Module One Discussion
For this discussion, we will be sharing our responses to a recently published article titled "Taking Charge of your Professional Learning". Please focus your comments on pages 150 and 151 of the article and remember to reply to at least one classmate.
In the article, "Taking Charge of your Professional Learning", there are two tables on pages 150 and 151 on what Effective Special Education Teachers should Know and What Effective Special Education Teachers should do.
ReplyDeleteIn the first table and prior paragraphs, the author emphasizes that effective special education teachers not only have a deep knowledge of their students' disabilities, needs, and desires, but have a deeper level of knowledge of content and pedagogy. Extensive knowledge of both is called pedagogical content knowledge, and it enables them to design effective instruction tailored to students' individual learning goals (p.148). In the table are questions a special educator can ask themselves to be sure they have the information and strategies to be effective special educators for their students.
The second table and prior paragraphs discuss what effective special educators should do. Actions mentioned include providing purposeful instruction, using time effectively, creating a caring classroom environment and more. Each of these actions ensures that the quality of students' learning experiences are maximized and enhanced (p. 149).
All of these points are valuable to me, but without my own classroom it's hard to take these suggestions and "practice" effective teaching. I know that reading these suggestions is one thing and doing them is completely different. I hope that throughout the upcoming clinical, I can take some of the information, like knowledge of student and content/pedagogy, to practice effective teaching in special education.
I agree with your points throughout your discussion post. It is hard and difficult to see exactly what or how to be an effective teacher until you are in the classroom day in and day out. In your upcoming clinical, it will help you greatly in seeing and understanding what each of your students will need to be successful. Good luck!
DeleteThank you for sharing! I agree that the design in which you teach has to be tailored to each individual child. I think that you really need to get to know each child and find their likes and dislikes and add that to your teaching style.
Delete-Kayla Belt
Your upcoming clinical experience will be a tremendous asset to helping you gain useful skills within a special education classroom. Before obtaining my current teaching position I always imagined different techniques I would take into my classroom and how I would teach. Upon entering my new role as a multi-cat teacher, who's students have a variety of exceptionalities, I quickly learned my teaching styles would be based off each individual student. For this reason, I could not agree more that effective instruction is tailored to individual learning goals. Thanks for sharing and good luck with your clinical experience!
DeleteAfter reading and reviewing the article "Taking Charge of your Professional Learning", there are many key points, strategies, and ideas that special educators need to look over, practice, and review when teaching. Throughout pages 150-151 it provides two tables as well as, well written descriptions of what the special educator should be providing and doing in their own classroom and inclusive classrooms.
ReplyDeleteThey are focusing on how to be the most effective, determined, reflective, encouraging, and resourceful educator that they can be. With that being said, those are some big shoes to fill when working with students with disabilities.
They need teachers to fight for them and work hard to help educate them and care for them by individualizing and finding what works best for each and every student.
The tables were/are also helpful because they break down how and what you should be doing for your students to be an effective educator.
Hi Susan,
DeleteI thought the same thing as you, that the descriptions of an effective special educator are large shoes to fill. It's especially intimidating as a novice teacher still learning the ropes while also learning what best makes an effective special educator. I can see how the tables can be used as a way to reflective in our own classrooms on our own practices.
I agree with you Susan. The article had so many excellent points and ideas to be an effective teacher but each day with special education students brings new challenges. I hope I can master the majority of the table lists by then end of the school year with the majority of my caseload. It may prove to be some long term goals, such as becoming that effective over a period of years. I would find it interesting to implement these actions with my third graders and reevaluate the effectiveness of these strategies when they are fifth graders. That could make any educator see and feel they made an impact.
DeleteI completely agree with what you are stating. In order for children to taught effectively, the teacher must have a very deep understanding for the material. I also believe that teachers have to manage their time very wisely and also create a loving and caring environment. Thanks for sharing! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is Kayla Belt. I had to reply as anonymous or it wouldn't post.
ReplyDelete*Kayla Belt*
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article, I have to say that I completely agree with the message that they are attempting to convey. On page 150, there is a chart on the page referring to tailoring your teaching to what the children need. You need to not only have a deep understanding for the material you are teaching, but you also need to truly understand each one of your students on a deep level. You really need to know how each child learns the best and what their interests are. You also need to keep their strengths and weaknesses in mind when creating lessons. If you can do those things and still create a safe, happy, and loving environment then I believe you could definitely be an effective teacher.
On page 151, there is a chart mentioning what teachers should do to be the most effective. These things include, but are not limited to the following: never giving up, providing purposeful instruction, using time effectively, providing repeated practice, providing explicit skill, creating a loving/caring classroom, collaborating with parents/other teachers, and doing your best to be persistent to have the children learn to their best potential. I have to agree with these and hope that I am able to do a good job with keeping each of these in balance when I have my own classroom. I think that each one of these are so important in creating a good learning environment.
I could not agree more with your post! Personally, I am a true believer that every educator needs to focus on and create their instruction to hit every students' unique learning style. In my current classroom we spend time in a station rotation where I am able to create different activities that each student can participate in that is tailor to their personal learning style. In my short time in my position, I have learned that this helps each individual student to better retain the content being taught.
DeleteIn the article “Taking Charge of Your Professional learning”, I found much of the information to be quite interesting and nearly right on target with special education instructors. On page 150, Table 1 really made me consider my role to my students as a special education teacher. Do I understand my students well enough to tailor instruction to their needs? I can honestly say that it takes a bit of time to connect with my students to a level in order to realize are they are lacking learning in different content areas or are have they just learned self-helplessness and how to get out of work? With behavior disorder students, this is a factor that needs to be considered. I always try to develop some type of relationship with each one so that I can better learn how to “read” them. Once I get a better understanding of their learning style, level and capacity, I tend to target the instruction strategies to better serve them. It would be ideal if they all learned the same way or were motivated by the same things but that isn’t the case. This then leads us into Table 2 listed on page 151. This is an excellent table to use for myself as sort of a rubric for proper and effective instruction. Sometimes when the days get hectic and it’s easy to become frustrated, these are actions and questions I need to remind myself of. I agree wholeheartedly that special educators need to be creative, innovative, resourceful and patient instructors at all times. That’s a daily thing. If I was to be honest about it all, I feel like special education gets put on the back burner as far as resources and professional development being provided. Everyone wants to make these students successful but they are not always willing to provide the needed tools to do so. If I can remind myself to follow at least half of what these two tables show on a daily/weekly basis, then I consider that success in the special education classroom.
ReplyDeleteChris,
DeleteYou make a good point about knowing your students learning needs and learned helplessness. I hadn’t thought of learned helplessness while reading the article. We just changed schedules two weeks ago, and one of my students came to me trying to get out of his English 11 Inclusion course; he said it was going to be too hard, and he wasn’t going to be able to pass. After, talking with several other teachers, the General Education, English teacher, the Special Education teacher, his English 10 Special Education teacher, and reviewing some assessment results we concluded that it was an appropriate place for him.
Lastly, I unfortunately agree that Special Education often gets placed on the back burner. It’s almost time for us to begin looking at schedules for next year’s classes, and several of us came to the conclusion that we (the entire HS staff) work backwards in this regard. We should first determine the need of our special education students, formulate the appropriate amount of classes (Inclusion, Resource, Self-Contained, etc.) and the allocate the remaining blocks of time for general education classes. For example, we (special ed. staff) frequently have to teach split inclusion classes. So, this means that we’ll have to split our time between a U.S. History Inc. class and a World History Inc. class, for example. Consequently, both of the Inclusion courses lack adequate instruction and support from the Special Education teacher. This is a result of making schedules by considering the need of General education first, followed by the needs of Special Education.
I have to start by saying that I really enjoyed getting to read the article “Taking Charge of Your Professional Learning.” Just entering my first year of teaching special education in my own classroom, I am always looking for useful tips that will benefit my students. Personally, I feel this article would be a great source for veteran, new, and aspiring special education teachers to read.
ReplyDeleteEntering my new position, I started three weeks already into the school year with no background information on my students or caseload. My first few weeks were pretty overwhelming, to say the least. Within Table 1 of the article it discusses “What Effective Educators Should Know” and a great set of questions one can ask themselves (Benedict, Brownell, Park, Bettini, & Lauterbach, 2014). During my first few weeks I spent a great amount of time focusing on getting to know my students individual, their exceptionalities and the content to which I would be teaching. I feel the question within table 1, which focuses on developing multiple activities to engage students, is extremely important for any classroom (Benedict, et al., 2014). To be a great educator one must always remember that all individuals learn in own unique way. As educators, it is important for use to learn theses unique learning styles within our students and create effective instruction to help the students engage and retain the content. Currently, one of my classes has eight students, and I can say each of them learns in their own unique way. “Effective special education teachers are reflective about their instruction and how that instruction is connected to their students’ learning needs, always analyzing what they are doing and always thinking about how their instruction could be more effective.” (Benedict, et al., pg. 151, 2014)
The article, Taking Charge of Your Professional Learning: Tips for Cultivating Special Educator Expertise, essentially outlines what effective special educators should do. At first, when I began reading the article I honestly thought it was somewhat trivial, but as I progressed through it I began to realize that I think I haven’t explicitly been told how an effective special educator teaches, thinks, collaborates, and learns; most of these attributes are only implied in coursework. Additionally, the article discusses positive attributes extensively. The article provides tables and bulleted lists on pages 150, 151, and 152 that outline characteristics and act as a formative assessment of individual attributes when progressed through by the reader; that will be discussed further in my next post. Lastly, the article ends with tips about improving skills as a special educator. The authors suggest that special educators choose one particular area of their teaching at a given time and focus on improving that area through evaluation, research, collaboration, further evaluation, and a prolonged, continuous effort; the authors specifically state that no special educator is an expert in every area and all educators require time and experience to become experts.
ReplyDeleteI am going to use this post as a self-evaluation based on some of the bulleted points on page 150, 151, and 152 in the article Taking Charge of Your Professional Learning: Tips for Cultivating Special Educator Expertise. First, the authors list several aspects under the Knowledge heading, “Students” and “Content and Pedagogy.” In the “Students” category, I faired pretty well. I am fortunate to know my students well and have a firm grasp on their learning needs. Admittedly, this is a result of having been with them for three years now; unfortunately, I didn’t have this degree of understanding our first year together. The next category is one that I personally am trying to improve, “Content and Pedagogy.” I have been tasked out to teach a Biology Resource class; unfortunately, my background is in Social Studies, so Biology is not my strong suit. I certainly don’t possess the background information to explore content as deeply and thoroughly as needed. Consequently, this leads me to other educators frequently to explain concepts and to give me crash course lessons on content. I certainly am more comfortable with my performance in the Action and Disposition headings.
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