Strength-focused
Working with children who have ASD, I have learned that it is very important to focus on children's strengths instead of just their weaknesses and areas of improvement.
It is important to encourage students to explore their own strengths and interests. This is possible through the use of choice when completing activities. Below are a small sample of paintings students completed. Each child was simply given paint, paintbrushes and a paper and were told to paint what they wanted. After the paintings dried each one went on display showing both the class and the student that there are many ways to paint and many ways to express yourself and that in my classroom each was is appreciated and honoured.
It is important to encourage students to explore their own strengths and interests. This is possible through the use of choice when completing activities. Below are a small sample of paintings students completed. Each child was simply given paint, paintbrushes and a paper and were told to paint what they wanted. After the paintings dried each one went on display showing both the class and the student that there are many ways to paint and many ways to express yourself and that in my classroom each was is appreciated and honoured.
I am smart in my own way
I think it is important that students feel they are smart in their own way. In focusing on students strengths, teachers will hopefully be able to build student self-esteem showing students that no one is good at everyone things, but everyone is good at something.
For one of my art activities connected with community building and geometry in the classroom, the class created geometric figures that emphasized the importance of accepting and embracing differences in people. In this lesson we talked about different skills and talents that students had, showing the positive differences that our class contains.
Ask An Expert
Although I did not have the opportunity to use this in my own classroom, one thing that I would like to implement in a future classroom is an Ask-an-Expert board where students can pick one strength that they have. On the board if students need assistance with something they can go to that person for help. For instance if Jimmy is good at soccer other students can go to him for help during the soccer unit. Or if Mary is good at proof-reading, others can come to her if they need a second look at a sentence or paragraph.
A teacher in Wisconsin, Jessica Meacham used an "Ask an Expert" board to highlight different students' reading strengths and reading programs that students knew well.