Memorization

A watered-down curriculum often emphasizes memorization of loosely related facts

Reducing the content and watering it down to make it less complex sometimes results in a disjointed curriculum that is composed largely of various relatively insignificant concepts and facts to be memorized (Ochoa & Schuster, 1980; Passe & Beattie, 1994). The content may not be taught in a manner that allows students to form schema’s that reflect understandings of the interrelationships between various concepts and facts. Like the manner in which basic skills sometimes are taught, the content tends to be taught in “little unrelated packages.”

Moreover, the nature of the instruction in this model is often less interesting, and students are less likely to receive opportunities for self-directed learning (e.g., conduct their own research, make class presentations and projects; Prawat, 1989), and they are less likely to participate in instructional activities that involve peer collaboration (e.g., cooperative learning). Teachers also are less likely to offer in-class activities such as science experiments and out-of class activities such as in field trips that relate to the content area of study.

Learn Content

Watering-down the curriculum reduces opportunities to learn content.

Watering down the curriculum may contribute to greater failure experiences in the long term because the practice reduces students’ opportunities to learn. Reducing curriculum content limits the amount or kind of information that can be acquired even before learning can begin, regardless of the quality of teaching (for a review, see Tindal, Rebar, Nolet, & McCollum, 1995).

Reduces Thinking

Watering-down the curriculum reduces opportunities to develop thinking skills.

Frequently concomitant with the practice of watering-down the content is the practice of reducing opportunities for students with cognitive disabilities to develop thinking skills. Too often, it is assumed that since students with cognitive disabilities appear to lack sophisticated cognitive skills, they are unable to develop them. This belief often results in few opportunities to engage in creative, analytical, or productive thinking activities. Moreover, the traditional deficit oriented remedial emphasis of special education often allows little time or desire for this type of instruction (Schlichter & Brown, 1985).

Inhibit Learnability

Watering down the curriculum can inhibit the “learnability” of subject matter.

Surprisingly, educators’ efforts to make content less complex and easier to understand can often have a reversed effect. For example, “easy to read” adaptive texts are often used because they are written so they adhere to low readability scores by using shorter sentences, eliminating multisyllabic words, and the like. These modifications can be counterproductive because ideas tend to be presented in short, choppy, list-like bits of information. The elements that indicate important relationships between ideas tend to be eliminated (Anderson, Armbruster, & Kantor, 1980; Bean, Zigmond, & Hartman, 1994; Chambliss, 1994). Although adaptive texts may have more illustrations, these sometimes make text more difficult for some naive readers because the visuals tend to be less informative and less tied to the information presented in the text (Harber, 1983). Lenz, et al. (1981) found that students with LD often experience more difficulty comprehending the watered-down textbooks than they do traditional textbooks written for normal achieving students!

Reduced Investment

Watering-down the curriculum may reduce investment in learning.

Because this approach to content instruction often is inherently less interesting to students, teachers sometimes have to resort to extrinsic reward systems such as behavior modification (e.g., Patzelt, 1991) to entice students to engage in academic tasks. In such cases, the emphasis of the classroom often becomes focused on ensuring students comply with the norms of schooling, and students’ grades are often based according to how well they comply with these norms rather than how well they actually understand the content being taught.

The uninteresting instruction often associated a watered-down curriculum can result in students with LD viewing the secondary school experience as considerably less than meaningful or as students sometimes put it, they “play the ‘school’ game” to do the minimum and still get by. While there are numerous interrelated factors that contribute to the nearly 50% drop-out rate of students with mild cognitive disabilities (Lovitt, 1991) practices associated with watering down the curriculum likely play a significant role in this unfortunate statistic (Sitlington & Frank, 1993).

Goal 1

More emphasis on students constructing knowledge.

Traditional approaches to teaching content subjects (providing students with accurate content information, and assessing and grading the accuracy of students’ content knowledge) accounts little for what is understood about the construction of knowledge, the learning process, and critical cognitive actions that must take place for meaningful learning to occur (Jones, et al., 1987). To construct knowledge (as opposed to memorize someone else’s understanding of it), learners must understand the information in relation to what they already know and their own experiences (for a review, see Reid, Kurkjian, & Carruthers, 1994). With exception of specific facts, knowledge of information is relative and never static. One’s understanding is constantly changed as information is viewed from different contexts and in relation of other background knowledge or new information. Though knowledge of facts may be right or wrong, recalled or forgotten, understanding of facts (e.g., how they relate to a specific subject) is also continuously changing, thus is also relative and never static as well (Wansart, 1995).

In a watered-up classroom, the role of the teacher is to facilitate students constructing (and re-constructing) understandings so that they become increasingly less erroneous in their understanding and more sophisticated (for a review, see Bryson, 1993). There are a number of things teachers can do to create classrooms where the emphasis is on constructing sophisticated understandings, and the remaining goals of a watered-up classroom address these in various ways.

Goal 2

More depth, less superficial coverage

Teachers striving to provide a watered-up curriculum are more concerned with facilitating in-depth understanding and developing deep knowledge structures of essential concepts or “core ideas” than they are with content-coverage (e.g., addressing all the topics in the book). This means that teachers providing a watered-up curriculum strive to focus both their own and students’ energies on understanding core ideas of the curriculum, how they interrelate, as well as how these core ideas help us understand the current world and solve real world problems (Cushman, 1994; Newman & Wehlage, 1993).

Because formal guides such as state-mandated curriculum guides, course-of-studyguides, textbooks, etc. tend to be packed with the details of content, it can become very easy to loose track of how various details relate to understanding the current world and to believe that content-coverage is the ultimate goal -- that is, to expose students in some way to all of the content represented by these guides. Too often, this approach to teaching results in two unfortunate phenomena. The first concerns teacher behaviors, and the second concerns how these practices affect students’ beliefs about school and learning and their behaviors.

The first unfortunate phenomena is that the “spray and pray” approach to teaching content may used. That is, we tend to “spray students with a thin amount of content that covers a wide array of information (analogous to spray painting a car with a very thin layer of paint) , and then we “pray that some of the information will stick!” In other words, the content-coverage approach too often results in teaching very little about a whole lot. Students gain only rudimentary, surface levels of knowledge instead of developing deep knowledge structures about core ideas.

The second unfortunate phenomena is that students tend to view content learning in school as largely an “intellectual bulimia “ experience where the focus is on “school-compliance” or doing whatever is necessary to get a grade which is socially acceptable. Here, students “gorge themselves” the night before a test, memorizing facts and figures on a rote level, and then “regurgitate them for the test the next day.” To further compound the problem, many students believe that they must intentionally forget what the have just learned for the test in order to make room in their brains for the next round of memorization! Thus, in a watered-up classroom, the spray and pray approaches to teaching and the intellectual bulimia approaches to learning take a back seat to methods that facilitate relational understandings of core ideas.

More depth, less superficial coverage means that facilitating sophisticated understanding of core ideas is the primary goal of instruction. Core ideas are analogous to main ideas, but are more generative in nature, and part of instruction in core ideas places great emphasis on ensuring students understand them relative to real-world contexts. For example, core ideas associated with the Civil Rights Movement might be “ creating equality of and respect for humans of all races,” “constitutional issues concerning establishing and protecting individual’s civil rights ,” “why and how racism occurs and can be prevented,” “resolving moral dilemmas such as discrimination,” “using peaceful resistance to affect social change,” etc.

More depth, less superficial coverage also means that teaching facts and details are important ONLY when they help students understand the core idea being stressed. If a detail does not help the student develop a more precise understanding of the core idea, then, with the exception of cultural expected knowledge, the detail is probably not worth teaching (for a reveiw, see Hudson, Lingugaris-Kraft, & Miller, 1993).

Culture-expected factual knowledge is the collection of facts that a society expects its citizens to know, regardless of whether the citizen has much of an understanding beyond the fact itself. For example, in the US, there is an cultural expectation that every student should know facts such as “Martin Luther King Jr. was the key leader during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.” However, knowing that it was King was a the leader during this period is NOT an essential fact to understanding the core ideas associated with this conflict, but there is nevertheless a clear expectation that students know who King was -- if nothing else, that he was the leader during the Civil Rights Movement. Understanding some of the dilemmas King faced and how he resolved them clearly helps students develop a more conceptual understanding of the core ideas associated with the Civil Rights Movement, but this kind of meaningful information is not necessarily cultural-expected factual knowledge.

Knowledge of these kinds of facts are largely dictated by cultural expectations rather than needs associated with developing conceptual knowledge. The problem occurs when teachers fail to recognize which details should be addressed because they are essential to developing a conceptual knowledge base, which should be taught due to cultural expectations, and which should largely be ignored all together.

Implications of “less is more - depth is more” notion are that details of the curriculum should be carefully considered before teaching them (Schumm, Vaughn, & Leavell, 1994). Below are examples of how details can be categorized when making decisions about what should be emphasized:

Critical details are those that are essential to understanding the core idea. If students do not know these details, their understanding of the core idea will be incomplete. Generally, students must know these details for future instruction to be effective, so these should be thoroughly taught and students’ knowledge of these should be evaluated.

Clarifying details represent a level of information that is used when helping students better understand other, critical details or the core idea, but students are not expected to necessarily learn and remember this information. These are addressed during class, but they are not tested.

Specialized and Esoteric details represent a level of information that is highly specific. Some of these details may be critical to know if a student is developing a highly specialized knowledge base, but this level of specificity is not appropriate for most students. Esoteric details might best be viewed is trivia that is relatively useless, even for developing specialized knowledge. While very bright students may be encouraged to develop more specialized knowledge, most students would not be expected to learn this information. In many cases, teaching this level of information may make the core idea more difficult to understand due to the complexity of specialized details.

While at first glance it may seem as if not teaching the more specialized details is watering down the curriculum, but this has to be viewed in larger context of just what is actually being learned (and retained) by students. What often happens when the focus is on teaching specialized details is that students fail to understand and learn the more conceptual and essential information. In other words, they memorize the details, but miss the point.

Unfortunately, many teachers, particularly those who themselves lack sophisticated understanding of the content they are teaching, seem to place great value on students knowing trivial information and thoroughly test it. Many of these base their grades on the following continuum:

Those students who can correctly identify critical details receive a ‘C’.

Those students who can correctly identify critical and clarifying details receive a ‘B’.

Only those students who can correctly identify critical details, clarifying and specialized/esoteric details receive a ‘A’.

Such practices suggest that success in school is based on how well students can master the secondary school version of Trivial Pursuit. An alternative perspective on assessment is to place the emphasis on determining the sophistication of students understanding of core ideas, and how critical details or feature relate to them. Here, grades are based on a different continuum. For example:

Those students who can describe a core idea and recognize its critical features receive a ‘C’.

Those students who can (i) describe a core idea and its critical features, (ii) generate similes or metaphors and/or (iii) provide examples and non-examples of the core idea receive a ‘B’.

Those students who can (i) describe a core idea and its critical features; (ii) generate similes or metaphors; (iii) provide examples and non-examples, (iv) relate or identify applications of the core idea to real world contexts, and (v) make connections to other core ideas receive an ‘A.’

Goal 3

More emphasis on the redundancy of archetype concepts, patterns and strategies

An archetype concept is an idea that is universal and is manifested across genre, settings, and contexts. An example of an archetype concept is that all living beings have a need for self-preservation and procreation, and much of their behavior is centered around these two goals. An archetype pattern is a relatively predictable sequence of events that also is manifested across situations and settings. An example of a simple archetype pattern is that for every action, there is a reaction. This pattern applies to human behavior, plant life, and even biophysics. In fact, the pattern manifests in all walks of life, thus it is an archetype pattern. Like archetype concepts and patterns, archetype strategies cross most areas of human performance. An example of an archetype strategy is think ahead to plan, think during to monitor and adapt, and think back to reflect.

In watered-up classrooms, the emphasis is on facilitating the discovery or identification of archetype concepts, patterns, and strategies, and how they are manifested across genre, settings, and contexts. The more students understand an archetype and are able to recognize its manifestations in content subjects, the more readily they understand material being taught in secondary classrooms. Content subjects are often considerably easier to understand when the archetype patterns, concepts, and/or strategies associated with the subject is evident to the student.

When teaching a particular lesson, the teacher can facilitate understanding of the content and of archetype patterns in a variety of ways. One approach is to first teach students what the pattern is, and then create opportunities for students to see how subjects they are studying “fit” the pattern. For example, how the pattern is manifested in the subject can be literally shown to students. To use a different approach, the teacher and students can work collaboratively to identify ways in which the archetype pattern is manifested in a specific topic. Another approach is to create opportunities for students to discover or invent archetype patterns themselves. Here, the teacher acts as a guide as students construct a pattern, and then they test it on a wide variety of topics, either modifying the pattern to make it more precise, or abandoning it in favor of some other pattern they think they have discovered and test it.

Arguably, knowledge of these patterns and concepts and how to use this knowledge to understand and solve problems are among the most important competencies we can instill in students. Unfortunately, many teachers lack awareness of the key archetype patterns and concepts, and few make the identification and use of these ideas to understand and solve problems the overriding core of their curriculum.

There are several archetype patterns; three of these are illustrated below.

Goal 4

More emphasis on developing relational understanding and knowledge connections to real-world contexts

In watered-up classrooms, instruction is designed to facilitate students connecting new knowledge to their background experience and knowledge (Wansart, 1995). Ideally, students develop many metaphoric connections as result of exploration of the core ideas of the content. These occur when students recognize how the central idea or its critical features relate to others in a different genre. Metaphoric connections may be the strongest when new ideas are related to something from students’ real world or actual experience. For example, if students recognize how the extreme forms of discrimination and segregation and the violent acts of the Ku Klux Klan that characterized America early in the JFK administration is similar to the current emphasis on ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, they are forming metaphoric connections. If they can also relate ethnic cleansing to current, real-life experiences (similarities between ethnic cleansing and cultural elitism associated with high school fraternities and gangs), then they ar e really beginning to more fully understand the core idea.

Understanding of a central core idea can also be greatly enhanced if the concept is explored within a problem-solving context (Newman & Wehlage, 1993). For example, the concept “cultural elitism” can be explored from the perspective of how the practice can lead to social problems; it can also be analyzed from the perspective of the types of social problems the practice is responding to (e.g., gangs are a contemporary from of social elitism; many youth join gangs because they feel disenfranchised and do not have a sense of belonging or family because the father is absent from the home and the mother is busy struggling to economically survive).

Goal 5

More student elaboration

Metaphorically, the brain can be viewed, in part, as a “language tool box” that contains variety of tools for learning, and one of the most powerful tools in that box is elaboration. Like a tool box with many different sizes and types of pliers, there are many forms of elaboration. Elaboration strategies include paraphrasing or summarizing ideas or otherwise using one’s own words to discuss a concept, generating questions about the materials, forming predictions or hypotheses regarding what the material is really about, and creating mental images about how something looks, tastes, sounds, or feels. All of these cognitive strategies share a common trait: each requires the learner to interact with the information, relate it to background knowledge in some way, and convert it in some manner while retaining its essential meaning (Pressley, Johnson, & Symons, 1987; Newman & Wehlage, 1993).

Of all the cognitive functions necessary for meaningful, lasting learning of semantic information, elaboration can be considered the most important, but the ability to employ elaboration strategies is one of the most common difficulties students with LD experience. While deficits in short-term memory are not readily subject to improvement from training, deficits in elaboration working-memory strategies can be markedly improved with informed strategy training (Pressley et al, 1987). Thus, students who experience problems elaborating information should be taught how to elaborate rather than provided opportunities to avoid school tasks requiring elaboration.

Research has demonstrated that precise elaborations usually produce the best results while imprecise elaborations can lead to erroneous understandings (for a review of this body of research, see Pressley, et al., 1987).

Research also indicates that an important way the mind seems to process a new idea is by seeking to understand it in terms of how it is similar or different from ideas already known (for a review, see DiSibio, 1982). The mind seems to often prefer contrast when it is processing information. This means that not only do we prefer examples of new ideas, we also find that nonexamples also provide considerable help when we are trying to understand something new (Ellis, in press). Thus, the best elaborations are precise and accurate, address the core idea of a concept and related details, as well as address examples and nonexamples of a concept.

What all this really means is that a substantial amount of class time is devoted to creating opportunities for students to elaborate on the to-be-learned information in various ways such as projects, role-plays, cooperative learning activities, art work, and so forth. To create time for elaboration, teachers striving to create watered-up settings spend less time presenting more new information to students and more time allowing students to elaborate on the essential to-belearned ideas.

Goal 6

More emphasis on developing effective habits of the mind, higher order thinking and information processing skills, and learning strategies

One of the most important characteristics of a watered-up curriculum is the commitment of teachers to wed the development of cognitive skills with acquisition of conceptual knowledge. Simply put, students receiving a watered up-curriculum learn how to “be smart” as they learn the content subjects. Thinking skills are considered as an integral and part of the curriculum of equal importance to the content being taught (Marzano, 1988).

There are three interrelated areas of cognitive growth that are targeted on an on-going basis in watered-up classrooms, and all concern higher-order thinking skills; (i) habits of the mind, (ii) information processing, and (iii) learning strategies. For the purposes of discussion, these four areas have been artificially segregated. Keep in mind, however that in reality, that there is a great deal of overlap among these. An approach that is not used in watered-up classrooms is to address these skills in a decontextualized fashion (e.g., puzzles, games, and other activities designed to facilitate practice of these cognitive skills; teaching learning strategies in isolation). Rather, in watered-up classrooms, students practice using the cognitive skills in the context of learning the content subjects.

Goal 7

More student reflection, risk-taking, and active participation

Memorizing the teacher’s words from a set of notes, definitions of terms, or details from a text chapter requires little reflection or risk on the student’s part in relation to developing an understanding of a concept. The only real risk involved is putting energies into memorizing the wrong information for an upcoming test. More powerful learning occurs when students stretch their understanding and generate their own connections between ideas where many relationships are formed, and awareness of many applications or extensions of the ideas are developed. This “stretching”, however, requires students to take risks, and due to a history of academic failure, many adolescents with LD are unwilling to do this because they do not feel safe in doing so.

In creating watered-up learning environments, teachers strive to create settings where students feel safe to take risks with their understanding. One of the ways they do this is to place less emphasis on dichotomous evaluation where students’ responses are either right or wrong, and greater emphasis on moving students from erroneous to more sophisticated, precise, and accurate understandings. Shifting the emphasis creates a safer learning environment because the risk of failure is reduced considerably (Newman & Wehlage, 1993).

Reflection is a powerful tool for developing deep knowledge structures, but promoting it can be considerably more challenging than creating situations requiring students to memorize answers for tests. Important reflective processes for learning and performing include activating background knowledge, forecasting, or anticipating and predicting, establishing goals, relating ideas, recognizing manifestations of ideas as they appear in other forms and how ideas might be applied in various contexts.

For a number of reasons, reflective risk-taking can be greatly enhanced if students are interacting. For example, there is safety in numbers, so a group of students is considerably more likely to take risks and stretch their understanding of a concept and make many and varied connections to other ideas as they dialogue about the concept. In groups, students tend to cue each other and spur the thinking of each other. Likewise, group interaction processes often allow some students with limited basic skills to more fully participate. Although collaborative group instruction often fails when the student with LD is considered a liability to the success of the group, reflective risk-taking does not involve dichotomous responses. Thus, these kinds of group tasks do not put the group at risk because one of its members has weak literacy skills.

The more students participate, the greater the elaboration of the concept, which in turn results in enhanced understanding of a concept. Participation is enhanced if the academic task is interesting to students, and one of the ways to make tasks more interesting is to design them so that students put their own interpretations on key to-be-learned concepts. Both creating these opportunities while at the same time ensuring that these interpretations are accurate can be significant challenges for educators. The instructional routine described below is an example of group task requiring reflective risk-taking and the formulation of non-dichotomous responses which focus on developing more sophisticated understandings of the subject matter.

Goal 8

More emphasis on developing social responsibility and collaboration skills among students

As noted above, meaningful learning is more likely to take place in environments where students feel safe, and thus free to take risks with their understanding and not feel inhibited or punished for doing so. In classrooms where cooperative learning is employed effectively, students with LD usually engage in these activities with enthusiasm and risktaking (Schrag, 1993). They seem to wrestle openly with ideas and are less concerned with generating the “right answer.” They also engage in the give-and-take exchange of ideas with other students, challenging ideas others put forth and accepting others’ challenges of their ideas.

“Effectively employed” means the teacher is highly competent in applying cooperative learning techniques, which in part includes team-building activities to promote acceptance of students with disabilities (Gibbs, 1994), utilizing cooperative learning activities appropriate for use with heterogeneous groups of students (some cooperative learning activities are not!), as well as cooperative learning tactics appropriate for the nature of the learning task (Kagen, 1992; Margolis & Freund, 1991). In the absence of this expertise, cooperative learning can be a disaster for students with LD, especially in settings involving heterogeneous groups. In these instances, many students with learning problems generally seem to work at being as invisible as possible, and they seem reluctant to engage in or participate in class discussions. The type of risk-taking and give -and-take exchange of ideas between students with LD and the more capable learners rarely happens (cf. Ellis, 1989, 1993). The more capable students tend to delegate to the less capable learners duties on cooperative learning tasks that require minimal thought, if the less capable learners are included at all. Not only do these students tend to be excluded from ‘true’ participation in these activities, but they often are punished by their peers (via negative comments and “dirty looks”) for attempting to participate. Data from observations in elementary schools parallel this observation (Vernon, Deshler, & Schumaker, 1994).

In contrast to the above problem, many secondary teachers avoid using cooperative learning because they do not believe their students are able to work together effectively; there is a belief that students lack the necessary social skills for working collaboratively, and that students have substantial racial or other prejudice beliefs (i.e., hostility toward the disabled) and attitudes that make cooperative learning seemingly impossible to use. While there are always extreme circumstances in which cooperative learning is difficult to implement, a great many of the circumstances in which teachers avoid cooperative learning are due considerably more to teachers’ lack of knowledge in how to use cooperative learning effectively (i.e., how to match instructional goals with appropriate cooperative learning tactics; how to structure and manage the activities) than due to student characteristics (for a review, see Cohen, 1994a). Unfortunately, avoiding use of cooperative learning only results in an environment of redu ced opportunities for students to learn essential life skills for collaborating with others as well as reduced opportunities for elaboration of to-be-learned concepts.

In many cases, students have to be taught how to work together. Like most new skills, learning to work together is something that occurs gradually with much practice and feedback. Teachers striving to provide watered-up classrooms recognize that team-work is something that is gradually developed, and they give themselves permission to allow students to work together imperfectly as they are developing those skills.

Teachers striving to provide watered-up classrooms do not just focus on enhancing the academic and thinking skill curriculum; they also water-up the social curriculum as well. Like the specific cognitive skills that are integrated into academic skills and knowledge instruction, specific social skills and values are also targeted and explicitly taught in an integrative manner. Examples of social skills targeted in watered-up classrooms include:

• Doing one’s share
• Listening without interrupting
• Turn-taking and involving everybody 
• Encouraging and complimenting others
• Offering and providing assistance 
• Recognizing & celebrating the success/talents of others
• Providing positive and critical feedback 
• Avoiding inflammatory/insulting statements
• Building consensus 
• Resolving conflicts peacefully
• Encouraging others to do the “right thing” 
• Resisting irresponsible peer-pressure
• Recognizing, but not judging, differences in personal characteristics

Some adolescents with LD may require intensive social skill interventions where specific social skills or strategies are targeted and extensively taught. However, all adolescents, including those with LD, should receive instruction in social dynamics and be provided with classroom environments that are conducive to learning and practicing them with feedback.

One of the reasons why group dynamics sometimes fail ties back to risk-taking. When a group lacks knowledge of the procedures for completing a task, confusion accompanied by frustration ensues, and group dynamics often turn hostile. Less capable students in the group are often the scapegoat, and as such, become the targets of hostility. Thus, while it is often advantageous to create circumstances that require students to “figure it out for themselves,” too little direction from the teacher often results in chaos, and students with LD often suffer the most from it. A key consideration associated with use of group projects is providing students with sufficient direction to allow the group to function effectively. The trick is to scaffold this assistance so that sufficient structure is provided, but not so much that student risk-taking and self-directed learning is impaired (Cohen, 1991; 1994b). The instructional routine described below provides an example of how common classroom tasks such as group research projects can be structured, while at the same time, place emphasis on setting goals and practicing key collaboration social skills.

Goal 9

More emphasis on fostering a sense of personal potency, and academic and social self-concept

Ultimately, the success in school and in life in general will be influenced by the sense of personal potency students have about themselves. Personal potency means that students have a sense that they are in control of their destinies, and are positively influencing others and contributing to their world. It means that they feel valued and have a sense of belonging (Glenn & Nelson, 1987). There are a number of internal and environmental factors which interact to make the development of personal potency particularly challenging for many adolescents with LD. A few is these are briefly reviewed below.

• Studies of self-efficacy indicate that many students with LD have low academic selfconcepts while beliefs about themselves in other areas (e.g., how they perceive themselves socially) tend to be more positive (e.g., Hiebert, Wong, & Hunter, 1982). Least we become too confident about the positive social status these findings suggest, we need to carefully consider how school environments, particularly those associated with inclusive settings, can assault rather than enhance students’ self-efficacy and sense of personal potency. cooperative learning has often been touted as one of the mainstays of inclusive education, but if students with LD are made to feel like they are a liability to cooperative learning teams because of their performance limitations, these circumstances assault the self-esteem of students because they feel both academically incapable and socially rejected. These students need an academic setting where they feel free to express their understandings about what they are learning without fear of ridicule from their peers.
• General education classrooms with large enrollments of heterogeneous students seem to be at greater risk for developing debilitating academic self-concepts (Myers & Bounds, 1991). Clearly, some teachers (both general and special educators) create these types of teacher; what matters a great deal is the environment within the classroom.
• Delays in the development of internal locus of control (for a review, see Bryan, 1991) coupled with common environmental responses to these problems such as structuring the environment for the unorganized student, providing multiple reminders, and providing extensive use of extrinsic reinforcers can foster dependency rather than develop a sense of personal potency (Ellis, 1986; Dev, 1997).
• Enrolling students with low academic self-concepts in uninteresting classes where the curriculum has been thoroughly watered-down (or dumbied-down) may be debilitating. In an attempt to shelter students with LD from the pain of failure, some teachers provide them with little other than unchallenging tasks that require minimal persistence or effort. Success at easy tasks or on assignments that are not personally meaningful to the students are not likely to increase academic self-esteem, but rather are likely to produce the opposite. Likewise, prolonged exposure to these kinds of environments teach students to expect little of themselves and manipulate circumstances, so that others expect little as well. In contrast, environments should provide students with LD a great deal of success at tasks that are personally meaningful and challenging and require personal effort and persistence.
• Teachers’ and parents’ efforts to shelter students with LD from pain and embarrassment by denying access or explanation regarding the nature of their disability, coupled with failure to include the students in a meaningful way in the development of their IEPs (Van Reusen & Bos, 1990) can impair the development of personal potency. An astounding number of students with LD enter college without having any real idea about the nature of their learning problem or with extreme misconceptions about learning disabilities (Nesmith, 1996). In the absence of accurate information about themselves, students are left to form conclusions based on what others who are equally misinformed communicate to them (that they are lazy, stupid, dumb, etc.).
• Providing services that are primarily reactively, crisis-intervention oriented and focus on solving immediate short-term problems (e.g., tutoring for an upcoming test) may help relieve the stress that many students with LD experience in the short term. However, these approaches do little to reduce the amount of future stresses these students will experience in the absence of developing competence at skills that can be used to prevent problems (Carlson, 1985). For example, many special educators expend great energies advocating for adolescents with LD rather than teaching them to become their own self-advocates. While the adult may be a potent advocate for the student, the approach does little to enhance a sense of personal potency in the adolescent.

Teachers striving to create watered-up environments foster developing in each student a sense of personal potency in a variety of ways. For example, in watered-up classrooms, students must frequently make decisions and choices. Teacher/student dialogue frequently addresses the meaning of specific choices students make (i.e., when students choose to take on a difficult problem, what this means about their growing confidence; when students choose to reject a classmate with less sophisticated skills, what this means about how they view others, etc.).

Teachers also work hard at ensuring that all students, regardless of their ability, feel as if they belong and are contributing, valuable members of the class. This requires that teachers have a degree of flexibility with regard to tasks and assignments, but that all are challenging. It also requires that teachers work hard at identifying the unique talents, experiences or knowledge that each individual student possess so that they can be recognized by all and capitalized upon for the good of the class.

Adolescents, especially those with LD, tend to be very reactive in their approach to tasks and situations. That is, they tend to react to situations as they occur instead of anticipate what might happen and proactively plan for them. Logically, the more reactive one is, the less sense of personal control one has about life; the more proactive one is, the greater sense of personal potency one has. The example below illustrates one of the ways that teachers water-up their classrooms by fostering a sense of personal potency.

Goal 10

More social support for student achievement

Social support for student achievement not only means that achievement is valued -- it also means that the environment reflects these values and is conducive to emphasizing and reinforcing achievement (Newman & Wehlage, 1993). Watered-up classrooms are success oriented in relation to achievement, and there are several factors that make it so. These are briefly described below.

Goal 11

More intensive and extensive instruction

Just as good instruction is good instruction no matter where it takes place (Bickel & Bickel, 1986; Englert, Tarrant, & Marriage, 1992; Good & Brophy, 1994; Mastropieri, 1989), poor instruction is poor instruction regardless of whether it takes place in a pull-out special education program or an general education classroom. Arguably, poor instruction is one of the greatest contributors to poor affective development of adolescents with LD. A significant body of research collectively shows that, above all else, the quality of interactions between teachers and students, regardless of their respective labels, is the single most predictive variable in successful classroom learning (cf. Biklen, 1992; Kauffman, 1993). Good, quality instruction is considerably more important to educational success than the label a child or teacher is given or the setting where instruction is provided.

Among the many specific techniques associated with improving the quality of interactions between teachers and students that are important for students with LD, a few seem to be particularly critical. These include: