Distinguished Lecture: Critical Issues in Learning Differences

This event is part of the Distinguished Lecture series of the initiative on Learning Differences and the Future of Special Education at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. Our goal is to promote interdisciplinary conversations among scholars about learning research with students with disabilities. This will be an interactive event in which the speakers will share insights from their research and engage in conversation with each other to explore potential cross-pollinations.

About the Lecture

Mechanisms for Accelerating Literacy Learning

Adrea Truckenmiller, Associate Professor, College of Education, Michigan State University

The use, misuse, and usefulness of assessments in schools are a significant concern for educators, families, administrators, and policymakers. Dr. Truckenmiller will introduce an innovative assessment designed to directly inform more equitable and socially just writing instruction, especially for students with dyslexia, developmental language disability, and written language disabilities. Identifying content of the writing assessment and associated instructional decisions involved careful attention to defining the goals of writing instruction, evidence-based practices, updated theory on how writing develops, and teasing apart practices that promote students climbing the social ladder versus practices that maintain power differences. Dr. Truckenmiller will discuss the results of three studies of this assessment and the opportunities for future research on consequences of instructional decisions, usability, implementation, and sustainability. This continued research needs perspectives that reach across professional silos.

Orienting to Student Sense Making and Access in Mathematics Education

Katherine Lewis, Associate Professor, College of Education, University of Washington

Students with disabilities often do not experience meaningful and accessible mathematics instruction. In this talk, Dr. Lewis focuses specifically on students with mathematics disabilities (i.e., dyscalculia). These students have a neurological difference in how their brains process numerical information. Unlike most research which focuses on identifying deficits in these students’ speed or accuracy, Dr. Lewis explores how mathematical tools and representations are not equally accessible. The work takes an explicitly anti-deficit theoretical stance and documents the understandings these students rely upon and the inaccessibility they encounter. The talk will share findings from multiple case studies of students with dyscalculia to animate these findings and discuss the ongoing challenges in translating this work to practice while navigating incommensurate epistemological and pedagogical frames within the mathematics education and special education communities. Finally, Dr. Lewis offers some recommendations for bridging this divide which involve centering the expertise and sense making of students with disabilities and focusing on meaningful engagement with mathematics through accessible tools and practices.

About the Lecture Series

The Learning Differences Initiative is hosting national scholars who work on questions of inclusive education to advance transformative visions for the field. The lecture series challenges our ideas and intentions for future learning, research, policy initiatives, and community partnerships. Lectures focus on (a) teaching, learning, and life beyond school; (b) policies, institutional alignment, and the workforce; (c) neuroscience, data, and technology; and (d) law, ethics, and cultural contexts for learning in diverse settings, cultures, and public spaces.

We hope the lecture series will offer meaningful, productive engagements of interdisciplinary scholars to advance creative and ambitious visions and research agendas.

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The talk will be from 3:30-5pm, followed by a wine & cheese reception from 5-6pm.

Please register to help us reduce waste and work towards sustainable event planning.