Skip to main content

Here's my advice on how to design your course to be more ADHD-friendly. Many of these tips will help students regardless of #ADHD diagnosis: scaffolding large projects and being abundantly consistent about instructions.

#Academia #UDL #HigherEd #AcademicChatter #DisabledInSTEM

theadhdacademic.weebly.com/tea…

Check your assumptions. Instructors may assume ADHD students are lazy, immature, rude, inattentive, or not taking the course seriously when the reality is often ADHD students are overwhelmed when given poorly organized instructions, excited to learn, making many connections very quickly, struggling to remember and work with all of their creative ideas, and frustrated because their brains don't fit the system.

Course design - ways to help ADHD folks

Learning environments are often not created with ADHD learners in mind; struggles with working memory, regulating attention, and executive functions create different challenges for us. Making your...
the ADHD Academic
#adhd #academia #academicchatter #highered #DisabledInSTEM #udl
in reply to theADHDacademic

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •
Why should it be up to the teacher to break large projects into chunks? Isn't that a skill that the student will need to learn to do for themselves when they want to take on a large project in the workplace?
in reply to Matt Campbell

Ryan for a permanent ceasefire
Ryan for a permanent ceasefire
• •

@matt 1) Having assistance breaking large projects into smaller tasks is something that ADHD people can often receive as workplace accommodations, so this is an acknowledged problem in the work world rather than something exclusively expected of individual employees themselves. (See askjan.org/disabilities/Attent… as an example.) Workplaces, like many instructors, are invested enough in people's success that they will work with them to help make it happen.

2) Just like any other skill, most learners will acquire the ability to break things down into smaller chunks if they have it explicitly modeled for them, rather than absorbing it through osmosis.

3) Almost all learners—ADHD or otherwise—will produce work that's more what the instructor has in mind if they receive some degree of formative feedback along the way. Chunking projects helps this feedback be more manageable / useful for everyone.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Accommodation and Compliance: ADHD
askjan.org
@Matt Campbell
in reply to Matt Campbell

B Haas
B Haas
• •
@matt Why should it be up to the student to learn how to do this without guidance? Isn't that a skill that a teacher could scaffold and explicitly teach them so the process and expectations are clear? Isn't managing a project something *managers *in a workplace should do for/with their reports and teams?
@Matt Campbell
in reply to B Haas

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •
@belehaa Because employers want people who can manage themselves. Less overhead. We may disagree about whether that's reasonable (I personally think it is), but surely it's important to set up students for success in the world as it is.
@B Haas
in reply to Matt Campbell

B Haas
B Haas
• •
@matt Validating students' needs and supporting them as they learn will set them up for success far better than leaving them to struggle. Abandoning people to figure it out on their own because "everyone else" can do it is ableist
@Matt Campbell
in reply to Matt Campbell

Kit Muse
Kit Muse
• •

@matt @belehaa Setting students up for success in the world "as it is" means setting them up for burnout and mental health issues including a higher risk of suicide.

How about we create learning and working environments that support everyone's talents and allow everybody to thrive?

@Matt Campbell @B Haas
in reply to Kit Muse

Cap'n "Salty Vibes" Nic 🏴‍☠️
Cap'n "Salty Vibes" Nic 🏴‍☠️
• •

@KitMuse @matt @belehaa Yeah exactly. Expecting people with ADHD to live without accommodations rests on the belief that either:

-ADHD is not a "real" disability or;
-Disabled people do not deserve accommodations

Both are ableist.

@Matt Campbell @B Haas @Kit Muse
in reply to Cap'n "Salty Vibes" Nic 🏴‍☠️

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •

@PacificNic @KitMuse @belehaa I don't believe either of those things. But I wonder if ADHD requires accommodations from teachers, employers, etc., or if it only requires the people who have it to know how to work around their own disability.

I'm legally blind. I understand why a sensory disability requires external accommodations. I just wonder if the same applies to ADHD. I should probably go off and learn more about this on my own before I say anything more.

@B Haas @Kit Muse @Cap'n "Salty Vibes" Nic 🏴‍☠️
in reply to Matt Campbell

Kit Muse
Kit Muse
• •
@matt @PacificNic @belehaa I appreciate your willingness to learn. Speaking only as someone who wasn't diagnosed until they were 48 and in the final semester of a dual major bachelor's (I'm now a graduate student), learning that I was ADHD changed me from believing I was broken to someone whose mind worked differently. It literally facilitated the healing journey I'm on, moving it from fumbling around feeling like I was broken by trauma to understanding why it happened.
@Matt Campbell @B Haas @Cap'n "Salty Vibes" Nic 🏴‍☠️
in reply to Matt Campbell

lilo
lilo
• •
@matt @belehaa Employers also want people with functioning vision, hearing and movement. Every disability – be it blindless, deafness or ADHD – puts demands on employers. What you are saying implicitly is that disabled people have no place in the working world.
@Matt Campbell @B Haas
in reply to Matt Campbell

theADHDacademic
theADHDacademic
• •

@matt Why should it be up to the teacher to teach how to write a project proposal, how to evaluate a project's success, how to work as part of a team? Aren't these skills that the student will need to learn to do for themselves when they want to take on a large project in the workplace?

Read more about scaffolding as an educational term. It's about gradually removing support over time so that the students work independently eventually rather than chuck them off the deep end and see who swims.

@Matt Campbell
in reply to Matt Campbell

theADHDacademic
theADHDacademic
• •
@matt No worries. It's a term with a specific meaning in education. There's a range of strategies between "chuck them off the deep end and see who swims" and scaffolding, but scaffolding generally leads to a greater number of successful students and is more equitable, in my opinion.
@Matt Campbell
⇧