My Educational Philosophy As a future special education teacher, I believe every child deserves to receive the best education possible, regardless of disabilities or special needs. While the needs of each student may vary, each child deserves a valuable and well-delivered education that concentrates on both their immediate and future needs. It is crucial to be cognizant of students’ academic abilities and/or disabilities and to strive to supply the tools and services they need as individuals to thrive academically as well as in society. I believe it is my duty to help each child discover their unique gifts and talents and reach their full potential. In order to help each individual achieve their goals and flourish, it is imperative to first build a relationship with the students. After all, “students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” It is important to get to …show more content…
Like special education, differentiated instruction regards personalized instruction. Each child has an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) with personal goals to work towards. While direct instruction is necessary, I believe it is crucial to incorporate a constructivist approach as well by seeking and valuing students’ viewpoints. Having insight concerning the students helps teachers prepare classroom lessons and differentiate instruction on the basis of students' needs and interests. I cannot force my students to learn. However, I believe I can make them more inclined to learn if the learning is enjoyable, engaging and relevant. While I am not a certified teacher yet, I stick by those beliefs and hope to develop a more clear and profound philosophy of teaching throughout the years. This is just the
As every individual is unique, getting to understand the students’ characteristics, knowledge and cultural background are essential requirements for encouraging their development and learning (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett & Farmer, 2012). In order to achieve the above requirements, a strong and positive relationship with students is the effective way for teachers to build up a holistic picture of a student (Groundwater-Smith, Ewing & Le Cornu, 2015a; Nixon & Gould, 2005). The various recorded interactions and observations between teachers and students made during the professional experience, have helped me to understand how students learn and have strengthened my ability to plan and implement lessons (Arthur et al., 2012).
The amount of people who live with disabilities is a controversial number. Depending on what law and diagnostic tools used, a person may have a visible disability, or one that may lie beneath the surface of his or her appearance. Some people believe that the term “disability” is merely a label use to hold back, or prescribe helplessness. Meanwhile, individuals who have been properly diagnosed with disabilities struggle to maintain respect and acceptance every day. In plain language, there is a lot of misunderstanding between people with disabilities and those without. It is firstly important to get everyone on the same page regarding the definition of disability.
Differentiation of instruction is the process of teaching in a way to meet the needs of students with differing abilities in the same class, including those with special learning needs. One way to do this is by providing several different avenues by which all students can learn the same material. In differentiating instruction, teachers plan out and implement a variety of approaches to content, process, product, and environment. Differentiated instruction is used to meet the needs of student differences in readiness, interests, and learning needs. Many people in the education field believe differentiation has the potential to transform teaching and learning in a way that raises expectations for all students.
I have distinctly applied for Special Needs Education because special education has always been what’s near and dear to me in the field of education. Being a special education teacher would be an inevitably rewarding job, in which I get to watch my students grow, as I celebrate their small breakthroughs and victories with them. These small breakthroughs and victories will improve over time and turn into giant leaps, which will leave a lasting impact and ultimately change the child’s life. Beyond just educating children with special needs, I aspire to educate the public about children with special needs and special education. By doing so, I hope to remove any uncertainty and fear the public has on this group of children. Not only do I want to impart knowledge on these special children, I also want to advocate for them, which is something that goes
My personal philosophy of special education drives not from teaching in the field, but from, observations, and personal experience, and the workshops I attended. I have had the opportunity to work with individuals with special needs in many different settings, all this help cultivate my knowledge in handling the needs of the special needed student. Special needs students have the ability to learn, to function, to grow, and most importantly to succeed. The difference comes into how they learn or how they need to be taught. There are as many beliefs about the "hows" as there are teachers and each of us forms our own philosophy through our experiences and research. As a student in a special education teachers’ program, learners with
One of the reason people chose a career in special education is job satisfaction. Special education teacher perceived their job to be rewarding. They get personal fulfillment and gratification in teaching special need students. “It truly must be passion to continue working in special education because we all know it is a tough job.”(Participate 2010,”Motivational factor towards pursuing a career in special education”)They have the opportunity to make a positive difference in the students’ lives. When the student who is struggling in school graduate it brings great satisfaction to the educator. The most important part of this field is to help a child develop to their highest potential.
The special education teacher interviewed, talked about this goal to meet each child’s need is challenging to her especially in eleventh and twelfth grade. The teacher tries to strive towards their educational goals, their need areas, and work on their strengths.
When I was first asked, “What is your philosophy of teaching special education,” I didn’t really know what to say. I have taught general education and specialized classes, but I have never taught special education before. Regardless of whom my audience is, my basic philosophy of teaching remains unchanged and is applicable to any audience whether they are general education students or special education students. My philosophy of teaching postulates first, everyone can learn; second, everyone learns in different ways; and third, I am a facilitator of learning.
Readingrockets.org defines differentiation as tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Differentiated instruction is a broad framework for supporting student differences by varying content, process, products, and learning environments based upon students strengths and weaknesses (Tomlinson, 2000).
All in all, differentiated instruction is a method used by teachers to accommodate all the different learning modalities, levels of learning, cultural and language barriers and special needs often integrated in one classroom with one lesson plan.
The purpose of schooling is to help our special education students to be functional and independent in the real world. I want them to learn how to deal with real life situations and to be able to understand and adapt to the changes it may bring. For example, being an autism teacher of high school students, my philosophy is different than of an autism teacher of elementary students. The most important thing of concern for the older students is to make sure they are as independent as possible and teach them some type of job skill to help them acquire a pay check to help with their care. I also help them have an
Differentiated instruction is personalized for students of different levels of achievement, which allows students to choose what kind of teaching they want to use to learn. It lets students grow at their own pace through new material. For a differentiated classroom, teachers use assessments to determine student readiness. Assessments such as pre-tests are effective in determining what a student needs to learn or what level the student is. It lets teachers teach students based off of the common core standards but they do it also based on each child’s learning style and what level of knowledge they are at, at the same
Presently I am a Special Education teacher working with children who have a wide range of disabilities. My class setting is integrated, which mean half of the class is general and the other half is special. My primary goal is to modify general education lesson plans to meet each student’s needs and abilities. These needs may include, but not limited to emotional, physical or cognitive disabilities, teaching basic literacy and life skills. I have an interest in this field because I feel with the proper help and assistant; students make positive changes in their academic and social life. Providing early intervention is essential when teaching kids with disabilities. One of the main reasons why I have made the decision to pursue a PhD in education, specialization in Special educator, is because I enjoy what I do and would like to make a difference. My ultimate goal is to keep making a difference by helping those that needed it and provide them with the proper resources to enhance their ability. I want to be an example to my children and have them see the end result of what happens when one desire to strive for the best and what they can accomplish. I want my children to see that with hard work, motivation, dedication, concentration, and having no limits that they will attain any goals they may set forth.
Special Education is a topic of controversy with many advocates fighting for the justice children and adults with special needs so rightfully deserve. With laws being passed and modified so frequently, it is important that the educators being brought into the world have an extensive knowledge of the developmental needs of many different types of children. With this knowledge and their constant measures to keep up to date with the fast-moving world of education, they will be able to deliver an appropriate atmosphere that is in accordance with the law that ensures ethical practices and guidelines are always being followed.
“Special education labels don’t define children; Children define themselves” (Dalien, 2015). I am interested in becoming a special education teacher because I have always loved being around children, and I have a soft spot for kids with autism and other disabilities. The first time that I ever thought about working with special needs children was when I was in the fifth grade. My mom worked at my school as a teacher assistant in a first grade classroom, so in the morning I would go to her classroom and wait for the bell to ring. A little boy named Alex who had Cerebral palsy and a spinal problem, came into class early as well. I immediately connected with him, and began going to my mom’s room every morning to play with him before class. It soon became the highlight of my day. Alex could not talk very well and could not walk, so we rolled cars around the floor, traced shapes on to the whiteboard, or sometimes crawled on the floor chasing each other as monsters. I loved seeing how me playing with him made him smile so big and become more outgoing. My dream is to give kids like Alex a reason to smile and help them reach their full potential. In this speech you will learn all about special education teachers, including, but not limited to: What they do, where they typically work, their environment, how much they get paid, benefits the job entails, the education and skills required to become a special education teacher, and information on the job outlook.