4/13/2016
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Ann McFall
|
I currently teach a student with cerebral palsy. The student is in a wheelchair that has a table top attached to it so it acts like a desk. In my music classroom she has a paraprofessional that helps her one on one. The biggest accommodation I make each week is with instrument usage. The student's hand muscles are rigid, so she uses tiny glockenspiel mallets so that they will fit in her hand. The xylophone or glockenspiel sits on her wheelchair desk so she is able to see the instrument close up. She is unable to hold anything in her right hand, therefore I modify her instrumental part so she is successful with one mallet.
The student sits close to the front of the room due to poor vision. Anytime she works with the SMARTboard in my room I read and point to the questions and answers so that she is able to successfully choose the correct answer. Cerebral Palsy has affected her hearing a little as well and I make sure that she is close to the sound system or that I sing/give instructions near her so that she is able to hear and understand what is being asked of her. I normally say directions twice so that all students understand, but sometimes this students requests to hear the instructions 3 or more times.
When working in groups, I will modify the assignment for all students in her group. I will break the assignment down into smaller pieces, give extended time if needed, and I will assign the group an instrument to play that they are ALL successful at performing. |
4/14/2016
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Ann McFall
|
The first strategy I can implement in my music classroom is task analysis. For the upper grades, I give them at least one project a year that takes about 3-4 weeks to complete. Instead of giving them all the tasks to complete at once, I can break it down week by week. For the last week students can compile all the information together and complete the project. This will help students with disabilities because they are able to focus on one thing at a time. This strategy would also work when setting up xylophones in a pentatonic scale. I will usually tell my classes to take of their "hamburgers and fries" (B and F), but when working with students with disabilities, it would work better to have them find all the B's first and then all the F's.
The other strategy I can implement in my class is peer partners. Allowing students to work with a shoulder partner for certain tasks would be beneficial to all students. Students who are able to demonstrate/teach a skill, know it well. Other students might need to see one of their peers perform the task before it "clicks." This would be helpful to students with disabilities because their one-on-one paraprofessionals are not familiar with the concept I'm teaching, whereas the students in my class have had music instruction for a number of years. This is also helpful in building community and friendship in the classroom. Some students are self-contained in the classroom, but come to music with other classes. This would help build relationships in my room so that my self contained students don't feel secluded or different. |
4/14/2016
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Ann McFall
|
I had an autisic student in my room with a one-on-one paraprofessional. Students were being quizzed on classifying the instruments into their proper families. All students had a "fill in the blank" quiz with the picture of the instrument and a blank next to it to write in the family name. For my student with autism, I had cut outs of the instruments and he had to place them onto the color coded instrument family paper. (Purple was strings, blue was brass, green was woodwind, and red was percussion. These were the color codes we used all year.) |