2/26/2018
Topic:
Students With Disabilities
Matthew Michel
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Think of a student with a disability you have now or in the past. Describe ways in which their disability affected their learning in your class.
I teach high school. In the past, I had a student with Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities (EBD). The student would often have emotional outbursts in class. Small things, such as receiving a poor grade on an assignment, could trigger an emotional response. Sometimes, the ESE teacher would remove the student from the class if they could not control their outburst. Isolation helped the student cope with the situation. Additionally, one of the student's accommodations in their IEP was seating away from distractions. The student and I also developed a visual communication method in which the student would signal me if they felt they were going to have an emotional outburst. The student had freedom to move to a designated seat away from other students to help cope with the situation. This helped to empower the student, as they felt that they had some control over their situation. |
2/27/2018
Topic:
Tools And Strategies
Matthew Michel
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Describe how two of the strategies discussed could potentially be implemented in your classroom. Be sure to identify the two strategies by name and describe how they could be used to address a student with a disabilities needs.
I'm a high school English teacher. Since I teach a lot of Shakespeare and other drama, this course seemed like a good fit to implement theater practices into my lessons (a lot of my students are active learners).
I already use mnemonic devices in my classroom. Students use it to remember vocabulary words. Some of my ESE students have recall issues, so I think that I could also use this as a tool for students to help remember information on a quiz or test. By rhyming information or creating acronyms, students will remember information more accurately.
Choral response is another great strategy that I sometimes implement. I like it because it requires all students to participate and it keeps all students on task. For students with disabilities, it's great because they don't have to stand out and can be a "part of the crowd."
I also want to implement more cooperative learning in my classroom. I feel like I don't do enough of this. Giving students the opportunity to work together will increase learning gains. I just need to make sure that I also provide individual accountability for the activity. Peer teaching sounded very interesting as well. Sometimes students learn better from other students, so I could pair a student who has mastered the material with someone who is still struggling. |
3/1/2018
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Matthew Michel
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Describe an example of adapted assessment you have successfully used in the fine arts classroom for students with disabilities.
I'm an English teacher looking to incorporate theater elements into my classes when we cover various drama such as Shakespeare or Arthur Miller.
A number of my ESE students have additional time as one of their accommodations on their IEP. Whenever I give an assessment, this could look a number of ways, depending on the student. Usually, the ESE teacher will allow the student to get additional time on the assessment in their Learning Strategies class. Other times, the ESE teacher will pull those students out of class to finish (if they also have seating away from distractions). I've had a couple of students choose to stay after school to finish the assessment, as well. Coordinating with the ESE teacher has been integral in meeting their IEP accommodations. I like to give the student a choice whenever possible, as that usually correlates to higher performance on assessments.
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