When you stop and really think about online learning and what supports need to be put into place to support every student, it is much like a regular classroom. Every student needs something different to support their learning, because we all learn differently. We need to make the environment welcoming, encouraging and accepting for all students of all backgrounds and abilities. We need to make the course content and resources easily accessible and provide websites that can support the course. We need to provide differentiated instruction for students to feel that they can guide their own learning at the pace right for them. We as teachers need to look at the “Tiered Approach to Learning” and follow each tier to know how and where to support our students. This approach identifies students who are having learning challenges and helps to plan assessment and instructional approaches that can help each student be successful.
“An extremely effective approach to assessment and intervention is the ‘tiered’ approach, which sequentially increases the intensity of instructional interventions.” (Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003, as cited in Education for All, K–6, p.
Julie Robinson 