This is the second in a series from our guest blogger, Barbara Pape, Senior Director of the Digital PromiseĀ® Learner Variability Project, as a guest blogger for this two-part series on supporting the twice-exceptional. In this post, Barbara lays out effective strategies to support 2e learners by acknowledging and supporting their learner variability. Want to know more about 2e and the barriers they and their educators face? Check out the first post, Twice Exceptional: History & Barriers, in this series.
Research is clear that holistic approaches to teaching and learning are key for all students, but critical for 2e students. As emphasized in the Aspen Instituteās report,Ā From A Nation At Risk to A Nation of HopeĀ (2019), āwe know that we learn best when adults know us, make us feel safe, hold us responsible for our learning, and help us work constructively and productively togetherā (p. 14). In Identifying and Serving Diverse Gifted Learners, the authors underscore the complexity of 2e students and the challenge of dealing with two identities that can lead to frustration, anxiety, social-emotional distress, and low motivation (Castellano et al., 2022, p. 190). A holistic approach that weaves together social, emotional, and academic learning is key to supporting 2e learners and is supported by research.
What is learner variability? It is an evidence based concept that recognizes āeach of us go to school with a backpack filled with very different experiences that we draw from to master content, create meaning, work in groups, share our voice, and achieve our potential.ā These factors of learning are holistic, interconnected, and can change according to context. For more information: Learner Variability Is the Rule, Not the ExceptionĀ (Pape, 2018).
Accommodations and modificationsĀ to address the learning disability is a bridge to opportunity for 2e students. According to Anthony, as he looks back on his school years, essential to building belongingĀ is hearing from students on how they would like their peers to know about their accommodations and treat accommodations as an onramp to learning for 2e students, not an unfair advantage.Ā
Self-advocacyĀ is essential for 2e students to develop and hone throughout their school years and a bridge to opportunity.Ā For Stevie, a series of unfortunate events, including taking away their IEP accommodations, led to their drive to self-advocate so they could get what they needed to thrive in school. āIn my senior year, my teacher made me re-do a paper I wrote a few times. They couldnāt understand why I couldnāt pull it off when I clearly knew the work. I didnāt have an IEP at that point. When I told her I had dyslexia, she changed her approach to one of empathy and offered scaffolding and support to have success.ā Stevie also noted the vast improvement of assistive technology on all computers now and recommends that teachers show students how they can use those accommodations not only in school, but for homework, which āeliminates disability barriers.ā
Jacob recalls attending his first IEP meetings in 8th grade. āWhile having parents advocate on your behalf, nothing takes the place of being your own self-advocate since you are the one in the classroom every day,ā he added. Anthony agrees.
Learner-centered approaches to teaching that include necessary accommodations and modifications to account for a learning disability can lead to deeper learning for 2e students and be highly motivational. A learner-centered classroom gives students ownership of their education and opens the door to student voice and advocacyāskills 2e students will need as they move through their schooling and the workplace, as noted by Stevie.Ā Jacob found high school, where he could make more choices on how to structure his academics, was a more effective learning environment than in earlier grades.Ā
Teacher relationshipsĀ go a long way to guiding students who are 2e. Just as Anthonyās first-grade teacher exemplified, Jacob also pointed to his fourth-grade teacher who was supportive and helped him move from the special education classroom to a general education setting to better feed his intellect and curiosity.
An example of a learner-centered approach that Anthony enjoyed and succeeded in is the National History Day competition. Students in middle and high school get to pick their own history topic within a theme, research it, and present findings in multiple ways: documentary, website, paper, performance, exhibit. This is a great model for other projects that offer student choice on topics and multiple ways to showcase their work.
A key bridge to opportunity centers on understanding and addressing a studentās learner variabilityāa recognition of the unique strengths and challenges across a whole child framework that are interconnected and vary according to context. At Digital Promise, our free and open-source edtech tool, the Learner Variability NavigatorĀ (LVN) can provide research-based factors of learning and strategies across a whole child framework to support the full diversity of learners in the classroom, including 2e students.Ā
How could the Learner Variability Navigator work for a 2e learner?Ā For a student with weaknesses in phonological awareness but strengths in background knowledge and comprehension, you could find the following strategies: text-to-speech, cooperative writing, literacy centers that are personalized for interests and multiple levels, multimodal instruction, rich library: poetry, music and dance,Ā and others.Ā
Takeaways: Whatās Needed
Keep Expectations High: The frustration many 2e students face stems from having high aspirations and they āresent the often-low expectations that others have for themā (Rosen, 2024).
Recognize and Address Each Studentās Learner Variability, which means seeing them holistically ā not only their academic needs, but who they are as individuals, their various identities, their social emotional needs and strengths, their interests.
Create Belonging and a Culture of Acceptance, which begins with building relationships not only student-teacher, but also student-student. Bridges Academy, one of the original schools specifically founded to address the needs of 2e learners, illustrates this model through its commitment to creating a āpsychologically safe environmentā¦validating the uniqueness of their profiles and empathizing with the difficulties inherent in being twice exceptionalā (Sabatino & Wiebe, 2018, p. 304). Another school cited in recent research also lives this ideal withĀ what one parent called the āpatient supportā of her childās classmates (Speirs Neumeister, 2023).
Use the IEP to not only provide for accommodations and modifications for the learning disability but to recognize a student's strengthsĀ and ensure that those needs are met, as well.
Move from teacher-centered to learner-centered teachingĀ in order to give students voice and choice, which can lead to developing the self-advocacy skills that will be essential as they move beyond the K-12 classroom.
Improve identification of both gifts ā academic and creative ā and disabilities. A broader definition of gifted and learning disabled allows for a wider net to include more students who fall into this category of unique learners.
Professional development that addresses learner variability and shows how it can customize learning experiences for 2e and other students with unique needs.
āRe-think Least Restrictive EnvironmentāĀ is a controversial recommendation from Amanda Morin. Some 2e students may need, even for a limited time, a public school or individual programming devoted to developing and nurturing 2e students in order to thrive not only in school but beyond. She suggests elevating the individual and what it takes for the person to meet their holistic potential. Guardrails would need to be put in place so these students could transition to the neighborhood school or general education classroom at an age where they better understand their identity and learner variability, and can self-advocate.
Top tips from our interviewees:Ā
Anthony Pape-Calabrese
Help 2e students find their special value in the community of their peers.
Empower students by developing and encouraging self-advocacy.
Normalize the disability and giftedness so students donāt feel ashamed or uncomfortable with their differences.
Take the time to ask the student about how they want their peers to understand why they use accommodations. Make sure peers know itās not due to laziness nor is it an unfair advantage.Ā
Offer multiple opportunities to showcase knowledge ā papers, film, art, performance.
Jacob Wells
Teachers need to be and students need to learn to be adaptable. Teachers are under a lot of stress to cover the curriculum and take care of all students. They need to understand the duality of twice exceptionality and be able to adapt for these students.Ā
Teaching need not be so prescriptive and learning styles don't work (nor does research support it). Instead, present material in multi-modal ways and allow for student output to be generated in multimodal ways.
Understand that students have lives outside of school and their performance on any given day may be different because of what happened that day. Lead with empathy, knowing the exhaustion connected to being 2e. If the purpose is to demonstrate they have retained knowledge then all students donāt need to present their learning in the exact same way.
Stevie Mays
If a student asks to push themselves, let them do it. They are motivated. And, itās especially important for students who are gifted with learning disabilities because itās a way to keep curiosity alive and not suffer from boredom.Ā
Check in that the student knows what accessibility tools they could benefit from to complete homework. Some tools that are available at school can also be made available at home.Ā
Practice empathy. If it appears that a student is underperforming, talk to them to find out why. Teachers were frustrated with me because I knew the content, but my output was weak, particularly homework. Those who checked in and realized I had dyslexia saw huge improvements in my work.
For more information, including on the Learner Variability Navigator, contact: Barbara Pape, Senior Director of the Learner Variability Project at Digital Promise, bpape@digitalpromise.org
Digital Promise is a trademark of Digital Promise Global, registered in the United States and other countries, used with permission. Click here to see the published list of the citations in this article.