My class is a special education, self-contained multi-grade class. There are 11 students in the class. Two students are in the 3rd grade, two are in the 4th grade, and seven are in the 5th grade. All of the students has an IEPs classification which includes but not limited to autism, auditory processing disorder, attention deficit with hyperactivity [ADHD], attention deficit disorder [ADD], communication impairment, emotional disorder, and multiple disabilities. Additionally, several students also exhibit severe deficits in social and behavioral age appropriate skills. These challenges mentioned above interfere with my students’ attendance and ultimately their learning. All of the students are performing significantly below their grade level
My two boys, Christian and Adrian Ayala, are both A/B students and both have achieved Principal Honor Roll once every year. My 11 year old son, Adrian, has been medically diagnosed with ADD. He suffers from anxiety and stress disorder. He is taking medically prescribed Adderall for his anxiety and his depression. He is enrolled in the special needs learning program. Even with these challenges, my youngest son has managed to maintain a perfect attendance andcosistently achieves honor-roll recognition every year. He is also a Boy
Texas Education Agency (TEA) mandates that the ARD team will make assessment accommodations based on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) (replacing Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) curriculum) in the student’s IEP (Using The manual for parents and students about special education services in Texas, 2012, p. 48). To ensure that the accommodations in the IEP are being followed I would start with a discussion with all involved staff members. In this discussion, which could occur during IEP meetings, staff could provide input on how they specifically plan to implement accommodations in their specific environment. Additionally, teachers should be provided a copy of the IEP for reference. For example,
First, Rather than focusing on the child's learning deficiencies, emphasize and reward the child’s strengths and encourage them to find new interest and hobbies. Second it is important to meet with the child's teachers, tutors, and school support personnel to understand performance levels, and attitude toward school. After the student has been evaluated they are now eligible for special education services. Special education services are provided to student to work with a team of professionals, including your child's teacher, to develop an Individualized Education Program. The individualized education program is created to provide a summary of child’s current education and future goals within education. Children with learning disabilities need to know that they are loved and that they are not dumb. They need to know that they are intelligent normal people who just have trouble learning because their mind process words and information differently. Students with learning disabilities are just like every other student they just need more focus on certain learning
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
Within our daily schedule and lesson, my students get the opportunity to explore learning in different ways that will meet their needs. Each learning style is displayed within our day. Visuals, audios, and hands on experiences are used. They even have the chance to work with technology which is known to keep the students engaged in learning. They are involved in task that will lead to higher order thinking such as our read aloud. Although they have disabilities, they are still introduced to their grade level standards. I understand that these standards are sometimes modified, but with modifications; my students’ confident are
I choose to do an onsite visit in a resource math class at a middle school for this field project. I was there from 9:30-1:00. The classroom I observed had 2-3 teachers in it at a time. One student teacher, one head teacher and sometimes a teacher that had to help a specific student would be in the classroom. There were about 15 students in the class at a time. Two of which had to have teachers who followed them to every class. I asked the head teacher how many of these students have a learning disability and she said that about three quarters of them have a learning disability. I then asked her why the students might be in the class. She said “Well, because one of two reasons. Students either have hard time learning math the normal way or the normal math class just moves at too fast a pace for them.” She also explained that the middle school had three mainstream math classes for seventh graders and three mainstream math classes for the eighth graders. Each grade had a math class for students at who scored at grade level for math, one for students who scored above grade level for math and one for student who scored slightly below grade level for math. Her students were the ones that scored significantly lower in math. During this field project and interview with the head teacher, I learned and noticed a tremendous amount about how a special education class is run.
I have conducted my field of experience at Westside Elementary School, second and third grade classroom. The third grade class consists of 20 students. The teacher does not have any aide even though she needs some assistance, because two of her students are falling behind. The sad part about this is that the students have not being diagnosed yet, but they are having a lot of difficulties. The teacher mentioned that by fourth or fifth grade those two students will need to be placed in a special education classroom. The students both have a concentration problem and it causes them to struggle with reading, writing, math, listening, and speaking. The teacher asked me to
My observation this semester is in a self-contained classroom for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The class is taught by one special education teacher who is assisted by a teaching aide. The desks are spaced out from one another, allowing each student a lot of room to move around. I believe the desks are arranged this way so that the students have limited contact with one another. There are books and games on a shelf that the students are allowed to use during break time. There are also two computers that they may use during breaks or after they have completed their work. In one corner of the room, there are two bean bags and a sign that says quiet zone. The students are taught reading, math, and language arts in this room. They go to an inclusion room for science and social studies. They eat lunch in the cafeteria with the rest of the fifth-grade students. They also leave this room every day to attend related arts with the rest of the student body.
In the 3rd step plan the implementation is when educators will monitor and provide feedback to ensure the intervention is delivers properly. And step 4 is to evaluate the problem, consultant and teacher will evaluate the responsiveness to the intervention and modify if needed. These steps result in a great intervention program that is precise to see desired results in the RTI. With intervention trial and error is how real results are achieved. In previous years before interventions and RTI’s were placed in schools, too many children were sent for learning disabilities or special education showing teachers inability or unwillingness to teach sand accommodate academic diversity ( Reynolds, 1987). The article states how teachers can generally implement learning strategies until the student gets it and if after interventions and RTi’s measure the responsiveness as not responsive the child can be placed in special education to receive IEP’s to adjust to their learning disability.
Separate special education provides no guarantee of success for children who need special attention. Students with special needs may fail to conform to the expectations of school and society, (Carter, Lewis, & Wheeler 2017) Inclusion may present issues for teachers that do not possess the skills to make it work. Teachers must collaborate with a team of professional to plan and implement instruction for students in an inclusive environment. Students without disabilities could begin to see the students with disabilities as a distraction in the class depending on the needs of the student with disabilities.
Students with disabilities need to be physically, programmatically, and interactionally included in classroom activities that have been planned by a qualified teacher in conjunction with support staff as needed.
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
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
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.
An effective teacher of students with disabilities is one that actively utilizes the available resources to positively influence students’ educations. This includes anyone that may be on the IEP team or other school professionals that could be of assistance at that time. The most common person