1/21/2017
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Stacey Smith
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To be honest, this is my first time teaching students with severe disabilities. I was a middle and high school band director, and a high school band director for the first 14 years of my career. I moved to elementary music (4th & 5th grade only) just this school year. I have a self-contained class that comes to me once a week and I've already exhausted all my techniques with this group. This class has a blind student who screams and rocks no matter what you try to get him to do or listen to. There is a deaf student who defies his paraprofessional, runs around the room touching everything, and who throws a tantrum if he doesn't get the instrument he wants at the time he wants it (despite me doing rotations). There is a student in a wheel chair who does not speak and can't use her hands or her feet. There is a student with no fingers. There is a student who also screams randomly and seemingly without any provocation. The other students in the class are violent with each other and their paraprofessionals. There are four of us in the room with them (me trying to teach and them trying to handle the issues) and we can barely keep it together. I've reached out other music teachers in my district and they are at a loss too because they don't have these extreme cases in their class rotations. To say that I, one teacher, could adapt my teaching for one of these cases while teaching a mainstream class is possible. However, I really can't see how I can adapt my teaching for all of these students at the same time. I love the kids. They make my heart melt when I am with them, but I feel that I am doing them a disservice in that I am out of ideas. |
1/21/2017
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Stacey Smith
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When I taught at the high school level, I had a student in a wheelchair who could not speak or control his body. He was enrolled in my World Music class. About half way through the school year his paraprofessional (who did not travel to class with him) came to me and told me he was getting an ipad attached to his wheelchair. The ipad could be programed to include responses to me about the courswork or anything I wanted. Additionally, several years prior to meeting this student, I had a blind student come into my Intro to Music class. He was a freshman when I met him and had a paraprofessional who came with him to class but left during class and returned at the end of class to escort him to the next class and check in with the teachers. She would use a braille writer to convert assignments for him and convert his paper assessments for me to grade. He also had a knack for music technology so we would let him play around with laptops, DJ software, Garage Band software, etc. One day I discovered that he could play piano amazingly. He was like a jukebox in that you could say the name of a song and he would start playing it perfectly. Needless to say we had him join our band. He was a blind kid and he was in our high school marching band. We brought over a lady from FSU and she taught us all how to guide him properly and how to treat him like one of the rest of us. It was fun doing all the training activities she did with us as a band. |
1/21/2017
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Stacey Smith
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With my current student who is in a wheelchair and can't use her feet or hands, we were doing a dance lesson that included using the whole body. Well, when it was time for her to do the activity, I and the other paraprofessionals got down on our knees and did the dance at her level but we included her by using long scarves that we loosely tied to her arms at about elbow length. One of the other paraprofessionals pushed her wheelchair to match the moves and she was smiling ear to ear. |