Workshop: Detecting students with disabilities

Aims:

-         Participants know signals indicating a student has possibly got a disability.

-         Participants know the reasons of students for disclosing or not disclosing their disabilities.

-         Participants know ways to help students to disclose their disabilities (if useful). (Starting with which questions they can ask and which they cannot.)

Approach:

1. Short introduction to the workshop (plenary)
2. Brainstorm ‘to disclose or not to disclose’ (plenary): everybody think up arguments and reasons why students disclose their disabilities or why not in the institute of education. Imagine seriously you have got a disability yourself!

(Answers è flip over sheets.)

1. Cases: how to recognise students with disabilities, what are their signals and how to discuss them with these students (small groups of 4 persons working out 2 cases; plenary feedback)

Method of working out the cases:

-         Formation of groups consisting of 4 persons. Each group works out 2 cases.

The start of each case is a role play: a conversation between a student counsellor and a student.

-         Roles within each group:

1 student counsellor: holds a conversation with a student. Previously s/he gets some information about this student.

1 student: gets information about his/her role previously.

2 observers: follow the conversation and write down their findings on a observation-form that they receive previously. The observers also give answers on questions put on the form. Furthermore the observers guard the given time for the conservation and give a signal to stop the conversation in time. The observers get all case-information to read. After the conversation they evaluate what happened.

-         Time table:

about 5 minutes to start and to read own parts: everybody reads the information s/he gets on paper and thinks about his/her own role

about 7 minutes to have (student and counsellor) / follow the conversation and to make notes (observers)

about 10 minutes to evaluate the conversation:

1. The student counsellor is firstly allowed to give his/her reaction.
2. The student explains his/her role, gives his/her own first intuitive reaction: How did s/he experience the conversation? How did it work out? Which parts did work out O.K.? Why? And what parts didn’t? And why not?
3. The observers give their reactions (what was O.K. and what wasn’t) and put their results (findings and answers) to the others. The purpose is NOT to criticize each other but to complement each other and to propose improvements. Try to use the role play to find out useful do’s and don’ts.

about 25 minutes: work out the second role play following the same scheme, but everybody with a new role! So the former observers become student and student counsellor and the others become observers.

Plenary feedback (rest of the time):

1.      every case is introduced again shortly

2.      participants give their first reaction  (what did they think / feel about it? recognizable?)

3.      we’d like to identify the signals that came or could came forward during the conversations and that suggest the presence of a disability. (Notes of the observers!) Reactions of the other participants? Recognizable? Supplements?

4.      Thus we try to get a list of signals / recognizable items.

We also want to make a list of do’s and don’ts; for instance: what are good questions and what kind of questions you should not ask to students with disabilities. Besides there are points like: behaviour / ways to show that you take the students serious.

Possibly: two other supplements (if there is still some time left):

1.      short brainstorm: subjects to talk about in the first conversation with a student who started to speak about his / her disability

2.      short stocktaking: what to do at the end of the conversation: what is your next step?

Rounding off (evaluation):

Reaction of the participants > how do you feel about the workshop?

Other agreements?

Questions for the observers

What signals did you - in your opinion - get about the possible presence of a disability of the student? (You may have got the signals as well from the case description as from the conversation)

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Notes made during the conversation:

Remarks / comments:

On what points you should have asked more exhaustive / detailed questions?

(Other) possibilities of improvement to suggest...

Cases: 

Case 1   Emel

Case 1   Eser

Case 2   Tabib

Case 2   Galip

Case 3   Huliyah