Week of Learning and Teaching

This week was full of learning and teaching. Monday we talked about UDL (universal design for learning) and Differentiation. Wednesday we learned about intellectual disabilities and Friday we used UDL and differentiation to teach a new skill.

Differentiation and UDL are important for every classroom. When you have a diverse classroom, which is always, then each child has specific needs and making a lesson plan that fits the entire class is important to start out. Differentiation helps a teacher to focus on one child and make sure they are understanding. Assessing is an important part of all of this, so that the teacher understands what they need to do to help the child. When the student analysis is done then it's important to see if they are high then you may want to try to challenge them so they will not get bored. If a student doesn't understand then they may need extra help or they could stop trying all together.

Intellectual disabilities used to be called mental retardation. This is not what it is anymore and we try to avoid using those derogatory terms. There are varying degrees of intellectual disabilities. To show this we played telephone to show this. The first person did fine, but by the time it got to the end then there was a more extreme disability.
I never knew a psychologist had to be the one to diagnose the disability. The child has to have a low IQ and GPA. There are many causes like genetics, prenatal problems, child illness, and environmental causes.
We did another simulation to show how someone with intellectual disabilities feels when they are given directions. We were given a long list on detailed instructions to do in order. I could only get to the third instruction before I just gave up because I couldn't remember everything. This is how they feel. They may just want to give up because it didn't make sense and maybe it was at too high of a level for them. When working with someone with an intellectual disability it is important to help them understand and slow down for them.

Finally, Friday! We were split up into groups to teach the other people in the class a new skill. The trick was three of the students were given specific disabilities and everyone was naturally at a different level. Our group taught how to set up a solitaire game. We had people who play solitaire all the time for fun and people who had never played it. Someone was blind, another had one hand, and one person was mute. This presented a challenge, but we had enough teachers that each disability had an aid with them. This was the biggest help.
Another group taught us how to make a paper crane. This was a difficult task for me. Those with disabilities were surpassing my abilities and it was frustrating, but I had to remember they had one person to help them specifically. Teaching to an entire class of completely different levels is very difficult, but not impossible.

This week I learned how important UDL and differentiation are in every classroom. Whether there is a disability or not every child has a different level of needs and learns differently. Every child is important and the teacher can use UDL and differentiation to meet every child's needs.

Weird week

This week we had our disability lesson on Wednesday instead of on Friday, so it was a mixed up week! Monday we discussed abuse and poverty. Wednesday we learned about traumatic brain injury. Finally on Friday we looked at a teachers way of teaching and looked at things we liked about it and such.

Talking about abuse and poverty was saddening. It is sad that those things have to happen especially to children without control. We watched Dr. Mike Evans Saving Brains. I would recommend watching it. We talked about the most important days in a child's life and how 1/3 of children never reach their full potential. I won't ruin the whole thing for you, but it talked about stress and good and bad stress. Relationships are important to children and play is children's work.

Wednesday we talked about TBI (traumatic brain injury). These injuries affect education at some point and make some things very difficult. They come from falls, vehicle crashes, and assaults. There are mild TBI and serious TBI. A mild TBI would be something similar to a concussion or something. Serious TBI causes physical impairments or mental impairments.
Teachers are responsible for making sure there are accommodations and adaptations for these children. There are also a lot of resources for TBI. One thing we did to simulate TBI was trace a star only looking in a mirror. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is. This is the frustration people with TBI feel.

Finally Friday we read about a teacher who did a lot with social things. The classroom had three special needs children and she had a special education teacher who comes in some of the time to help. I talked about how she can work with the special education teacher and use that resource to the fullest advantage.

Overall this week was weird because we mixed up the days, but it was good to learn about TBI. It was beneficial to understand more about abuse and poverty and talking about how to use a teacher helper to the fullest was great.

Week "who knows what week"

It's been another week in SPED 310. We did a lot of practicing of IEPs and going through the process to be able to classify them and to decide whether they are eligible for special education. Then Friday we learned about Orthopedic impairments.

My favorite part of this weeks classes was learning about orthopedic impairments and the kinds of things that happen. There are three different types of orthopedic impairments nueromotor, degenerative disease, and mulsculoskeletal. Some causes are before birth and some are after. Accidents can cause someone to have a orthopedic impairment.

Today we mainly talked about Cerebral palsy and Spina Bifida. I can't imagine what it would be like to have one of these difficulties. One important thing for a teacher of someone with an orthopedic impairment is to make sure the classroom is wheelchair friendly. We drew plans for a future classroom that had 48" on every side to make sure it was a classroom that someone in a wheelchair would feel comfortable in.

Then we discussed the people who have done the orthopedic impairment challenge. This is when you are in a wheelchair for 4 hours and have tasks to accomplish. Some of the experiences I heard made me want to avoid this for the rest of my life and just accept a failing grade especially since I didn't want to do it in the first place. I can't imagine being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I have so much respect for those who do.

One of the presenters shared a story from her mission when she taught someone in a wheelchair who couldn't talk well because of an accident. It was a touching story because she didn't know if she was teaching well, but hoped he understood. Before she left he was baptized and at the baptism interview she wasn't sure how he would answer the questions, but the interviewer told him to squeeze his had for yes or leave it alone for no. When he asked if he wanted to be baptized the man squeezed his hand so hard the interviewer thought it might break. We need to remember to love those around us even when they are different and accept them.

Short week!

After the three day weekend for Memorial Day, it was difficult to come back to school, but it happened anyway! We only had class Wednesday and Friday.

Wednesday we discussed assessments and ways to evaluate students. The biggest thing I learned was about formal and informal assessments. There are different kinds of assessments that fall all over the spectrum from formal to informal.

Formal assessments are structured, contrived, and standardized. A few examples of this is ACT or SAT tests. There are more formal tests that aren't quite as strict like spelling tests or ISAT or SBAC. These are standard tests from the state.

Informal assessments are more observation, authentic, and are not standardize. These are things like just observing the behavior of a child, asking for a thumbs up or thumbs down if they understand, having them write answers on white boards and things similar to that.

Of course, there are many other ways to assess like homework, book reports, papers, and other smaller school work things, but these usually fall somewhere in the middle. All kinds of assessments are necessary to really understand where a student is in their learning. Students need all kinds to be able to show what they really know.

Friday we learned about ADHD. I really appreciated this section because I have a cousin with ADHD and I learned a lot of things I didn't know. Most of the time when we think ADHD we think moving and distracted and hyper, but this isn't always the case.

The first thing we did in class was do a color and word simulation. The names of the colors were in different colors than the words said and we took turns reading the word and just having to say what color the word was in. If you have ever done this then you know it is difficult. This is a little bit of what people with ADHD struggle with because their executive functions are not working correctly.

One of the presenters in our class actually has ADHD and shared her experience. They didn't diagnose her with ADHD until recently, but it has been helpful to her to take medicine to be able to focus on one task. She discussed what school was like for her and how difficult it was for her to stay caught up with her peers. In younger grades she got in trouble a lot because she had a difficult time following directions. Her experience was eye opening.

We learned a few different things, but we watched a video of someone interviewing two children, one with ADHD and one without. Some of the things I noticed were that the child with ADHD took a little longer to answer the questions and many of her answers were I don't know. She had low self-esteem and seemed to have difficulty answering all the questions.

ADHD is diagnosed over time by a physician. It is not an easy thing to diagnose, but it can have a tremendous affect on the education process.

I enjoyed learning about ADHD and hope I will be able to help my cousin better and others with ADHD more now that I have learned more about it!

A new week!

Even though this post is a little late I learned a lot this week as we reviewed the law of education and learned about Hard of Hearing.

First we put cases and laws in order by years. Then we attached each of them to one of the six principles of IDEA (LRE, FAPE, Due process, IEP, Non-discriminatory evaluation, zero reject/child find). This was a great review for our test.

The group that presented this week did very well! We learned about people who are hard of hearing. We talked about mouth reading and it was very difficult. The three words we tried to mouth were baby, maybe, and pay me. Nobody could get them right. It was so crazy!

There are four types of hearing loss; conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss, mixed hearing loss, and central hearing loss. I didn't realize how many different ways people could loose their hearing. These things can happen before or after birth. It effects vocabulary, speech, sentence structure, and social functions.

I learned about the two different cultures which are the deaf culture and oral culture. In deaf culture the hearing impaired use sign language mostly. They usually have deaf parents and go to deaf schools. When a person hearing impaired person lives in oral culture they usually lip read and learn to cope in the normal classroom and home.

There are specific things the school district must provide for those who are hard of hearing. They are obligated to provide an aide to translate or different things depending on the needs of the specific student.

Overall this was  a good week and I learned a lot mostly about those who are hard of hearing. It is very interesting what they go through and how they get things to work better!

Reflection again!

Another full of information class! There was a lot of information since the last reflection. One of the most important things we learned was the six principles of IDEA. They are due process, IEP, FAPE, Non-discrimanatory evaluation, zero reject/child find, and LRE.

First lets talk about due process since it is the first. This is the right for a case to be heard. It has many procedural safe guards. The first step in due process is mediation. This is where the parents, teachers, and other administration get together to try to resolve the conflict. They have 30 days for this step. Next they have a hearing and this is fairly informal, but there is a hearing officer and they act as the judge and make the final decision if there was no consensus during mediation. Then if one party decides to appeal the case goes to the district then if there is another appeal it goes to the circuit court and finally the supreme court. There are two options to appeal, state and federal. Whichever one you start in that is the one you stay in the whole time. Due process makes sure that all needs are being met.

IEP stands for individualized education plan. This has to do with the present level of performance and goals for the improvement. IEP is a large part of special education and even general education because it affects so much. A few of the things for IEP are Specially designed instruction (SDI), related services, and placement. These are just a few things the district provides. Not just anyone can have an IEP, but there is eligibility criteria. First there must be a disability, second it must adversely affect the educational performance of the child, and the third question is do they need special education. These three things are decided during the refferal process and if an IEP is not provided then usually there is a 504 plan used instead. A 504 plan is a supplemental plan towards educational process and requires less money than an IEP.

Next we have FAPE, which stands for free appropriate public education. This means exactly what it sounds like. Every child has the right to have a free public education. Appropriate education means whether the most appropriate is in a general education classroom or a special education classroom.

This leads us nicely into the next one which is non-discriminatory evaluation. This means that every child is evaluated, but it must be non-discriminatory. It is fairly self-explanatory.

Then we have zero reject/child find. Every child must be educated in some way and none can be turned away. The school district also has to find a child if they are not being educated.

Finally we have the LRE, which stands for least restrictive environment. That means that the child has to be where their other peers are as much as possible. Because of this there are levels of LRE. First is the regular education classroom. This is the first place because this is where the peers are. Then they have push in services where someone comes into the general education classroom and helps the child during class. If that does not help enough then there is pull out services. This is when the child is in the classroom for all day, but is pulled out for short periods of time. When this does not work well then there is what is called self-contained. Self-contained is 40% of the day outside of the classroom to get extra help. Then there is Special classrooms when they need more than 40% of the day outside the classroom. This might mean that they only go to music, art, and library with the class, but they still have some time with everyone else.  Lastly there is the home or hospital. If the child can't be in a special education classroom then the school district still must provide education through a teacher in the home.

These are all important to the law and keeping the children educated in the right environment. Every day these 6 principles of IDEA are being used.

Last Friday we had the opportunity to be taught by a group about speech and language impairment. They started us out pretty difficult. We put a marshmallow in our mouth and had to read a list to another person. The other person had to write down what we said and then we switched. It was not easy to talk with a marshmallow in your mouth and it wasn't easy to understand someone when they spoke with a marshmallow in their mouth.

There are three areas of speech and language impairment, articulation, voice, and fluency. The marshmallow challenge was mostly articulation, but there is even more to this impairment than just the marshmallow simulation. This disability affects the expression and receptive skills when speaking or listening. 21% of children have a speech impairment. Speech impairments then affect social and emotional states because they may have difficulty communicating. This makes it hard to make friends and it can cause low self esteem.

There are some great things to do to be able to help these kids. Mostly you need to have patience and teach them listening skills by example. There are many things we can do to help kids with this impairment and we just need to be aware of what is happening in their lives.

We had the opportunity to do a mock hearing. This was a great experience because I learned a lot more than I though I would. I got to be the hearing officer. The hearing officer has a difficult job because they end up having to make the decision in the end. We argued a real case and I could see both sides, but I could only choose one. There are many things to go with a hearing and both sides are important to hear.

Finally today my group had the chance to teach about learning disabilities. It is not easy to prepare for an unknown amount of time, but I learned a lot by teaching about it. First we did simulations of learning disabilities. The simulation I was doing went against everything I know about teaching because I was going so fast and trying to make them feel the frustration of a LD child. It ended up working well and we had some good conversations about it afterwards.

I presented some of the characteristics of LD children. There are different areas of Learning disabilities. Some of them are reading deficits, math deficits, written expression deficits, and attention disorders. This then causes problems with achievement, social and emotional, motivation, and perceptual.

Another talked about things we can do to help them. Mostly we need to help them find coping strategies because they will have that problem their whole life. Sometimes we have to slow down and give them heads up for whatever we will be doing.

Last another talked about diagnosing Learning disabilities. This is very difficult because there is not an actual test for it. They have to observe and since 1 in 5 children have a learning disability it may not be diagnosed and it is important to be aware of those learning disabilities.

As you can see this class is teaching me a lot of new information. There is so much to learn and talk about with this class and I hope you enjoy hearing about the new things I get to learn!

Week 3 Reflection

Another week has come and gone and I just keep learning more and more!
My favorite thing we learned this week was about co-teaching models. We discussed seven way to co-teach. They are "One Teach, One Observe", "One Teach, One Assist", "Station Teaching", "Parallel Teaching", "Supplemental Teaching", "Alternative Teaching", and "Team Teaching". When we learned what each of these were I realized that I have seen many of these throughout my experience with education.

First One Teach, One Observe. I think this is a great way to start out because it's a great way to get feedback on yourself and on the behavior of the students. In primary, a long time ago, we had two teachers called and they took turns teaching, but both still came every week. This was good because they could get feedback on how the children were listening and also how they were doing with their presentation of the information.

Next One Teach, One Assist. This would be great in every classroom. I was a substitute in the school district where I live during my off-track and when I got an extra adult in the classroom then it was always a blessing. I got to teach the majority of the kids while the other adult went around helping those that needed extra help or taking care of individuals behavior issues. I have also been the extra adult and I can tell that it is easier for the teacher to teach the material more effectively when she can focus on that and worry less about the children who are falling behind or monitoring everyone's behavior. This is a great co-teaching strategy if you are lucky enough to have two adults in the room.

Station Teaching is a fun way to teach. Sometimes I think that this method is more fun because you get to move around and it may help some of the hands-on learners. This is good when you need smaller groups to learn different things. I really liked the classroom I was in while I was a substitute and we had an aid come in and work with five kids at a time and there were five stations they rotated between. They did handwriting, puzzles, reading with the aid, computers, and coloring. They got to do some fun things while still working on different skills.

Parallel Teaching is a different way of teaching that I had not really heard of until now. Both teaching introduce the same material, but to half of the students. Our teacher told us that this is sometimes used with student teachers to help them with their time management. This could be very beneficial to help new teachers get time management down, but also to help the student to teacher ratio be smaller so they can focus on students needs more. I have seen this in preschool with my mom because they have groups of kids come do projects at the same time, but across the room. That is a small example of parallel teaching.

Supplemental Teaching is a good way to make sure no child gets completely lost and left behind. This is where one teacher teaches on grade level and the other teacher helps to extend or reteach the material. I can see how this would be very helpful if you have some children who need things explained more or differently. I don't think I have seen this strategy, but I see the benefits it could bring.

Alternative Teaching seems to be a great way to get all different learning styles to understand the same information. The learning outcomes are the same, but they are instructed differently. I can see how this would be nice because my brother learns a lot by doing things, but my sister learns a lot by reading about it. This would help to accommodate more learning types.

Finally Team Teaching is probably what I think of first when I think of Co-Teaching. This is where both teachers help to teach a class and can jump in whenever they feel the need. I have seen this in my Sunday School lessons when I had a husband and wife couple teaching us. They both taught at the same time and added to what the other was saying. I think this is beneficial when you need things explained differently and just to feel more comfortable while teaching.

After learning all about co-teaching then we had a presentation about Developmental Delay. The group who taught this did a great job. I was impressed with their knowledge.

There are five types of Developmental Delays physical, cognitive, communication, social/emotional, and adaptive. They are different and need to be taken care of. They are not permanent problems, but they do affect the learning of the child.

As we went around to the different stations there was a booklet that helped to measure whether they have a developmental delay or not. I thought this booklet was very interesting. When I looked through it there were ages and things that they should be doing in specific categories on each page. Some of the things were sitting up, jumping, buttoning a shirt, talking, and crawling. These were all in different ages and some in different categories, but it was interesting to see the things that they should be doing at different ages.

When Developmental Delays are caught early then adaptation to learning can be taken. It is important to know if there is a developmental delay so that it can be helped. The child may still be behind, but the sooner it is caught then the sooner they can be helped to get back on the right track.

We learned a lot this week and it was an exciting week of Co-teaching strategies, some law things that are more difficult for me specifically to learn/remember, and developmental delay. The things I'm learning here will definitely help me in the classroom one day.