The Teacher 's Critical Role As A Designer Of Student Learning

The issue the author has presented in chapter 5 is what should educators teach students with moderate and severe developmental disabilities. The author states that she became interested in studying how students with moderate and severe disabilities might meet grade level academic content expectations mandated by No Child Left Behind. Despite the lack of evidence on teaching grade level academic content to students with cognitive disabilities, the federal government required schools to include students with moderate to severe disabilities in school accountability systems.

Firstly, Mrs. Creech discusses meaningful inclusion. Students with disabilities will learn and a slower pace, and therefore they need follow a curriculum that meets their needs. When students are part of general education classes, it is important to evaluate the material that will be taught to the child during inclusion. Valuable lessons include: skills in self-care, communication and vocational goals. It is important to see the big picture for these children. We need to teach skills that are going to contribute to their independence as adults.

As educators, it is important to address individual differences in students’ recognition, strategic, or affective networks, thus providing the best possible support by individualizing pathways to learning through Universal Design for Learning (UDL). A study on alternative education for children suggests oversimplifying learner differences by categorizing students into two groups, regular and special, fails to accurately represent the full diversity of learners in the classroom. ( Meo, 2010, p. 21) Therefore, UDL is a framework for designing curriculum which provides all students equal opportunities to learn, with no discrimination to individual needs. In order for students to have equal opportunity in their learning and achievement,

It is the responsibility of the school to provide a broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils, based on the programmes of study for each key stage in the national curriculum. The teacher’s responsibility is to minimise any obstacles to effective learning and plan for all children to participate in the curriculum and achieve the best that they can. This will help to ensure an inclusive classroom. Access to a high-quality education is critical for empowering all children to lead rich and productive lives. Regardless of their background, disability, heritage, special educational needs, social group, gender, physical or emotional needs, race or culture schools have a duty to make sure all pupils have equal access to the curriculum. All children

In the educational world, there are countless programs, curricula, strategies, manipulates, and resources for teachers to pull from in order to aide in the teaching of concepts and learning of students. Whatever method(s) a school or district has deemed best practice, or adopted as their curriculum, tend to be the instructional practices or resources utilized the most by those teachers. Additionally, teachers will also have preference to teaching styles, resources, and materials they use for their students. While autonomy in any classroom is important to students’ academic growth, one must also be careful to select and implement instructional with great intention and purpose. Consideration to students needs is equally important as the mandate of teaching standards and demonstrating proficiency amongst students. Even when teaching non-disabled students, it can be time consuming and overwhelming to plan lessons so just how much more is involved when planning for students with significant disabilities (SD)? Better yet, what are appropriate instructional strategies to use for students with SD? Regardless of the instructional setting, these are considerations that must be given when teaching students with SD in order to maximize their learning opportunities to learn

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

In the article “Universal Design for learning (UDL) and learners with Severe Support Needs”. Hartmann writes a story from her experience about student his name is Marcus has disabilities. The regular curriculum failed to get him a better education, and then his teachers decided to replace him in a school had curricula focused in disabilities or severe disabilities. Unfortunately, those schools for students “non-verbal” and Marcus had an ability to speak; his mother had frustrated and embarrassment for son future because the education curriculum did not design around students to get more benefit from learning. Also, she writes the students come from different background, culture and heredity; consequently, those factors influence in their learning even two brothers do not learn the same way. Moreover, most of the learning curriculum have designed for normal students, and they have supposed every student should receive the learning in the same way, but this is unjust for students have dissimilar abilities. The UDL has shown the problems are not in the students, but in the atmosphere around them and curriculum because there is not enough flexibility; it needs to fix it. Then, Hartmann describes the beneficial of UDL has changed the learning process to engage all the student’s abilities in the classrooms. Additionally, UDL has played a role in flexibility to involve all student with different abilities, and It also has helped teachers to become more think how to support

Victoria Dickerson is a second year teacher at Carolina High School teaching in the Self-Contained special education classroom. Victoria’s expectations for her students are high and she often uses innovative techniques which include project-based learning strategies. Her students are always solving real world problems that will not only prepare them for work but provides them with the necessary life skills they need to be productive after high school. The students in the classroom range from being low-functioning intellectually disabled students to students how are on the middle school level in reading and are categorized as learning disabled. Even with the population she serves, she still challenges her students to be excellent. During

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) identify expectations of what the students will be able to achieve by the end of the school year. The standards provide teachers and curriculum developers the opportunity to use their best findings and available tools to meet these ends (California Department of Education, 2013). The reader needs to understand that the teaching principles implemented by individuals who received extensive training in college-based teacher training programs in order to understand how the CCSS identifies and supports According to Artiles (2003) the Individual with Disability Act (IDEA) 1990 changed the classroom structure in the united states dramatically in the past thirty years. The refinement of the special education

In the article Universal Design for Early Childhood Education: Ensuring Access and Equity for All it states that “children are not defined by their disability, but rather, their disability represents a characteristic, one mere facet of who they are and how they interact with the world” (Darragh, J. 2007). As a special education teacher I need to be open to new ideas on how to teach my students. I will have students with a wide range of disabilities from mild to moderate to severe. Incorporating universal design in my lessons and within my classroom is just one practice that will help my students. Universal design opens up the doors to so many new ideas that can be used in the classroom to help adapt lessons for my students.

Parents and educators are unsatisfied by the governments attempt to prioritize, teaching students with severe disabilities, the general curriculum standards over functional skills curriculum. A researcher re-states a parents comments on the influence of the general standards impact on the functional progression of her child, “My son can identify Saturn but he still can’t request a snack or even wipe his ass.” Parents would like a curriculum that focuses on meeting the students’ independency with life skills rather than academic curricula. This has pushed parents to take charge of

In regards to educational impact of the impairments, students with severe disabilities have the ability to learn (Snell and Brown, 2011). On the end of the spectrum some educators believe while the purported goal of the Common Core is success for all students. But success for all requires openness towards cognitive diversity, and isn’t so easily standardized, especially for students with special needs and severe disabilities (Beals,

I find a lot of value in having a standard curriculum that is implemented statewide. I think it will be difficult to plan a uniform curriculum for a student with a disability. I think individual lesson plans should be developed to best suit the student. I understand that, and agree, that there should be shared expectations for student performance, so that no child is left behind. In my opinion, the objective of Common Core State Standards “to offer rigor and depth to a curriculum to better prepare students in the United States for college and careers for the future” (Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, 2014, p. 306) is a great idea but has failed to be implemented successfully. When I was a student, I had the option of graduating early, when I arrived in

Teaching and Learning consists of various different theories that educators may or may not feel applicable to their individual philosophy. There are bits and pieces of a variety of theories that many educators feel are important in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to explain the personal learning theory and how it is applied in a classroom. After an educator takes the time to research and do further learning by reading a variety of written books, the educator may or maynot change things in the classroom or focus on a different topic that they had not previously focused on in the past.

Effective differentiated instruction reflects where the students currently are in their educational stage and not where a teacher wishes them to be. This step is important; placing students either too high or too low in the instruction can be adverse to the teacher’s goal of helping all students. Developing lesson strategies for students that are too demanding may have a negative effect on performance and reinforce negative emotions concerning learning. Likewise, developing lesson strategies that do not challenge students to perform at their best can also have a negative effect. Some students that are not engaged by a teacher's instruction are left adrift waiting for new or more stimulating material. Engaging students in the learning strategy is the key ingredient in producing active learners.