Every year paraprofessionals attend pre-services, teacher training, and professional development seminars - where staff continues to learn how to identify and accommodate for differences in learning styles and disabilities in their teaching strategies. Schools that provide for Special Education need these collaborative skills to properly serve the daily instruction for individuals with disabilities in inclusive class setting in conjunction with support staff and clinical specialists. Technologically enhanced curricula are appearing in schools across the nation that scaffolds the methods of interaction and content retention for students with learning disabilities. Some of these students may have multiple disabilities and motor/ sensory disabilities where a flexible design is adapted based upon neurological research along with universal principles. Through research, evidence based multimedia lessons plans can be used in the classroom to engage students who struggle in school. The iPad is a learning hub. The value far outweighs the cost by providing multiple uses for research, brainstorming, creation, and organizing information and reflects information in several formats. The advantages of incorporating the iPad in the classroom include; the use of the speech to text feature where students can speak into the device with its built in microphone to take notes for a class. In addition, the class environment changes all together with the use of an iPad because teachers can
The authors went on to state that paraprofessionals “reported that they had some familiarity with the concept of self determined behavior for students with disabilities, with even lower levels of access to professional development opportunities pertaining to self-determined behaviors” (Lane, Carter, & Sisco, 2012, p. 246). Paraprofessionals are expected to play key roles in the education of students with severe disabilities, but they are not given the proper tools to complete this task successfully. Teachers, students and paraprofessionals would be greatly benefited if every person involved in the education of a child was properly trained.
School staff (e.g., classroom teachers, instructional assistants) should be afforded training in basic instructional procedures that facilitate learning by students with special educational needs in the context of typical classroom activities.
It is estimated that one in every sixty eight children will be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (CDC, 2014). In schools around the country these students are struggling in their classroom environment due to deficits in three areas; communication skills, social skills, and repetitive behaviors or interest (Marder & Fraser, 2012). Implementing the use of technology in the classroom like iPad, iPod, android tablets, e-readers, and computers is beneficial to students with autism spectrum disorder. It can increase communication skills, can help make their classroom experience more pleasant, and it gives them the best chance at success.
Today’s paraprofessionals who number upwards of 250,000 nationwide play an increasingly important role in the instruction of students with disabilities. (Annual Report to Congress, 2000). People who help give extra attention and instruction while the teacher is occupied is called a teacher assistant. Which is exactly the job that interests me most, and what I aspire to become. In this career field of human services one will find that you need an education, job opportunity outlook, as well as occupations similar to this career field.
iPads and tablets have become a popular choice of teachers in many classrooms worldwide due to the positive impact it has on the students. Tablets offer a wide variety of educational applications that have the ability to be downloaded onto the tablet for the students to use. The use of tablets in the classroom, “offer a unique home-school connection by providing students with a classroom experience that relates to the technology-saturated real world” (Blackwell, 2013, pg. 233) The use of iPads and tablets in the classroom provides students with a hands on learning approach to any
A paraprofessional is defined as a school employee whose purpose is to provide instructional support to ensure a student’s access to the least restrictive environment (Harris, 2012). The goal for these teacher assistants is to help children with disabilities remain in the general education environment as much as possible. A determination of needed paraprofessional support is contained in a student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Public schools are required to provide this assistance if it is deemed necessary for a student to have complete access to a free, appropriate public education (FAPE). Many general education teachers see paraprofessionals as essential to the inclusionary opportunities of students with disabilities in their classrooms (Harris, 2012). In addition, they are seen as necessary to provide the one-on-one support for students with disabilities to succeed in the general education setting (Ramos, 2017). These students are not the only individuals who experience the positive influences of teacher
This article relies on several previous research studies of the use of iPads in the special education classroom as a means to determine best practices for teachers in implementing the devices in their classrooms. The literature reviewed includes studies on students learning English as a second language and studies showing students with other language barriers using the devices to improve their skills. The literature review also included several studies on students with autism and other intellectual disabilities using the iPad and subsequently improving their communication, social and math skills. The studies also found that students using the iPads showed greater academic engagement, independence and self-determination. Also reviewed was the
Examples of inclusive practices the team supports are co-teach integrated classes with accommodations implemented across the content; offering access to various electives and activities. The challenges experienced by the special education team is making sure accommodations are taking place in all classes, creating a program that meets the post-grad needs/plans for students with special needs at a “college prep” school, and have time to train/support general education teachers regarding policies and procedures for special education.
paraprofessional help keeps the students on track. Mrs. McDermott told me that every week, the special education teacher and her meet to talk about the week ahead. They communicate lesson plans and how the students with the IEP’s are doing. They talk about strategies they could use to help those students improve. Overall, the special education teacher, paraprofessional, and Ms. McDermott have good communication.
When two or more people work together to achieve a common goal they form a collaborative team. With collaborative teaming student with a disability can be included in a general education environment. Collaborative teaming glue inclusive schools together by serving all students despite their abilities. In collaborative teaming special educational programs are planned and implemented to support individual students (King-Sear et al., 2015). Mrs. Smith and her paraeducator will fill many functions of an inclusive program such as facilitating social interaction among the students. As a team the two teachers will assist each other in the reduction of barriers in practicing inclusive programs, encourage each other, building a strong peer support as well as designing a well-coordinated plan to ease student translation between classes, grade school, college and job and in embedding related services in the school day.
The author provided a literature review of the popularity of use of the iPad in the classroom, among students with or without disabilities. The review found that students with disabilities had greater engagement and behavioral response rates when using iPads and teaching applications on the iPads as opposed to more traditional methods of teaching. Through this background knowledge, the author sets up her research proposal.
In 1984 five clinicians from North Shore Children’s Hospital in Salem, MA founded the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST). They met in a local pizza parlor and conceived the idea to “explore ways of using new technologies to provide better educational experiences to students with disabilities.” They were given an anonymous grant of $15,000 to get started and CAST began to focus on how technology could enhance the learning experiences for students with disabilities (CAST Timeline 2015). Today UDL is being applied in classrooms other learning environments to better accommodate the learning styles of all students. UDL is a powerful and flexible form of curricula, which is designed to embrace and enhance the natural variability of learners (Glass, Meyer, Rose 2013).
This qualitative study sought to describe special education teachers’ experiences implementing the iPad for elementary students with intellectual disabilities. The overall purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of special education teachers implementing the iPad as an instructional tool to enhance the teaching and learning process for learners with intellectual disabilities. According to research conducted by Riley (2013), research is limited in the area of special education teachers’ experiences implementing the iPad as an instructional tool for students with intellectual disabilities. Due to limited research related to this topic, a gap is identified in the literature. Because of this gap in the literature, focusing on special
The purpose of this paper is to research the impact that the iPad has on the learning for those with autism. I want to learn the different ways that an Ipad can be used to enhance learning for autistic children. I would also like to see how much of an influence studies show that the Ipads are having on education.
Certain classical teaching methods or techniques that included trips to the blackboard and printed worksheets soon became obsolete and new technology began to play an active role in how teachers planned to teach their students as well as how students began to learn (Morrison, 2013). Another form of instructional format that has become obsolete due to the use of video modeling via the iPad is in-vivo modeling. In vivo-modeling provides a live model to teach the skill in the environment in which the skill is typically performed and guides the participant to match the model using verbal and gestural prompts if necessary (Gena, et al., 2005). Though this strategy is effective for individuals with developmental disabilities, it is difficult to employ in regards of