2/6/2017
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Earl Vennum
|
When asked this question, many students come to mind. I had one student who would create verbal outbursts whenever there was too much audible stimulation in the room. This made it very difficult for students to hear music or instructions. She would be calmed down by holding stuffed animals or toys and was then able to learn and participate in songs. I have a student now with severe speech impairment who is difficult to understand. However, his learning does not seem to be affected as he seems to be learning at the same rate as his peers. I have a student now who our ESE staff is having tested for ASD and who seems to enjoy music, but is rarely able to complete tasks because of his insistence on jumping, crawling, and acting like spiderman. The readings so far, especially the History of Developmental Disabilities on http://mn.gov/mnddc//parallels/index.html gave me great insight and perspective on the education of all students and the importance of equal access to education. |
2/11/2017
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Earl Vennum
|
This is from "Teaching Students with Disabilities in The Fine Arts"
Appropriate wait time: This has been a struggle for me. I am so used to keeping the pace of the lesson up that I feel like it kills the momentum of the lesson when I have to wait for a student to spend a long time in silence thinking about an answer before responding. I feel that the other students have even less patience than I do and people get off task when I have to spend a long time waiting for responses from people who take a significant amount of time to form their thoughts and responses verbally. This is definitely an area in which I would like to improve and gather strategies and processes and practice them in order to allow students time to think.
Small groups: I am using this as a focus of my Deliberate Practice this school year for my school-based evaluation. In the slides of this course it mentioned that grouping the students "can increase student participation, improve the classroom climate, raise student achievement, and refine social skills." I have seen these effects as I have used small groups in my classroom this year. Some of my exceptional education students can get lost or fall behind when part of whole group instructions, but when a part of a small group, it becomes easier for them to access the information and practice the skills and processes. |
2/11/2017
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Earl Vennum
|
- Describe an example of adapted assessment you have successfully used in the fine arts classroom for students with disabilities.
A great example of how I have adapted an assessment for a student with disabilities is when I asked the student to play steady beat for their part on the xylophones in stead of the more intricate note patterns that their physical disability would not allow them to accomplish.
Another example is for one of my students who lacked dexterity in his hands. When the other students showed specific hand signs for the solfege patterns of the melody, I asked him to show the levels (high and low) of the pitches with his hands in the same position (which ended up resembling the Curwen hand sign for "Mi".) |