Inclusive Teaching and Learning

Most traditional teachers are content-centered teachers; they believe in the need to focus on the top 10% of performers. They think that these high-performing students will continue to remain on top throughout their lives. As a result, they prioritize these students when planning their lessons. However, young students are often distracted, and they perform poorly but can later recover and excel. Dewey (1934) and Duong et al. (2019) explained that many students struggle because teachers fail to consider or help students develop their interests, one of which is shared interest activities or a need for diverse students to engage and learn from one another. Many educators want all students to succeed, but they often don’t develop the necessary skills to teach diverse learners, leading them to exclude low-performing students. This exclusion denies those students the chance to learn effectively.

Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL) suggests that for effective learning, teachers should not solely focus on content delivery. Instead, they must also emphasize other activities that enhance student learning. Dewey (1934) explained that teachers should help students to (1) connect their experiences and concerns with lessons, (2) find and utilize learning resources, (3) develop and apply strategies and formulas, (4) develop personal skills to overcome challenges, and (5) build positive relationships for an ideal learning environment. Items (1) through (5) are essential aspects of knowledge development activities identified by Wittgenstein (1927), Dewey (1934), and Allison (2018). They explained that just as people cannot represent an object by only perceiving it, students cannot learn effectively if they only engage in a part of the knowledge development process.

Ensuring Students are Learning

To be a successful CSCTL practitioner, a teacher must learn from a CSCTL expert to grasp its principles and practices. For instance, CSCTL emphasizes that teachers should engage students in learning and understanding connections between lessons with their experiences to achieve effective learning outcomes. A teacher might see students’ experiences as purely historical, and thus feel that h/she must understand the history to teach and help the students. However, history is a different subject matter; for children in grade-level students, studying it is similar to any other subject. Focusing only on one subject might not capture students’ interest or involve them in shared progress. While students’ experiences include historical ones, here students’ history must refer to only their ongoing experiences that shape their learning in the classroom. Historical backgrounds do impact how students engage and learn, but teachers can learn to structure learning activities and help students to develop their interest in learning (Dewey, 1934).

CSCTL

To help students develop their interests and make lasting progress, teachers need to understand what students are interested in and design lessons that clarify students’ efforts. Dewey (1934) stated that for enduring progress, lessons should reflect how students think and develop knowledge. Teachers should engage and assist students in learning to (1) see connections between lessons and their experiences to engage with tasks, (2) create resources to support their efforts, (3) derive, develop, and apply formulas and strategies to simplify tasks, (4) nurture students’ unique skills to navigate challenges, and (5) create shared learning experiences to foster a positive learning environment. Wittgenstein (1927) and Allison (2018) noted that these steps represent phases of thinking activities. Therefore, informal knowledge development activities in thinking lay the groundwork for formal development activities in CSCTL lessons.

Significance of CSCTL Practices.

The educational system in the USA is designed to help privileged students more than underprivileged ones. Privileged students have fewer worries, which allows them to learn better and develop their skills. In contrast, underprivileged students face many challenges that distract them from their education. While privileged students may have some distractions, the distractions are typically less intense and/or significant than those affecting underprivileged students. For instance, privileged students do not have to worry much about whether their teachers understand their interests or needs, allowing them to focus on their studies and succeed in tests. Underprivileged students, however, must contend with difficult personal and community issues, which often hinder their ability to reach their full potential.

With content-centered teaching, teachers focus exclusively on content learning, ignoring students’ interests. This leaves children to deal with their own challenges and distractions. Privileged students often learn without worrying about these issues and feel supported even if they make mistakes. In contrast, underprivileged students struggle to focus on their learning due to their challenges, which limits their learning time and effectiveness. Consequently, underprivileged students learn by trial and error; they perform below standard in pencil and paper tests, but not in attending to their life experiences. They may not perform as well as their privileged peers, but they are more resilient. To help all students learn effectively, Dewey (1934) and Song (2015) noted that teachers must not focus exclusively on content, they must also engage and help students to develop their interests, develop strategies and skills.

Traditional Teachers

Dewey (1934) pointed out that many teachers do not learn about or consider factors distracting disadvantaged students from learning or performing at their best efforts. Some educators want disadvantaged students to perform at high levels, but they do not learn how consider or address students interest, students’ learning needs. They believe that when low performing students are included among high performing students, the amount of time that they must spend with regular and/or high performing students and thus the qualities of their performances are reduce, so they simply disregard low performing students altogether.

Inclusive Teaching

The aim of this PD is to train teachers in Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL) practice, helping all students to learn more effectively. The CSCTL is a teaching and learning method emphasizing complementary relationships between phases of thinking and lessons and the need to engage and/or help students develop strategies and skills related to phases of thinking/lessons (knowledge development) activities. With CSCTL, teachers learn and are able to structure learning activities to reflect, emphasize, and develop students’ interests, strategies, and skills. The aim of this project is to produce teachers who can engage students in learning to develop strategies and skills for effective content learning.

To receive the CSCTL Lesson Plan or Lesson Plan Templates, click or copy and paste one of the following links; https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/QNH3T343UJ378

CSCTL lesson Plan; https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/XUXC3XM5A436A

Lesson Plan Sample: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/N4BFYQG3RTGJY

Professional Development – Inclusive Classroom

Guided by CDOIL researchers and professional developers, participants will engage in the following activities, building a foundation for CSCTL practices.

Day One

CDOIL’s researchers, CSCTL experts, and professional developers will engage participants in discussing, and clarifying the following questions:

Question 1. What are phases of thinking or lesson activities, and How do phases of thinking compare or relate to phases of lesson activities; how do phases of thinking or lesson activities relate to students’ interest and learning needs?

Question 1. How must teachers structure lesson/learning activities to help students engage, learn and achieve increased inclusive (shared) experiences; how might a teacher structure learning activities, provide diverse students with diverse learning opportunities, and help students to enhance their skills and strategies?

                                                                        Day Two

Question 1.What are phases of lessons; how do phases of a lesson reinforce one another; How might a teacher structure learning activities, and help students with diverse backgrounds to learn at their best?

Question 2. How might diverse students in their various groups be instructed to work cooperatively to achieve their learning goals; how might a teacher encourage and guide students with diverse skills and capacities to work together and improve their skills and strategies? 

Expected Learning Outcomes – Participants will;

• Identify phases of thinking (knowledge development) activities and explain how phases of thinking activities correspond to phases of lessons; explain how a phase of thinking (knowledge development) activities necessarily builds upon the one before it,
• Identify elements of students’ interest or learning needs that underprivileged students often demonstrate during learning activities, demonstrate a skill necessary for engaging and helping an underprivileged student to develop interest in learning.
• Identify behaviors that students demonstrate as CSCTL teacher transits from one phase of thinking or learning activities to another, demonstrating knowledge of students’ behaviors related to activities of the various phase of lesson;
• Identify a learning/lesson challenges and a phase or phases of lesson activities that teacher might emphasize to address and/or possibly resolve the challenges
• Structure lesson/learning activities to address students’ learning concerns or experiences, enhance students’ efforts, help students to develop increased interest in learning and achieve progress in school, work, and life.
• Explain the phases and functions of the phases of knowledge development activities, develop their individual CSCTL lesson plan, role-play as CSCTL teacher/practitioner, deliver CSCTL instructions to and receive feedback from members of h/her group.

Center for Development of Interest in Learning (CDOIL Inc.)

At CDOIL Inc. we envision schools and school systems where teachers that educate our children have the tools they need to focus and are focused on educating the whole child; we envision schools where teachers understand that content-centered teaching/learning are complementary to strategy-centered teaching/learning. See the Leaning Guide here *link https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/S55GAUWQRNCTS The training activities are led by transformational researchers and professional developers who created the CSCTL or have deep knowledge of how to adapt CSCTL to students’ learning needs, and/or prepare children, especially the traditionally under-served students for success in college, the workforce, and life.

 *This Leaning Guide is free;  you only pay the shipping and handling costs.

To advance our vision, CDOIL’s researchers and professional developers worked together to develop the CSCTL teaching and learning strategies that k-12 grade level teachers can use to address inequities in their classrooms. We published books and research article expounding views of students’ interest to discover phases of students’ interest relate to phases of lessons. Our efforts have continued to focus on discovering a best approach to working together and addressing problems of teaching practices in our schools districts, discovering how best to engage and educate our children.

CSCTLProfessional development and training in Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL) practices are offered by CDOIL Inc. and NYITE Publishing Co. free of charge to k-12 School districts in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.For more information regarding the CSCTL PD, request *Synopsis of CSCTL or the CSCTL Professional Development Proposal Part II. (lick or copy and paste the following link – https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/T8SRCWCFL8KCW to request a copy. Once we receive your request, you will receive the synopsis in the mail, in the address indicated within five business days. On your request, a representative will respond to you within 24 hours to briefly explain the services and schedule activities. Please, note; the free services are available only between September 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024.* Synopsis of CSCTL is free; you only pay the shipping and handling costs.

For more information regarding CSCTL publications or courses, use the contact information below to request a password and login to NYITE website where you will find CSCTL monographs and course offerings. Please, encourage your teaching staff to visit the NYITE website to learn about Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL).

Dr. Martin Paul, Director
asuwafo@aol.com
nyited@gmail.com