Over the past month I have been observing in Lebanon High school in a biology class. During my time in this class I have observed a lot and have had a lot of great opportunities that have helped open my eyes toward teaching, and the skills that are necessary to be successful in the field. While there I had the opportunity to work with a student with learning disabilities. During this interaction I learned how to best work with those who have a learning disability and that it takes the ability to think outside the box when trying to explain to the student what the task is so that they are able to understand what they are being asked to do.
While observing the student with learning disabilities I observed a few interesting qualities that this student had that stood out from the other students. One of the qualities that I observed was that he was quiet. Unlike the rest of his class who would turn around and talk with the kids behind them, he would just sit there and wait for further instructions. Another interesting observation that I made was that my student would be interested in his work, but as time went on he began to loose interest in his work and would need someone to remind him to stay on task which was one of his accommodations. I found that his ability to become unmotivated was more prevalent when he was taking notes with the class off the smart board compared to when the class was in a group discussion and the teacher was asking open ended questions.
Another
Special education teachers make a conscious decision to work on a daily basis with students who display various disabilities. Some of the disabilities include autism, negative social and emotional behaviors, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, mobility disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, as well as students who suffer from being blind and deaf. When these disabilities interfere with the daily educational activities of a child, the child is in need of the valuable opportunities provided in a self-contained classroom.
Learning disabilities are a life long struggle but if caught at a young age and early intervention takes place. The stress on the child and family is greatly reduced. Learning disabilities spread to every part of a child’s life affecting them socially. Teachers must remain professional and refrain from calling students lazy as in Adams case. A good teacher or specialist can demystify a learning disability and help a child’s
According to “Learning Disabilities Fast Facts” by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, “Close to half of secondary students with learning disabilities perform more than three grade levels below their enrolled grade in essential academic skills (45% in reading, 44% in math).” This fact proves that when disabled students are in a classroom that contains both disabled students as well as nondisabled students, disabled students are not learning to their full potential or may not be learning at all (Learning Disability Fast
If a student has a learning disability that should be immediately addressed by perhaps sending those students for one hour to a special need class at the school or getting permission from the parent to provide him or her with tutorial on certain days, if it is necessary this show that the
Kate Garnett wrote an article entitled from What Are Classrooms like for a Students with Learning Disabilities. In her article she talks about what a general classroom is like to a student with disabilities and how it affects the students. Firstly, she mentions about the classrooms being very crowded where one can be easily distracted. Not every student can give proper attention to the tutor’s question or the topic and very little progress of the student is monitored. So, the good students excel their class but others remain in confusion. She also mentions about the private talk with teachers being difficult and also school life is very activity focused. The student with learning disabilities may feel overwhelmed. Most of the student’s
If parents, teachers, and other professionals discover a child's learning disability early and provide the right kind of help, it can give the child a chance to develop skills needed to lead a successful and productive life. The LD online website provides a long list of characteristics that might indicate a learning disability between the ages of Kindergarten and high school. Some common signs of a learning disability that as a teacher we can look for in the classroom would be, a student speaks later than most children, pronunciation problems, slow vocabulary growth, student is often unable to find the right word, difficulty rhyming words, trouble learning numbers, alphabet, colors, and shapes, extremely restless and easily distracted, trouble interacting with peers, difficulty following directions or routines, and lastly the fine motor skills are slow to develop. Once the teacher or parents can understand what type of learning disability a child has they can help them succeed academically by providing instruction better and understanding the person
When a child doesn’t seem to be learning, some teachers and parents in his/her life might criticize the child and think of them as stupid, or maybe just too lazy to want to learn. What they don’t realize is that the child might have a learning disability. But how are these children being helped? There are many programs, special schools and facilities, home teaching methods and many other ways in which children with Learning Disabilities are being helped.
One student I observed had severe disabilities. She seems to be very high on the Autism spectrum. She spent most of her time in the other room, but from what I saw she had severe communication difficulties, would repeat words, and would repeat actions like spinning and rocking. She also showed aggressive behaviors, especially when she didn’t want to do something, like read.
These students have normal and sometimes above normal intelligence but they struggling with problems that hinder them from learning and progressing like other students. More recently it is thought that a student with learning disability could show one of more than 500,000 combinations of cognitive or socioemotional problems (Heward, 2010). Learning disabilities cause students to struggle with so many things in school such as academics, emotions, and socializing and learning disabilities also cause students to have problems away from school. Students with learning disabilities may experience problems with learning to read or comprehend what they read, learning to do math or develop mathematical reasoning, learning vocabulary, spelling or the written language, and learning to get along with others and exhibit appropriate social skills. They may also have problems with paying attention, hyperactivity, and sometimes behavior,
The students in this resource class had learning or behavioral disorders including: ADD, ADHD, or intellectual disabilities. By observing the students, I noticed most seemed anxious, rested or impatient. I think these characteristics related to them having an attention disorder. Students were impatient while waiting to answer questions or easily disrupted the class with a random thought. Some students had trouble staying focused and would look around the room. The teacher would have to say let’s stay focused or pay attention throughout the lesson.
It is important to identify a child’s disability as early as possible in order for the student to get proper intervention services and set up with an individualized learning plan. Differentiation of instruction is important for all of the children in the classroom, not just those with a disability. All students have different learning styles, and all students have the subjects that they excel at and the subjects that they struggle with. “Teachers need the ability to alter instruction to meet student needs, interests, and abilities (Tomlinson, 2001).” One of the most difficult areas in teaching is easily classroom management, even the easiest going students have days of challenging behavior. “Students at risk of disabilities or who have other disabilities engage in a wide range of challenging
The modern classroom has many challenges that face it. Shrinking budgets, less parental involvement, higher expectations, and growing class sizes, just to name a few. If this list was not daunting enough you also have the special needs students that have an array problems in your classroom that need specialized attention, lessons and seating. There are many forms of diverse learners from students who suffer from ADHD to physical disabilities to students with autism to ones that are bullied in school. There are so many things going on in our students lives we sometimes forget they have lives, pressures and disabilities that affect their performance and attitude in our class that have a profound impact on how they learn. For this paper I
Special education students have severe behavior or emotional issues that can disturb the classroom learning environment for themselves and the non-disabled peers. Disabled students often act out from not feeling accepted, frustration from the difficult material, and their cognitive obstacles. According to the article Time to leave inclusion out, seventy percent of teachers blamed the inclusion of children with special needs for increasingly bad behavior in the classroom.
It is really amazing how excited students get with the possiblity of using the computer in the classroom to assist them with their lesson. The teacher added that she uses it as a reward system, stating how affective it is in maintaining order and control in the classroom. Students knew how to navigate, go to various websites that were related to the lesson and create a folder in which to put their assignments in.
If the teacher knew much about the development of the students they would know the differences between a child with learning disabilities and a child that has not been in the environment in which they could properly develop.