Stephen is a Senior Directing major at Carnegie Mellon and who speaks on his experiences with ADHD as well as his opinions on how to best support students with ADHD.

What I took from his talk, was a teaching perspective and a multitude of strategies/inspiration for adjusting the instruction and classroom climate for creating confident learners – specifically those students with ADHD.

Stephen made some powerful statements that I will reflect on below:

“It is not Attention Deficit but Attention Difference” – students process things differently. As educators, this is a powerful perspective to have of all students in addition to students with learning disabilities.  Students have different perspectives, different cognitive processing strategies and different needs.  As educators, we must adapt our instructional strategies, organization of the physical space, routines and expectations in order to meet the needs of all of our students.  This reminds me of a quote that I heard in another video where an LD teacher spoke about fairness.  Fairness is making sure everyone gets what they need, not making sure everyone gets the same thing.  Therefore, each student is taught differently, because each student needs different supports.

“We must teach students how to learn” – teaching students different cognitive processing strategies not only gives students the tools to learn but it builds empathy within the classroom.  A classroom that celebrates different learning strategies and approaches also celebrates diversity – each student’s perspective, experiences, learning strategies etc. are seen to enrich the classroom rather than hinder it.

There are so many more important points that Stephen made so please, please, please watch this video!