Spotlight Series 04 featuring Dr. Adnan Ezad

As part of our Educator Spotlight Series, we are featuring Dr. Adnan Ezad (@dr_ezad), a high school English teacher. Adnan participated in a Zoom interview, sharing his experiences and best practices for inclusive education and co-teaching. You can also check out his work on YouTube and through his TED talk, "Making Math Tangible With Technology." t

1. How long have you been working in the inclusion co-teaching setting?

It's on and off since I started teaching. I have two inclusion classes this year from September onward. Then the year before last, I had one section, which was inclusion with a teacher that I'd actually worked with, even before I officially became a teacher. When I was still subbing and taking over classes, I guess we could count that, as well. Even when I was doing Summit Learning for two years, I had one section with special needs students, and I had two different inclusion teachers for that. So I'm going to say over the span of all, well, how many ever years 13 or 14 years that I've been teaching, counting my years as a substitute, I would say, five specific years that I had an inclusion teacher with inclusion students in my class and IEPs.

2. What is the most rewarding part about working with a co-teacher or in the inclusion setting?

I'd say the ability to collaborate and bounce ideas off of one another and gain their insights and some different ways to differentiate because I differentiate anyway. And of course, with their expertise with, you know, their knowledge of different students and their IEPs, and what accommodations would complement those IEPs. I think that I learned a lot from that.

3. What are some of the potential obstacles that co-teachers tend to face? Do you have any recommendations for how teachers can overcome those obstacles?

One thing I think is, and this also applies to general ed teachers, when you're making modifications for different students, there's a fine line between like a modification and carrying this task for them. So there's a scaffold, which is supposed to support them, but then you're almost to the point where you're doing it for them. It's almost like my mind when I'm weightlifting. I have spotters, and they're supposed to act as a scaffold to use two fingers and take maybe five or 10 pounds off. Some people grab the bar and take all of the weight off, and then I've done nothing. So I guess there's a fine line between the two. Because sometimes teachers discuss certain scaffolds that they create it and it almost seems as though the students do something that's superficial, that makes it seem like they've done something. After they did that little bit, the teacher just makes all the connections for them, and then the original skill is lost upon the students.

4. What are some strategies that you've found to be most successful when working with another teacher in the classroom?

With my co-teacher, it's the way they might use whatever knowledge they have of their students and their needs to maybe reiterate things that I'm trying to communicate to the students. I'll tell students, you know what to do, and then they'll say it a different way. In general, working with another teacher, that that's always helpful because when students are trying to understand concepts and learn how to communicate ideas, especially in language arts, it's about the ability to build upon and communicate complex ideas. If you hear the same ideas communicated in different ways by different people, I think that's beneficial.

The other day, I was going over the prompt where students have to determine how the poems that they read in this unit have influenced future generations. This is a tricky thing because I don't want them to just say, "This is similar to this," which is probably what they'll do. So they'll look at something that one generation produced and say, "Oh, they talk about this topic. And this poem talks about this topic." And like, that's not what they're supposed to be doing; you're supposed to analyze how one thing influences the other thing. I have the older kids, so I cited a Nirvana song entitled "Rape Me," which deals with women's issues. One of the poems that we read deals with women's issues, and I was basically trying to articulate that Nirvana, the song, was created by Gen Xers. So the grunge movement is indicative of some values are things that Gen Xers did. So, in the song, they're talking about women's issues, and they're drawing upon, or they're taking the spirit of this original poem in 1925 and applying it into a new context, dealing with a different issue within the domain of women's issues. This poem is just talking about women and then having issues with their domestic life. This one is talking about, you know, maybe aggression that women deal with, and it's taking the spirit of that and apply and sort of applying it to this new issue.

That's what I wanted to communicate, and they had to articulate that to analyze how the influence is present. There's an original intent, and then there's a new context to which the intent is applied. I told my co-teacher, "Can you say that also in your words?" Even if I reword things, again, it's me rewording, so they only know and get to hear how I speak and not how someone else would speak and articulate those ideas. I think that that's probably the most beneficial part because I have a different mind in the room that's articulating the same ideas, so they could hear it in a different type of way, rather than the same type of way using different, maybe slightly different verbiage.

5. What is one thing that you think people could do to make schools and classrooms more inclusive for all learners?

I would say one thing would be to have the appropriate amount of technology and a different set of appropriate types of technology equipped in the classrooms. For example, a nice mixture of personalized learning LMSs, adaptive learning systems, and other types of technology would complement students' interests. Again, they should be able to not only learn how to communicate ideas but learn how to communicate ideas in the context of things that they might be interested in, especially things that they might be interested in pursuing as careers. I requested for my school an entire Mac Book carts because one option that I have for all of my projects is for students to make a video game. So, if they're interested in coding or engineering or things like that, they could learn skills associated with that professional field, and I could modify prompts to have them incorporate some of the skills that we're practicing into the story for their video game. That's one thing that there's like video editing, you know, certain students that are in some business or entrepreneurship, they would have to market themselves. So, if they want to market themselves, learning how to make a video and advertisement for themselves, and buy ad space on Google, that those would all be useful things for students to have. And that way, it complements not only their cognitive skills, but also their interests and gives them what they need in order to be successful in different professional careers.

6. What piece of advice would you give either new teachers who are entering the field or teachers who are just working in inclusion classrooms for the first time?

Be very mindful of the standards and the nuance within the standard. The standard should not be watered down to accommodate students with IEPs, but maybe you should be looking at different nuances in the standard and focusing on different nuances for different students in order for them to be able to complete the whole standard. For example, they'll say, "Okay, instead of them having to get 8 out of 10 right, they have to get 6 out of 10 right," and then I'm curving the grade. And that's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to maybe give them an extra resource so that they can get 8 out of 10 right. It's kind of the same with Shakespeare stuff, and even gen ed teachers do this. They say, "let me give them the No Fear version." That's not what you should be doing. If a student struggles a lot, just give them a smaller portion of the text, and give them the context around that. Because what the focus should be on is how to interpret the language, not what happens in the play.

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The Educator Spotlight Series features educators in the field and their experiences with inclusion and co-teaching. If you are interested in being featured in the weekly series, please fill out the interest form or reach out via DM to @AssemblingIncl1.