The
present investigation concerns STU pupils - i.e. specially arranged education
for young people with special needs – from 16 to 23 years old. The data material
was developed at STU in Viborg. STU
Viborg has from the beginning been very oriented towards development and
therefore they wished to develop learning methods for differentiation and
evaluation. The present project are targeted interventions to illustrate these
two points.
The
teachers at STU Viborg have all been on a course in the PAS system where they
also became acquainted with articles and descriptions that have been developed
in COL project. They have for example used the easy-Danish as a basic concept
when building materials for the young pupil. The teachers' skills were tested
with multiple choice system related to the articles from the COL-project.
The
pupils are described on the personal, social and academic level on the basis on
PAS, FTF and interviews with the pupils and their teachers. The descriptions
shows that this group of pupils have a lot of problems related to these
parameters that have to be worked with before they begin a positive development.
A part
of PAS is an analysis of a person’s
personality traits. In PAS you have 5 main groups of personality traits that all
people have – more or less. These traits are going from very aggressive and
extrovert to very introvert with a gradient in between.
There are a balance for each of these groups of personality traits which
is the average for most people. If the test shows a result much over this
balance for one or more of these groups of traits, the personality traits from
this or these groups will dominate your behavior.
Accumulated for this group of 18 pupils as a whole there were an overweight of
introvert personality traits. This gives a valuable knowledge to the teacher
about which special needs he has to accommodate his teaching to. Looking at the
data at the individual level the result shows that 4 pupils have extrovert and
aggressive traits, 8 pupils have moderate neurotic and introvert traits and 6
have serious introvert traits.
This
heterogeneity of personality traits and behaviors means that the teacher on the
group level has to create an learning environment with as little stress as
possible and on the individual level has to meet each pupils specific needs.
It is
possible to test a person’s different functional areas. These functions are:
motor functions, executive functions, perception, memory, language, learning,
social competence and psychiatric problems.
The
group as a whole did not show remarkable problems regarding these functions, but
when you look closer to the individual data you will see that this hides huge
individual fluctuations. This showed that according to learning there were 4
pupils that had massive learning problems that meant that they would need
special education. 3 pupils showed massive executive problems (2 of them also
had massive learning problems). Education in both groups would require
structure, repetition and showing as these pupils have much more concrete than
abstract thinking strategies. Progress would for these pupils for instance
consist in being pushed a little in direction of a less concrete thinking.
The
analysis of a questionnaire containing a taxonomy for social development, that
the pupils answered showed that 1/3 of the pupils had important issues to work
on. The social understand of this 1/3 of the group showed that their social
understanding was only at the level of 11 -12 years old children. Their thinking
in social relations is very concrete and based on little experience. Therefore
training through drama and play could help them get more experience that they
can use in the real world. 5 of the 15 pupils have challenges above a critical
level and especially 2 of them have very serious issues regarding social
problems.
A way
to work with learning in a group of pupils characterized with so serious and
heterogene challenges as the different analysis
above have shown is to work with classroom management and cooperative
learning. It’s hard work to create relevant learning conditions, but with good
planning, organizing, good teaching techniques and materials and a respectful
and appreciative relationship between pupils and teachers, you have a good
beginning.
Good
learning conditions can be resumed to three basic principles:
·
Responsibility
·
Communicational confidence
·
Social understanding
And
these principles apply to the attitude
and behavior of both teachers and pupils.
When
there is a close accordance between the picture the teaching team have of the
pupils situation and the concrete actions and strategies initiated, it will give
the pupils the best conditions for progress academically, personally, socially
and culturally.
The
teachers were in the project asked to describe the pupils. Their characteristics
of this group gives a very telling picture of the pupils and at the same time it
also shows the concern that the teachers have regarding the pupils, about how
they will be able to cope with the challenges of education and everyday life.
Their
characteristics also shows that the pupils need help personally, socially and
academically. Some of the help they need would be to give them time to
understand their situation and to discover that they don’t have to see their
surroundings as threatening. They have to see the usefulness of trying to be
independent.
The
pupils of the project have been asked to evaluate it.
They
were both asked why they have started on this project and what their profit of
it has been. Though most of the pupils tells that they have started on the
project because they didn’t have many or any other possibilities, most of them
describes very positive outcomes of it. They have especially had good
experiences socially, but also academically and personally – for instance being
more brave and independent – most
of them have profited from the project.
The
project gives a direction to the work with pupils with special needs. There are
two points of focus:
·
In the formal frame of the
project there is a discourse of competence with a goal pointing at, the possible
to develop the pupils with special need in the directions of coping with some
form of performance.
·
It’s the daily work with the
pupils that shows that the social psychological frame or the discourse of the
project is the backbone. To show the pupils, that what succeeds for us together
and in interaction, makes you a part of the discourse of competence.
It is
through a great learning methodic model characterized by interaction,
understanding, responsibility and commitment that teachers and pupils have been
able to turn the personal, social and academic development in the direction of a
discourse of competence, where the pupils will experience that society accepts
them as employable citizens.
It can
be concluded that by the linking of the PAS system and the guidelines and
materials of the COL project the teachers have obtained quite good and positive
results for the pupils in the project.