6/23/2017
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Deborah McBurney
|
One of my favorite students, was a bright girl with moderate orthopedic impairment due to cerebral palsy. Although ambulatory her movements involved a great amount of spasticity; which resulted in severe speech impairments. Her ESE placement was in a self-contained PI/OHI classroom, but from kindergarten on up to 5th grade, she and her classmates always attended music class with an appropriate age basic education class. She was always willing to answer questions but her articulation difficulties, confined her answers to "yes" or "no", with a head shake but anything else, including her singing was unintelligible, which caused my heart to break! Because of her eagerness to participate and respond along with the other students it became my mission to create a variety response systems, she could use to share her answers and before long all members of the class realized how bright she was and her self esteem blossomed! |
6/23/2017
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Deborah McBurney
|
I teach at an extremely large elementary school of 1,100 plus. Our school is one of the area ESE hubs and serves about 80 self-contained students, in 9 homerooms. The areas of disabilities include, on varying degrees, most all recognized categories of disabilities. Four of the self-contained classes always attend music with an appropriate aged basic education class while the other five classes are taught music in their homerooms due to ambulatory issues or the need to be close to the RNs on staff.
Two of the ESE classes that attend classes in the music room, but are not mainstreamed with a basic education class include mostly children with Down Syndrome. They are grouped as Primary (Kdg-2) or Intermediate (3-5) which leaves a wide range of abilities to address. By far the most successful strategies for instruction have been Discovery Learning and Learning Centers. Keeping all the students engaged is key to the success of the intended learning outcome. Using an assortment of teacher made materials usually provides the students with the tools to meet the learning goals. |
6/23/2017
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Deborah McBurney
|
An example of an adapted assessment that I have successfully used with one of my favorite students, a bright girl with moderate orthopedic impairment due to cerebral palsy was a modified answering system I used for the Music CGA test. Although ambulatory her movements involved a great amount of spasticity; which resulted in severe speech impairments. Her ESE placement was in a self-contained PI/OHI classroom. She was always willing to answer questions in regular music class but her articulation difficulties, confined her answers to "yes" or "no", with a head shake but anything else, was mostly unintelligible. For the test, with suggestions from her teacher, I made a 4 box answer grid, she could point to as she spoke her answer (she always wanted to try to speak the answer) and was sure to make it large enough to accommodate pointing inaccuracy from spasticity. She did very well on the test, making great gains from the pre-test!
edited by Deborah McBurney on 6/23/2017 |