Special Education, Talented & Gifted

Special Education
For this portion of my coursework, I spent some time meeting with Toby McQuire, a special education coordinator in the Forest Grove school district. Toby was kind enough to walk me through the steps for securing special education services for a student from the perspective of my future role, as a general education teacher. Based on the discussion I had with Toby, I realized how important it is for teachers to be vigilant when it comes to assessing the needs of a particular student. I learned about the entire Sped process from pre-referral to the difference between specially designed instruction, accommodation, and modification. I feel that teachers in training, or those without years of experience, are at risk for being unprepared to teach, or unwillingly neglecting, students who require special education services. I am grateful that services are available to all students, but also that a supporting network of IEP specialists are available for general education teachers.

From my previous classroom experiences and the conversations I've had with Toby and my fellow classmates, I think that I have a solid foundation for identifying when a particular student will require special education services. In addition to my experiences and conversations, I think my teaching philosophy that each student is an individual person that learns and behaves in their own unique ways facilitates my understanding of what strategies best help a student learn. A large part of this perspective stems from addressing the needs of ESL students. I've found that many parallels exist between providing instruction for students who require special education services and those with limited English proficiency. Therefore, my mentality as an ESL educator is frequently in-tune with best practices that help special education students.  Developing strategies that create authentic learning experiences for students is not mutually exclusive to one type or group of students.  I find that I am comfortable with thinking about how I will identify and accommodate students with special needs as I learn more about ESL education, and vice-versa.

However, I do believe that behavior related issues resulting in Sped services for a particular student is an area where I am lacking experience. I hope to have an opportunity to observe or discuss an IEP for this type of service at some time before my teaching practice begins.  As I stated previously, I feel confident in my ability to identify special needs and adapt content and/or instruction, but managing behavior related special needs is an area where I'd like to gain more knowledge.

Talented & Gifted
Working with students explicitly labeled as Talented & Gifted is an area where I have nearly no experience to date.  I did spend time in a "gifted" program of sorts as an elementary student, but my memory of that is limited now.  With some research, I found the Kingore Observation Inventory and subsequent publishings to be wonderfully useful in identifying and working with TAG students.  I firmly believe in the necessity of differentiating instruction and authentic learning for all students, so I was excited to read about strategies for applying those strategies to enriching education for TAG students.

As I stated previously, I have no experience teaching students whom I've known to be labeled as "talented" or "gifted", but I have worked with a lot of very intelligent students in South Korea who I believe would certainly qualify for TAG services in the U.S.  The learning characteristics of those students were often quite similar regardless of their overall personality.  They would frequently finish their assignments thoroughly well before their peers, and would often express themselves or their ideas with diverse language or perspective more frequently.  Even though it was sometimes a challenge to engage these students and get them excited about learning more English, I found that they were my favorite students to engage in conversation.  These students put in a lot of effort to learn English, but they also really enjoyed talking about subjects or events unrelated to English at an intellectual level well beyond their own age.

One thing I occasionally tried in my classroom in South Korea was writing in cursive script instead of block print on the whiteboard during a lesson.  I used this a few times with my more advanced or older students when I felt that the material I had been provided with to teach was not engaging them well enough.  I found that most students had no experience decoding and reading English in a cursive writing format, and I found it fascinating to observe which students were better at learning and adapting to the new letter characters.  More often than not, the students who I perceived to be intellectually gifted were the ones who picked up reading cursive writing the quickest.  However, other students who I had heard were excellent in other subjects such as Math struggled a bit more to learn some of the different letter characters, but inevitably they would develop some sort of learning tool for themselves that helped them identify the entire English alphabet in cursive after a few of my experimental lessons.  I strongly believe that this type differentiated instruction, even though I didn't realize that was what I was doing, was extremely beneficial for some of my students.

What I took away from the experience is that many students who are perceived to be intellectually gifted are often self-starters.  Yet, they can become bored very easily when the teaching material or subject content is too easy or repetitive for them.  Experiences like the one I described are a huge reason why I strive to find multiple means of engagement when teaching students, and also because it can provide indicators that may suggest a student has unique talents or gifts in the classroom.

Service Project: Boys & Girls Club of Portland

Have a listen to this short podcast where I talk about my service project with the Boys & Girls Club of Portland. I talk about some of the kids I met and some of the things I did as a volunteer. Thanks for listening.

Screencast Demonstration

I made this screencast video with Screencast-o-matic to demonstrate how it works and talk about the Wiki I made for my culminating project. Overall, I found screencasting to be quite easy and effective. I really like how my cursor is highlighted on the screen so the viewer can easily follow what I'm describing as I talk about it. I definitely view it as a useful tool for educators in the online environment, but I think it could have some very practical uses in classroom demonstrations as well.

Classroom & Behavior Management

I view classroom management as all of the things that a teacher does to organize students, time, space and materials so that content instruction and student learning can take place.  With limited experience as a classroom teacher so far, I can confidently state that I am a bit nervous about how well prepared I will be on the first day I start teaching in my own classroom.  However, through the previous experiences I have had as a teacher and observations I have made as a volunteer, I am confident in my ability to develop a strategy to effectively manage my classroom.

The first thing I would like to discuss is what I consider to be an effective classroom from a management perspective.  In an effective classroom students are highly involved with their work, they know what is expected of them and are provided frequent opportunities to succeed, there is little wasted time, and the mood of the classroom is work-oriented but relaxed and pleasant.  Ultimately, good classroom management leads to and supports effective instruction.

At this time I tend to view classroom management as a relationship between procedures and routines.  Procedures are what I expect my students to do, and routines are the procedures that students do automatically.  I believe this is a very important distinction because this relationship establishes the backbone of everyday classroom function.  With this knowledge and understanding about classroom expectations, students can become more focused on academic learning.

As a new teacher, the first step towards establishing procedures is critical for long-term classroom management success.  This can be accomplished through a process of explaining the specific classroom procedure, rehearsing and practicing the procedure under teacher supervision, and finally reinforcing the procedure until it becomes a habit or routine for the student.  All three of these components are necessary for teachers to employ for achieving desired behaviors from students.  Physically demonstrating classroom procedures, discussing with the student why and how a procedure benefits them, and praising them when they develop an acceptable routine are extremely important for creating an effective classroom.

Through my experiences and observations I believe that an effective classroom management plan includes rules, rewards, and consequences that are clearly established and understood by both the student and their parent(s).  By establishing rewards and consequences for rules, the student will clearly understand the expectations of their behavior, and be able to predict the outcome if a rule is broken.  Aside from simple rewards such as praise and encouragement, rewards in the classroom can include “free homework” opportunities, whole class free time, or special events. 

Consequences, on the other hand, are a little trickier.  Consequences should not be confused with punishment, which should be avoided.  A good consequence is clear and specific for the student, something established when initially discussing the rule.  The goal when implementing a consequence is to teach the student better behavior, so it is important to be firm but anger-free with the student being disciplined.  Mild consequences can include strategies like reassigning the student’s seat or removal of a privilege, such as recess or free time.  Heavier consequences should involve contact with school administrators and the student’s parents. 

To establish recourse for managing student behaviors I plan to communicate my expectations through a management plan and student action plan.  The management plan is important because it clearly communicates the rules to the student and parent(s).  An example of a management plan could look like this:

Classroom Management Plan

Classroom Rules

1. Respect your fellow students.

2. Be in your seat when the bell rings.

3. Bring all books and materials to class.

4. Sit in your assigned seat daily.

5. Follow directions the first time they are given.

Rewards

Praise

Positive notes home

Class free time

“No Homework” certificate

Movie or whole class party

If You Choose to Break a Rule

You Receive                          This Means

First offense                         Yellow Card                           Warning

Second offense                    Yellow Card #2                      Must complete work during break

Third offense                       Red Card                                No group work participation

Fourth offense                     Student Action Plan                Parents are called

Fifth offense                        Sent to the office                     Meeting with parents          

Students

I have read and understand these rules. Failure to comply will elicit consequences.

___________________________________________               ____________

Signature                                                                                      Date

Parents

I have read the Classroom Management Plan with my child, and will support it.

___________________________________________               ____________

Signature                                                                                      Date

The student action plan is a useful resource for working with the student from a problem-solving perspective.  I believe it is important to share with the student that the only way to solve the behavior problem is to isolate and identify it.  This is not a strategy that degrades the student, but rather teaches them how to solve a problem, a technique that they will use throughout their life.  A sample student action plan I have drafted could look like the following:

Student Action Plan

1. What is the problem?

(Indicate the rule or rules the student has violated)

2. What is causing the problem?

(Tell the student to list all the factors that are causing the problem.)

3. What plan will you use to solve the problem?

(The student is to write the action plan needed to solve the problem.)

_______________________________________________                     ________________

Student Signature                                                                                       Date

The student should complete the student action plan together with the teacher.  This reinforces the rules, helps the student eliminate or correct the factors causing the problem, and establishes the student’s responsibility for following the plan.  The student, through problem solving, devises his or her own plan to correct the problem.  The teacher is therefore teaching responsibility and demonstrating how to achieve self-discipline.  If the problem is not corrected, the teacher should go back and modify the third part of the action plan with the student.

To conclude, I believe the teacher should always model the behavior they desire from their students.  Even in just my single year of classroom experience teaching English in South Korea I noticed how my demeanor often dictated classroom behavior expectations more than anything else.  Therefore, I believe the most effective strategy is to teach behavior first by establishing standards for acceptable behavior and creating signals to let students know when and what behavior is acceptable.