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 7th 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.
