It's a Visual Word

It goes without saying that art is a visual subject.  Often attributed for meeting the needs of visual learners, the idea of creating lesson plans for students that have visual imparments can seem very challenging.  The key to tacking the fear of creating lessons for students with visual imparments is to understand that art offers much more then visual stimulation.

I often believe that the best way to help students with disabilities is to learn how to compensate with their abilities. For instance, students with extrememly limited vision will likely have more atune senses of touch.  Think about focusing on the tactile learning skills, like sculpting, clay moddeling or paper mache.  Allowing students to touch and feel works of art, giving them an oppertunitiy to explore how the peices connect or join can be a huge benefit.

Let's walk through a basic lesson on sculpture for students of all abilities.

1. At the start of class explain that the students will be working with sculptures.
2. Have small student made clay sculptures at students desk.
3. Ask ALL students to close their eyes and explore the sculpture just using touch. 
4. Have students open their eyes and describe how the sculpture feels.  
5. Take notes on the conversation using a smart board.
1. The notes can be saved and hand writing can be turned into text.  
2. This will allow you to save the notes for later and make them more readable and able to be enlarged.
6. Give students clay and ask them to close their eyes and practice molding the sculpture just using touch.
7. End class with a discussion about how just using touch helped and hindered the process, allow students to explore the difficulties and create connections with the activity and the students in the class.