Students with Moderate/Severe disabilities

[jamesv]

I am always striving to increase interactions between my students. I teach in a Moderate/Severe classroom for 7th and 8th graders. Do you have any suggestions for using Kagan strategies with my students?

[Rob]

James,

I have been fortunate enough to have seen Kagan structures used in all sorts of classrooms with all sorts of students with many different challenges and disabilities. One of the easiest structures to use is RallyRobin, where students take turns creating a list. I have witnessed students with very little verbal ability still participate. Most recently, they took turns passing a ball back and forth to signify whose turn it was as they said, "Hello" in as many ways they could. In some cases the teacher assisted and gave the idea for the student to repeat before passing the ball.

In another class where the students were ambulatory, they used Stand up Hand up Pair up and practiced greetings before performing their academic task.

Whatever content or task that they can perform independently, they can also take turns cooperatively.

I'd love to hear what you try and the results from it.

Good luck!