This chapter is so full of great information.
The idea of inclusion has become synonymous with integrating hardcore special educated kids. But in reality, an inclusive classroom is one that doesn't tolerate bullying or doesn't allow a shy student to sit silently or doesn't let an apathetic student wallow in inactivity. To be inclusive means just what it says...to get EVERYONE included, and that might simply be to be sure your lesson is engaging, active, and integrates ALL TYPES OF LEARNERS! That's why I integrate diverse learner activities with this chapter. To be a great teacher, you have to reach every child (if you can). Set expectations high but give the tools to achieve them. If your class is full of kinesthetic learners, then lessons should be active. If there are kids who are auditory AND visual, then make sure all lessons have a listening and viewing component. It's SO important to know who your students are, how they learn, and what may connect with them. Within this chapter, you get some insight into the IEP process, into how disabilities are served in public schools, and various philosophies and ethics of meeting those needs. For your blog, you'll tell me a couple of things you learned, a few things you already knew, and how this information can help you be/become a better teacher or professional or human being...
Before you complete any of the diverse learner activities, you'll take the surveys (in Diverse Learner folder), watch my video in Moodle, Dropbox, or One Drive (I will invite you), so you can see what these look like, go through the packet I posted in the Diverse Learner folder, and then you will be making some of your own! THESE are the real activities you will do in your own classroom, so be thinking about how you can integrate this information into your future classroom!
Because class is small enough, when you blog, you then need to respond to everyone's blogs! :-)
When the blog is due, your responses to classmates will always be due with the next 48 hours, unless someone is late to blog.
This chapter was full of great information. There were a couple of things that I did already know before reading it, for example, I knew that students with special needs need different accommodations in the class room in order to learn in the same big class as all the other students. I also already knew that there was a big percentage of students in school with disabilities but I did not know how many. In the book it says approximately 6 million children about 13 percent of all school-aged children were getting some kind of help from a special needs serve. I did not know that the process of applying and finding information out about special needs in school was so hard, these parents have hard times finding out what they need to do to get their child into the program, and not just the parents but the school, they are saying that the paper work and time out of class is what they spend most of their time doing rather than focusing on the children at hand.
ReplyDeleteI think that knowing all of these things I can help in my school when I become a teacher by getting more awareness out on how the parents feel about not knowing enough and asking the school to make it known what their special education policies are and how to apply to them. Also knowing that many kids have disabilities, I can accommodate my classroom and know my students so that I can reach everyone of my students.
I agree that knowing these things can definitely help spread awareness on how parents feel about not having enough information. I feel that parents are not the only ones who do not know much about the special education programs in schools though, sometimes the teachers don't know much either. Your idea about asking schools to make special education policies known is a very good one and could probably help many parents as well as teachers and even get children in the program who may not gotten in otherwise.
DeleteI personally think that having to go through all the paper work is awful and takes time away and effort away fro actually educating the students. With the number of students/children that have special needs, I think the school system needs to make this an easier process.
DeleteI agree with you Faith when you said that you want to know that your kids have disabilities, even if it is something "small or not as extreme of a problem."
Faith, I agree it is amazing to see how many students are needing accommodations and assistance. You are smart to try prepare yourself as much as possible prior to entering teaching so you can be the best possible teacher for all of your students. Also knowing what to do will aide you in not having to take away from your other students addressing the needs of the students requiring accomodations. Perhaps we can be innovate as educators and think of ways to reduce the paperwork so more time can be spent with the students.
DeleteI knew the majority of what was in this chapter because I had read it before so for the what I learned portion, I focused mainly on things that I had forgotten about that I found to be surprising even after having read them before.
ReplyDeleteWhile rereading the chapter, I was surprised to see that approximately 13% of school age children were receiving special education services in 2003 and that the number jumped to approximately 14% in 2005-2006. I was also slightly surprised to learn that males have a higher chance of having attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. While I know several people whom are ADHD or autistic, I never really realized that the majority of them were males so I never wondered why. I was also surprised to hear that special education information is hard to come by and that schools were slow to even volunteer the information they had.
Before reading the chapter, I knew that IDEA excluded those with psychical disabilities and impairments (such as children who are blind or deaf) and children with learning and emotional disabilities. I also knew that children with special needs differ in ability levels, strengths and weaknesses, ages, learning styles, pace of leaning and personality or temperaments and that students who receive special education services are provided with an IEP.
Knowing these things can help me in my classroom by reminding me to set realistic expectations for not only those with disabilities, but for the entire class. I feel that these things will make me strive even more to get to know my students so I can know their needs, strengths and weaknesses and I can account for these things in my lessons. In addition, I feel that I as a teacher should get as much information as possible about special education services so I can not only help my students but help the parents as well if their child needs special education services.
I also did not know that men had a higher risk of all of those learning disabilities. I love how you said that knowing these things about special education, you should set realist class room goals. I feel like not many teachers do this now, but that is a great thing to do!(I didn't really think about the goals that were going to be set, so thank you for that!) But yes I feel like schools should be more apt to want to tell parents about their special education classes and what they are all about.
DeleteI also did not realize that the thing you mentioned above were in men more then women. Maybe guys are know as trouble makers in school because they have these problems more and teachers/parents do not know about them. Knowing that students have these needs can help the teachers/parents help cope with the kids individual needs and learn better.
DeleteRebecca, I too was surprised by some of the statistics, especially the jump in students and the predominance of males with disabilities. But even more shocking was the fact that assistance for regular education teachers is difficult to come by. However I must say as a current teacher I experience this somewhat. I guess it is reassuring to know this is a global issue.
DeleteFor chapter 1, I already knew that there is a wide variety of adaptations that can be made to fit the needs of the students. I knew about all of the accommodations available, such as, students needing more time and repetition to consolidate the information because of their cognitive disabilities and that students will receive special instructions for their specific need (IEPs).
ReplyDeleteSome key points that I learned were that critics think that we need to just educate teachers better so that they can take care of all students in the classroom, but I believe that we need to have the special attention for the special education students so that their education is specialized and fits most (if not all) their needs.
Something that I thought was shocking and I will use as a future teacher was that 70% of teachers were knowledgable about their students disabilities and how to deal with it. I think as a future teacher I will want to be as knowledgable as possible about my students IEPs and I will research them and see how to accommodate the students as best as possible. Lastly, the fact that 77% of students parents felt apart of their kids special education team was high, but I think that it can be increased and in the future as a teacher I would try and get all parents on the team.
I like how you said that we need the special education classes to help the special needs children, I believe that same thing. If we just throw those kids into the regular classroom, they are just going to be pushed along and not helped in the right way, which is not right at all.
DeleteAddison, I think it is great that you are making a goal to make sure you ar prepared as you can be for all of your students. Not only will that help the students but it will also help you and alleviate some frustration for you. I sometimes too think it would be better to strengthen the special education teachers and to not mainstream the students so much. I feel too many of the students I see with the needs are allowed to pass along. There is not enough time in the classroom to address each one with the amount of attention they really should get and still give attention to all of the other students. That is what frustrates me the most as a teacher at the end of the day. I feel the students aren't really reaching their full potential as they would if they could get more individualized attention.
DeleteWhile I agree that all parents should be on their child's special education team, there are some that will not want to do what's best for their child but rather what makes them as parents feel better. My boyfriend's cousin is autistic and is getting ready to go off to college. You would imagine that his parents would want to make sure that the school knows of his disability and that he is a comfortable distance from home but instead they are choosing not to disclose it and pretend like it is not there. Unfortunately, I know many other parents do this as well. While I feel that having every parent be a part of the special education team is an admirable goal, we do need to remember that sometimes it is just not possible because of the parents themselves.
DeleteChapter 1 was a good high level, overview hitting on all aspects of special education. A topic in particular that I was already familiar with from speaking with professionals directly in special education classrooms is the amount of paperwork that distracts from teaching. They really struggle with giving quality time and attention to the students and completing all the administrative/paperwork requirements. Even for teachers that are not in special education classrooms, there is additional paperwork for students with IEPs causing more stressors for teachers as they have to add to their already tasked agendas. It is also very time challenging to prepare the multiple learning enhancements and alternatives for outcomes. Granted we should prepare lessons in a variety of formats for different learning styles, but perhaps you have a student that per their IEP they should have accommodations or reduced objectives, then you have to at times prepare at least two lesson plans and outcomes for one lesson. Add in another three to four students with different IEPs and then you may have multiple preps. Another item that wasn't quite a surprise to me was the range of conditions that fall into special education. Again, perhaps since I am already in the classroom and experiencing these classifications. However prior to being exposed to the classroom, I would have been surprise to have some of the conditions labeled as special education. I believe part of that surprise is because of my age. There didn't seem to be so many diagnosis when I was in school or perhaps there were and I was oblivious to them.
ReplyDeleteThere were some bite to information that caught me off guard in the text, but when I took time to think about it, the facts didn't seem so surprising. For instance, the mention that males have a higher incidence of classification of special education. As I got to thinking of students I know with the classification, they are primarily male. However I couldn't help but wonder if it is because typically boys do not fair well with traditional teaching methods as girls do so they might get labled more often especially at an earlier age. Another surprise was the integration timeline. I was in grade school in the late 70's and early 80's. I always thought special education was a part of school but when I really tried to remember, I can remember times of when we would get "new" students who were disabled. I also don't remember having as many classmates with disabilities as my children have so that makes me wonder if things weren't as integrated as I thought.
Even when I was growing up in grade school, early 00s, I know that we had classrooms for the special education students. Back then I really did not think about it, just that they are different and need help, I did not think any lesser of the students and I think that is apart because the teachers did a good job of making the students feel welcomed and normal when they were in the classroom.
DeleteI honestly did not think about males being higher at risk, until I thought about it. Most of the kids in grade school that were the trouble makers were they boys. Maybe that has something to do with it. I do think that when I was in grade school I did not notice that many kids with a disability, but then again i was not concerned with if they had a disability or not, which is kind of like you, thinking that the school was integrated, but maybe it was not. I also think that every school is different in the ways they treat special education classes and I do not feel like that should be. I think that there should be a set way and set way of doing things for them and getting them to learn how to do what all the other children do, just in a different way.
DeleteI graduated from my high school in 2014 and I don't really remember any special education students in my class either. I don't know if this is because we had a such a small school that there weren't many and the ones we had were younger or older than me, if I never saw them, or that they were just that integrated. I do remember a few students who had trouble with work going into another room or having someone come in to help but I know at least one of those was because the student would act out if this didn't happen.
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