Exam II Practice Questions

1) Which of the following traits is NOT characteristic of a student with a learning disability?

A.        student’s intelligence is below average

B.        deficit is persistent across student’s life span

C.        student shows unexpected low achievement

D.        student has a dysfunction in his/her central nervous system

2) Which list correctly identifies internalizing and externalizing behaviors?

A.        Internalizing: depression and disruptive behavior

            Externalizing: lying and alcohol use

B:        Internalizing: shyness and lying

            Externalizing: bullying and stealing

C.        Internalizing: gang activity and truancy

            Externalizing: anxious and fearful

D.        Internalizing: shyness and fearfulness

            Externalizing: cheating and fighting

3) Which type of ADHD is most common?

A.        predominately inattentive

B.        predominately hyperactive/impulsive

C.        combined type

EBD, Placement, and ADHD

              While reading the chapter on EBD, my mind was almost foreshadowing the discussion on social maladjustment.  I think a lot of the diagnostic criteria for EBD are extremely subjective, using terminology such as “inappropriate,” “inability,” “a tendency,” etc.  Who is to say whether behavior is inappropriate, and what’s inappropriate in one context may be appropriate in another.  I loved the example the book gave, of how hitting and knocking down peers is not okay in the classroom, but it’s the status quo in football.  There are also degrees of ability, and who defines what “a tendency” is?  Regaring the social maladjustment vs. EDB debate, I think that until we are able to read people’s minds, we will not be able to tell, clearly, whether a student chooses to engage in antisocial behaviors, or if he/she does it because of an EBD. 
 
             I thought the variability in prevalence was interesting, and to be expected.  With such subjective criteria, it’s no wonder variability exists.  I think the variability (and under-diagnosis) of EBD could, in part, be due to the differences in manifestation.  I never really thought about internalizing behaviors as behaviors associated with EBD.  I always thought of the aggressive kid who threw things and cursed, not the shy or depressed students. 

             I don’t know if any of my students at placement have a diagnosed EBD, but I know some students have FBAs.  I went to placement today and worked with my student before he had to take PSSAs.  He made such tremendous progress!  We made a few small changes that seemed to really work!  I also showed him his progress, which I think motivated him to do better.  I think a major issue is motivation.  We talked about strategies, almost as if it were a BIP, that could replace his zoning out for long periods of time.  We tried coming up with a replacement behaviors that would serve the same function.  I think giving him a stake in both his assessments and his behavior, he was more open to actually trying. 

             PSSAs were a drag.  You could tell from the behaviors exhibited that the students really didn’t want to be there.  My co-op had to work to settle them down and get them ready to work.  It was cool to see the accommodations given.  For example, every student in there could have the questions read aloud, since it was a math section.  I read some questions aloud to students, and it seemed to help them understand what was being asked of them.  I would venture to say that many of those students had ADHD, as I could see them fidgeting or bouncing in their seat, and even tapping a pen.  I definitely saw lack of effort, oppositional behavior, and stubbornness, characteristics listed in the book of individuals with ADHD.  I think my co-op handled the behaviors well, just cutting them off at the source and not really giving them attention. 

            I almost found it paradoxical to place the students with accommodations all in the same room.  These students need fewer distractions, yet almost constantly, a teacher is reading a test question to another student, which could be a distraction in itself. 

Chapter 5, F.A.T. City, and Field Placement

In this blog post, I focused on Chapter 5, F.A.T. City, and my field placement.  I found F.A.T. City to be a great source of information on students with learning disabilities.  It showed me how such a student processes information, and how he/she is typically treated in a classroom.  Along with the video, Chapter 5 provided great information about the definition of a learning disability, as well as characteristics of students with learning disabilites.  I liked the class activity of taking those characteristics and thinking of interventions. 

First Field Placement and Chapter 3

          This blog entry will focus on reflections from my field placement at Landisville Middle School.  My first day passed in no time at all.  I spent probably an hour or more talking with my co-op and touring the school.  We tweaked the schedule, which really showed me the flexibility needed in special education.  A group of students spent the period in the library, where the librarian and her student-teacher provided information about resources for an upcoming project.  My co-op said that the class, a “regular-ed class,” had three students without IEPs.  All the rest received some sort of special education.  The most common diagnosis was some type of learning disability, which is rather invisible; simply looking at the group of students, it would be impossible to determine which had IEPs.

            My co-op’s job is one that is unfamiliar to me.  I’m used to special education in the sense of self-contained classrooms.  I’ve never experienced a learning support environment.  My co-op is always on his feet, moving from one room to another, often co-teaching and offering support.  He teaches his own class for one period a day, the last period.  He said that by that point, the students’ attention is shot and it can be difficult to gain it back. 

            I was able to observe a group of students in a science class.  One of the issues to me was the lack of focus and motivation in the students.  But then again, they’re in 7^th grade; they’re interested in everything other than instruction.  My co-op did a great job of redirecting attention and reinforcing concepts that were taught mainly by the science teacher.  It was interesting to see the shift in attention during videos.  One issue, I think, with education is that teachers are teaching the way they always have, but students have changed.  They’re used to the high stimulation provided by tv, video games, computers, and such.  We can’t change this, and we can’t teach in the same “boring” way and expect students to learn.  We, not the students, must adapt. We have to find ways of engaging and stimulating students, because if we don’t, then they’re disinterested and won’t learn.  The video shown had cool graphics and music and the content was genuinely really interesting.  If only cool music and graphics would appear when teachers talked!

            The science teacher gave a quiz on one of the homework readings, only allowing students to take the quiz if they had done the reading worksheet.  Those who didn’t do the homework simply got a 0.  While my co-op was grading quizzes, I noticed that they were two different colors.  I inquired, and he showed them to me.  One of the quizzes was adapted to include a word bank.  I thought the idea was ingenious!  The students with disabilities were still assessed with the peers, on the same content, but simply with adaptations.  This method is discrete, and I liked how these students weren’t segregated from their peers; an outsider looking in would never know that some students had disabilities.  Our text clarified how UDL doesn’t mean one solution to fit everyone, but rather multiple means instruction.  The teacher didn’t give everyone a word bank; that was only given to students who needed it to learn best (Raymond, 2012, p. 60).

            My co-op and I talked about the DBI assignment, and he lit up, thinking of the perfect student.  I’ve gotten the probes, and I also inter-library loaned a book about helping all students read.  It has some good information and has a nice survey to get to know the student and his/her interests and thoughts on reading.  My plan of action for next week is to get to know the student and fill out the surveys.  I’ll then administer the probes, recording one of them and performing a miscue analysis to see where his issues lie in decoding.  Using all of the information I have, I’ll look into strategies to remediate the student.  I’m excited to go back next week!

            Moving on to the reading, I loved a statement cited in chapter three of our text: “What if all learners had genuine opportunities to learn in inclusive environments?  What if we recognized that our inflexible curricula and learning environments are ‘disabled’ rather than pinning that label on learners who face unnecessary barriers?” (Raymond, 2012, p. 59).  I like the idea of taking the stigma away from the student.  Many students feel as if it is their fault that they don’t get the material.  I always felt that way when I didn’t understand something.  Only when I got to college and started taking education classes did I realize that teachers are responsible as well. 

            I think the planning pyramid is an interesting concept.  I’ve seen it before shown as a target, with the center being what all students would learn, in essence, the target of instruction.  Janis and I were talking about whether or not such differentiation occurred in college classes.  We have felt that most of our college classes were focused at getting all students to point x.  We talked about how some classes weren’t stimulating because we learned the content faster than some students, and professors didn’t provide differentiated instruction to give us something to do.  We then clarified; we didn’t want more work, just different work. 

            Most of the rest of the text was review from other classes.  I saw first-hand how determining placement before looking at a student’s needs was detrimental.  My high school’s IU Autistic Support class received a new student, a student diagnosed with autism.  We’ll call him Bill.  After only a few days of having Bill in the class, the teachers knew it was the wrong placement.  Bill was reading and comprehending, while the other students were nonverbal and working on functional life skills, such as communication, job assembly (to work in a sheltered workshop), and toileting and self-feeding.  The teachers didn’t know what to do with this student.  They didn’t have the materials needed to educate him.  After a few weeks of making do, Bill was moved to a more appropriate class, one aligned with the general education curriculum. 

           

Response to American Teacher Documentary

          American Teacher was definitely an eye-opening film for me, but I have to also add that my eyes have been open from the get-go.  Hearing about low salaries and how teachers buy materials out of pocket came as no surprise to me.  I knew, going into this field of study, that I was not going to be a millionaire, nor was I going to be appreciated.  Nonetheless, here I am. 

            I think the movie was a skewed perception of schools.  Don’t get me wrong: what we saw does go on and is an unfortunate reality, but it’s not ubiquitous.  There are plenty of districts that pay their teachers well and offer good teaching conditions.  Regardless, what we was is a reality.  The movie shocked me with some of the statistics, such as:

            -62% of teachers have a 2^nd job

            -46% of teachers quit before their 5^th year

The 46% really got to me!  That means that about half of our class, potentially, will no longer be teaching by the time we hit 30 years old.  The movie mentioned that schools often give new teachers the most difficult classes.  Perhaps this is why teachers quit!  I don’t think teachers should never have to teach the difficult classes, but I think first-year teachers should be “eased in,” as their first year is rough enough.  Once they’ve learned how to fly and have had some experience, then the more difficult classes can be thrown their way. 

            Rhena Jasey’s comment about how people asked her, “Why would you teach…You could do anything in the world, and you want to be a teacher?”  really struck me.  People ask me all the time why I would choose to be a teacher, when I could do so many other things and make so much more money.  My response has always been that I like kids and I like teaching, so that’s how I want to spend my life.  Never did I think about the negative connotation given to teachers.  It implies that teachers are the ones who couldn’t be doctors and lawyers, so they settled.  As Rhena said, who wouldn’t want someone with such great potential to be teaching their children?  If teachers were given a little bit more respect, maybe those great minds (who ordinarily are drawn to law or medicine) would be more drawn to teaching. 

            It was interesting to hear how effective teachers can teach 1 ½ years of content in one year!  The premise of the charter school was to reward teachers for their excellence, and to me, teaching 1 ½ years of content in one year is excellence.  Teachers like that should get paid $125,000!  I talked with a few other education majors on the walk back from the movie, and we discussed the implications of $125,000.  My thought is that with that sort of money (versus $40,000), a teacher can be a little looser with her money.  She can order out more, doesn’t have to spend so much time looking for deals or clipping coupons, and that allows her to spend the time needed to be a great teacher.  A greater salary just gives somewhat of a cushion.

            One teacher in the audience made a great comment during the discussion.  She kept reiterating how teachers need to be life-long learners.  It’s not like we can ever coast.  We need to do research and work to deliver the best practices out there to our students.  To be honest, I’ve had placements with some teachers who don’t research and don’t use the best practices, so hearing someone emphasize the importance of that kind of brought me back to reality, since I haven’t seen such practices in the field. 

            Was the movie biased?  Absolutely.  Did it get the point across?  I’d say so.  Will I change my major?  Absolutely not.  We discussed the movie in another class, and people were saying how first-year students may be scared away and want to change their majors.  My thought: if that’s enough to scare someone away from the field, hearing about the salary, then good riddance; they’re not in the profession for the right reason.  The best teachers out there do what they do because they love it. 

IRIS Module on RTI

Thoughts (before module)

What procedures do you think Rosa Parks Elementary is using to provide services to struggling students? Why are school personnel dissatisfied with this process?

     At the current time, it appears Rosa Parks Elementary is using the “wait to fail” method.  Mrs. Hernandez brought up that she thinks students struggle through her first grade class, move on to higher grades, and continue to struggle.  There isn’t intervention early on, so it takes until third grade, when the students begin to fail.  Then action is required, when the student is already failing.  The special education teacher reiterates that the students who actually need special education services are usually not identified until third or fourth grade, when their skills have fallen so far behind that they qualify.

     Understandably, personnel are dissatisfied with this process because it allows students to fail, and then they have to play major catch-up to get back up to speed.  It’s like some students are driving down the highway at 60 mph, while others are riding bicycles.  Until the bicycle is pulled over for impeding traffic, it continues to chug along, lagging further and further behind the “driving” students.  Metaphorically speaking, it would be almost impossible for the bicycle to catch up to the cars.  In schools, it’s the same way.  The achievement gap increases, so once students are identified for needing extra help, the work needed to catch them up can be daunting.  

What approaches are available to schools to help struggling readers and to efficiently identify students who need special education services?
     Many schools conduct preliminary screenings of all students to see which students are at-risk.  Teachers can use their own remediation techniques, offering extra practice and collaborating with families to work through the struggle.  From my own experience, teachers ask for support from a reading specialist, who may come into the classroom to help the student or pull out the student or a group of students.  In my methods block placement, a 4^th grade classroom, there was reading remediation a few times a week, where groups of students went down the hall to work with a reading specialist.  From what I’ve seen, teachers are overly willing to shove the struggling student off to someone else as if to say, “Here, he’s your problem now.” 
     I’m not too familiar with the referral process, but I think one approach is for teachers to take note of low performance or undesirable behaviors and then refer the child for evaluation.  Schools can conduct a battery of tests, including IQ discrepancy tests, and/or they can use RTI to see if the student responds to more intensive instruction.  Here is where my skepticism shines through.  If a student receives tier 3 instruction and benefits, what is so different from tier 3 instruction and special education?  Aren’t both tier 3 and special education services more intensive instruction than that of the general education classroom?  What happens when a student responds to tier 3 intervention?  Does he/she return to the general education classroom, the place where he/she struggled in the first place?  I just don’t quite get.  That’s not to say that I think every struggling student should be referred for or receive special education services.  I think that intervention should occur before a student is referred or evaluated.  It could simply be that the teaching method and the student’s learning preferences don’t align or that something hasn’t “clicked” yet.

What other information might a school find helpful when choosing which approach to adopt?
     I think schools should look at the research and consider the demographics of the school.  What has been proven to work for the school’s population?  Funding is also a biggie.  What types of resources and support staff are needed?  Can the school afford the cost?

What steps might the S-Team propose to help its struggling readers?        

     I think the special education teacher might propose several specific strategies that can work to help struggling readers.  The team should look at each individual and determine in what area(s) each student struggles (decoding, comprehension, etc).  They can look for trends throughout the school to see if the curriculum is leaving something out, and they can also look for trends in classrooms to see if perhaps the teacher is not including something in his/her instruction.  Once the problem area has been identified, the teacher (or whoever has been appointed the job) can take specific steps to remediate.  The team could also implement steps in the RTI model. 

Response (after module)

What are the disadvantages of the IQ discrepancy model and how does RTI address those concerns?  What might be difficult in implementing the RTI model?

     I could probably go on and on about the disadvantages of the IQ discrepancy model.  This model doesn’t rule out inadequate teaching.  Students may perform below their IQ score if the instruction they achieved is lacking.  With RTI, ineffective teaching is ruled out, since tier 1 provides high-quality, research-based instruction.   Furthermore, all students receive high-quality instruction.  Another disadvantage with the IQ discrepancy model is that there is more potential for teacher bias or testing bias.  RTI uses progress monitoring data, so bias is less likely.   Additionally, the IQ discrepancy model is a “wait to fail” model.  Students must fail before intervention, whereas the RTI approach includes school-wide screening in a preventative manner.  Struggling students are identified before they fall too far behind. 

     With the IQ discrepancy model, students with low IQ and achievement scores would continue to achieve at a low level, since there is no discrepancy.  With RTI, these students would be identified early and given the support needed to remediate their skills.  Also, with the IQ discrepancy model, results from assessments do not inform the instructional process.  The progress monitoring data used in RTI can be used in an ongoing manner, to inform and evaluate the instructional process.  A final advantage of RTI is that it curtails the number of special education referrals. 

     RTI could have some difficulties in implementation.  This new model would call for a new outlook and reform within the school.  Teachers and staff members would need training, and more staff might be needed to work with students in tiers 2 and 3.  Roles within the school might be redefined as well.  Teachers would need to find tests that were not biased towards a certain group of students, and tier 1 instruction would have to be more culturally responsive, which again, would call for training.  Since the RTI model calls for testing and progress monitoring, more of teacher’s time would be spent testing students and plotting data.  Nonetheless, I think the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.

Chapter 1 Reflection

            Chapter 1 did a nice job at showing me a mainstream perspective of individuals with disabilities.  This perspective was new to me, as I’ve always had my own opinions.  A theme arose: conformity to the majority.  I have issues with conformity and have argued many times about what’s normal, and why does everyone have to be the same?  Different does not mean wrong or bad; it means different!

            The chapter discussed the invisibility of mild disabilities.  Students with mild disabilities are often overlooked, and so often teachers berate these students.  The constant beating down of a person really damages morale.  That student knows he or she is not up to par.  Hearing it again and again will not make the material come easier. When I’m struggling, I do NOT want someone to point it out, but students with disabilities have their struggles pointed out to them daily. 

            “The barrier between groups can be physical (e.g., an institution wall), or it can be psychological, as when we subtly reduce our expectations of an individual” (Raymond, 2012, p. 11).  I thought this was a powerful statement.  Teachers and non-teachers alike are guilty of lowering expectations for those with disabilities.  The people with disabilities know that the bar has been lowered, and do you think they like it?  My best friend since first grade has a disability, and she absolutely hated it when people reduced her expectations or treated her differently (sometimes even giving special treatment) when she knew she was capable.

            I understand both sides of the “classify or not classify” argument.  I one hundred percent agree that an individual can “become” the classification, by living up (or down) to the stereotypes of that label.  I was always a perfectionist, and before I had the label, I just did my thing, perfecting things I found important.  Once people started labeling me as a perfectionist, I felt that I had to live up to that expectation, live up to the stereotype.  I can see how a student labeled with an exceptionality could feel the need to fulfill the stereotype. 

            Nonetheless, I think classification helps to create a universal system.  Generally, people with X disability have Y traits.  It becomes a problem when people think everyone with Down syndrome has the same impairments and can benefit from the exact same services and supports.  Classification can provide a starting point.  However, each individual is just that, an individual.  Hobbs remarked that classification doesn’t tell an educator what services the student will need.  I support the method of constructing a profile of assets and liabilities, and using that to create service objectives.  Only by looking at the individual child can objectives be meaningful. 

            The history of special education was interesting to read.  Again, we return to the theme of conformity.  Those who did not conform were put away and hidden, not allowed to reproduce. They spent their lives in asylums, in separate, isolated schools, or in separate, isolated classrooms.  Some were sterilized so that they would not pass on the genetic “feeblemindedness” to offspring.  These separate schools and classrooms had curricula to 1) give the students something to do; 2) teach the students the “right” way to behave.  I have a strong dislike of the word “normalization.”  The definition references the norms and patterns of the mainstream society.  Who is to say what is normal?  What is normal here may not be normal half-way around the world.  What is normal to me may not be normal to you. 

            I was floored when I saw the list of court cases supporting equal access to educational services (Raymond, 2012, p. 29).  I guess I can rationalize that it was a different time then, and schools know better than to deny needed services, but I’m not so sure schools are always looking out for the best interest of the student.  Schools often look out for the best interest of their bank account.  I’ve been in classrooms where I hear about districts not wanting to pay for service Z, because service Z is so expensive.  I’ve even heard teachers trying to deny much-needed services.  If this is the case, then who advocates for that child?  Who holds the school accountable for making sure a student’s needs are met?  I’m hoping this block gives me the resources I need, so that I can be the advocate for my students.  I’m awfully passionate and awfully stubborn!