections among various areas of content to build executive function and the executive function skill of creativity. Have students brainstorm all of the ways in which this content connects to other subjects.

Instructional Partnerships

  • – Remember the proverb, “It takes a village.” Be sure to connect with all of the educators and staff members who interact with the student to support learning. (I keynoted in a district on executive function where they purchase my book on the topic and included all instructional staff as well as the custodial staff, bus drivers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, etc. because every adult can support strengthening students’ executive function.
  • – If you cannot find the time to plan with the various instructional staff partners who provide learning services to the student, create structures to ensure you’re all in the loop!

I Must Be Affirmed to Learn

When a student enters the room, or any situation, the brain immediately scans for threats. That includes the look on the teacher’s face, a comment made, the seating and surroundings, etc. If the brain senses disapproval, microaggression, or anything that could be a threat to the student, it will temporarily shut down the pathways to the brain for learning as a protective device.

In his book, Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms, Timothy Walker drives home the importance of happiness as a condition for learning. Therefore it is critical to ensure that the learning environment, instructional materials, language used, physical stances and gestures, and so on are all welcoming to the student and, more than that, affirm who the student is. Thus, this is the outer, all-encompassing ring of succeeding in implementing specially-designed instruction.

In Conclusion

Print out the image, use it in planning and instruction, and reflect on how the various components are working together to make specially-designed instruction count.

IDE Corp. offers a variety of products and services to support this goal. For a free consultation and brainstorming, contact us at solutions@idecorp.com.