Responsibilities Of A Special Education Teacher

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.

After reading chapters one and two of the book “Exceptional lives”, I could more easily understand special education. As a teacher, I will mostly likely have many students with disabilities in my class throughout my career. With

Special education teachers no longer may identify themselves as teachers of just a specific category of students. Rather, they must identify themselves as teachers of all students and be willing to provide whatever support is needed to meet the varied needs of students. Likewise, students should not be identified as self-contained or resource, but as students needing specialized instruction and supports for specific skills/subject areas for specific amounts of time in either a special education setting or a general education setting.

There is a concern that the lack of involvement by CTE teachers in the Special Education program planning of students in their classes and the ability to adequately meet the variety of demands of these learners exists. The purpose of the study is to identify the involvement of CTE teachers in Special Education programming for SWD. This literature review focused on scholarly research and relevant documentation to frame information related to the following questions: 1) What are the perceptions of CTE teachers who teach students with disabilities? 2) How does involvement in the Individual Education Plan (IEP) by CTE teachers affect teacher perceptions of their preparedness and ability to work with students receiving special education services?

The special education teacher is in charge of informing the family on when and where the Individualized Education Program will take place. The family of the student will discuss the necessary content of the individual’s program, how reports will be received to express the child’s progress, and who will be included within the Individualized Education Program team. There will also be considerations in the development of the program, the specific role of the regular education teacher, and the requests of review and revision of the Individualized Education Program. Overall, the family plays a huge role in developing the Individualized Education Program and the parent’s consent must be obtained in order for the IEP to go forward or even be altered.

The student’s present level of academic performance and functional performance and a statement of how the disability affects the student’s involvement and progress in the general education curriculum. Preschool children must have a statement explaining how the disability affects the child’s participation in appropriate activities.

As many know, the IEP is legal binding document that allows the students to be a recipient of special education services. It also specifies different accommodation/modifications, and instructional methods that will be of benefit to the student due to their exceptionality. As the IEP is brought together the IEP team, composed of parents, specialists, general and special education teacher, and sometimes administration are vital in the process because while the parents know the student best, it is those within the walls of the school know the best ways to help the student on their educational journey.

“The IEP, Individualized Education Program, is a document that is developed for each public school child who is eligible for special education” The IEP describes how the student learns, how the student best demonstrates that learning and what teachers and service providers will do to help the student learn more effectively. When developing an IEP the team will consider how their students specific disability affects their learning and come up with goals and objectives that will accommodate those needs and place the student in the least restrictive environment to achieve the goals and

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.

Beakstead, personal communication, October 31, 2013). Alternately, another student’s area of concentration might be based solely on independent living skills at home or with caretakers, and less focused on academic goals. As the goals are implemented by the special education team the student’s achievements can be evaluated daily, weekly, or monthly and in independent and group settings until mastery of the IEP goal is achieved, and where the learning goals of the IEP are age and skill level appropriate and address the future needs of the student. Additionally, these experiences encourage opportunities to practice new knowledge and skills, where teacher-directed and student feedback is available, and where instructional practice and student expectations can be reflected on and adjusted if necessary (Johnson-Gerard, 2012).

One of the most important characteristics of a special educator is having an enormous amount of patience. Special need children require a lot of repetition and time. There may be some children that will need to be constantly re-taught the same concept because their brain can not retain it. This could mean repeating the same lesson to a particular child weekly throughout

To best suit a child with special needs a variety of different elements need to be considered to develop the best plan for the child. This is why it is important to understand that not every child with special needs has a mom or dad. They may have a foster parent and it is the responsibility of the special education teacher to include the foster parent and work with all members of the family. Next, it is important to understand the a disability not only impacts the child but siblings as well. Some siblings may be very helpful while others may act out, it is important to consider siblings when creating a plan as well. Lastly, as a special education teacher, it is important to consider if any extended family help with any responsibility with raising the child. A child has a greater rate of success when all members of the family are working together and are on the same

Special Education Standard 5 states: "The special education teacher understands and applies knowledge of procedures for planning instruction and managing teaching and learning environments. Students do not always come to school ready and willing to learn. When students are disruptive, they compound other learning issues they may have. As Lerner and Johns (2009, in Haydon et al., 2010, p. 222) point out, students with mild to moderate learning and behavior challenges do not do as well in school as their peers. Their teachers must employ various strategies to keep students on task and maximize their learning outcomes.

Being a special educator, there are different roles and responsibilities separate from a general education teacher. As a special ed teacher, you need to be able to be more flexible and open-minded when it comes to teaching. These students, whether in a self-contained classroom or an ICT class, will have such differing needs than their counterparts. While they may still have some same needs, most of them will be different and individual. Even though we may have several students with the same disability in our class, that doesn’t mean that we can treat them the same; each student has differing abilities that we must figure out individually. This is one huge problem that I see prevailing in schools today. Teachers tend to think that if a child has autism, they have the same issues and needs as another child with autism but this is not the case. One child might need headphones for noise-canceling features while the other child might be ok with sound but need more social interactions skills. The ability to discern what a child needs based on their own performance is a crucial aspect to supporting every student equally. As a special educator, we need to not only look at their deficits but their capabilities as well. To define someone by what they can’t do is such a negative point of view. If we go into the classroom trying to find what is wrong with a child, we may never notice what exceptional skills they may have. For example, in class when Mark Sarabian came to talk about the

Anytime we as humans interact with one another we present a point of view. In learning theory, constructivism describes a way of knowledge in which we generate meaning by way of experience. This view holds that each student has a unique background, with unique needs, so becomes quite complex and multidimensional. Just as students have unique perspectives, so do teachers. We also know that how teachers view the world, how they think about problem solving, and what they choose to include and exclude while teaching provides meaning and guidance for learners, particularly young learners. What teachers bring to the table from prior knowledge is also very powerful the teacher that uses clues and pays attention to the class wil not just know what to teach, but how to approach different topics. Regardless of the printed curriculum, then, there will be slant or bias towards a certain topic, a certain way of looking at that topics, or even which topics to include in the lesson.