"Biology Success!" is an innovative project proposed by Landmark College to demonstrate that students with learning disabilities can succeed in high school and college introductory biology courses when the curriculum has been designed to respond to their learning needs. The heterogeneous classes in America's schools parallel the national average for the presence of students with learning disabilities. Between 10% and 20% of the population is estimated to have dyslexia, attention-deficit disorder or other specific learning disabilities. These students can learn along side traditional learners in the biology classroom and laboratory, if faculty are aware of strategies designed to present information and reinforce it in a way that benefits the learning styles of those with learning differences, while serving traditional learners.
Landmark College is uniquely qualified to undertake the preparation of a biology Teaching Manual. Landmark is the only fully accredited college in the nation that restricts admission to students with a diagnosed learning disorder. For the past sixteen years the College has worked to develop a specialized environment tailored to individual learning styles. The College's External Program has been instrumental in providing other educators across the country with proven methodologies that foster success for those with learning disabilities. The institution is eager to extend this work beyond the more traditional areas of reading, writing and communication and apply Landmark's six Educational Principle's to the four major components of the introductory biology curriculum, ecology, genetics. evolution and cell biology.
To accomplish this goal, the project will work with faculty from Landmark College and four collaborating institutions: Marlboro College, Austine High School for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, Bellows Falls Union High School, and Community High School of Vermont. The collaborating institutions will develop curriculum, provide in-service sessions for faculty, field test teaching modules, assess available CD-ROM and on-line products and provide access to the Teaching Manual through Landmark's web site and in print.
The impact of this project will be felt in science instruction throughout the country. It will provide faculty on the secondary and post-secondary levels with the methodology to apply proven teaching strategies to classroom and laboratory instruction advancing the success of those with learning disabilities in science by removing barriers to learning.
