What instructional strategies and modifications in the general education?

Question

curriculum would you feel are most beneficial to special education students who are 3-4 instructional levels below his/her peers? how do you motivate them to learn?

Answer 1

That's a terrific question that is constantly asked -by instructors and parents- but rarely answered.  It is also the single most important question (from an American public education perspective) that is avoided by our national, state, and local educational leadership.

I believe the issue truly is about the near impossibility of teachers being compelled to address large groups of students who have -legitimatly so- different experiences, learning styles, curves, and abilities, and as you mention in your question, "motivation" issues, all within the confines and restrictive environment of a classroom ... it's Don Quixote revisited.

Those (and certainly many other) issues are at the core of our humanity and, as such, cannot be addressed by policies, laws, or acts (e.g., NCLB) that are typically crafted by people with little or no exposure to Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, and other human behavior-related disciplines.  

As such, the results of that myopia end up as mandates for teachers, parents, and students who -easily and justifiably- identify the shortcomings, injustices, and impossibilities of the "system" and rail against it knowing there is little hope it will change.

Because American public education is such a politicized endeavor that uses an economic model -instead of a social model- for governance, the curricula that are handed-down from above are -generally- ineffective and inappropriate for the conditions of the classroom.

Now, to try and address the "specifics of instructional strategies and modifications that are most beneficial to special education students who are 3-4 instructional levels below peers" it seems reasonable to begin with first asking, is that even possible when the curriculum -and law- mandates that a 4th grade teacher teach a 4th grade curriculum REGARDLESS of the actual levels of skill and knowledge within that particular classroom?

Mostly everyone -aside from politicians- would readily say, "it can't be done!"

And it can't ... not as the system is currently structured.  Because the instructional strategies, modifications, and motivational methodologies needed to teach a -let's say- a student on a first-grade level and a student on a fourth grade level IN THE SAME CLASSROOM are not the same ... and the research literature overflows with evidence speaking to the incongruity and impossibility of such a task (unfortunately our law-makers and much too many educational leaders are not interested in nor skilled in research about brain-based learning, learning theory, or the foundations of human nature).

So that leaves nearly every teacher in a public school in American faced with the task of performing -on a daily basis- a set of tasks that is impossible to do ... and yet, the beat goes on (so to speak) ... and it's business as usual.

The most telling evidence of what I'm referring to can be found in comparing a simple video of fourth grade students interacting in the classroom with their peers and the teacher, with a video of first graders doing the same.  The differences are immediately noticable and startling!

It is misguided (not you for asking the question) for policy-makers to think -or even infer- that an adjustment of instructional methods would be the means for making this work.  It can't ... and not because of a specific teacher, or an expertise in a specific knowledge area, or even by mixing and matching instructional designs ... it can't work because it goes against the very principles that goven human nature and development.

I hope this is helpful.