Sunday, February 28, 2016
M3U1A1 - STUDENT PERSONA IN THE DIGITAL AGE
STUDENT PERSONA IN THE DIGITAL AGE
https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/dj8BMivc3CT/student-persona-in-the-digital
| https://vimeo.com/156587160 |
M3U1A3 - Student Case Study
Student
Case Study
Student: Idalia – 4th grade student
Background
Idalia is a 10 year old girl
in grade 4. Her father holds a high position in a foreign invested company, her
mother a business woman running a chain of shops selling jewelry, purse, and
lady’s accessories. Idalia has one
younger sister in PreK. Her parents are dynamic and supportive members of the
school community. Her mother is an active member of the PTO and uses to help in
school wide events. Sometimes she drops and picks her children at and from
school, however mostly their caregivers take care of these two girls. Her
parents are original African but work and stay in UK for a long time. The
children were both born in the UK and obtain the UK passports. The family has
traveled frequently and children often skip many school days. Idalia has
registered many after school activities like dance, music, and art.
Idalia's strengths include:
- A native and well developed oral
vocabulary because she was born and grew up in the states until 9 years
old,
- Ability to confidently perform in
talent show of the school, especially music and dance,
- Ability to confidently share a broad
base of knowledge with adults in One to One conversation,
- Ability to make valuable
contributions to discussions in Music and Visual Arts,
- Ability to demonstrate Art skills
at her grade level ahead of given time
- Grade appropriate skills in social
studies and reading
- Grade level test taking skills
During the first two months
of Grade 4, I noticed the following areas of concern:
- Frequent absences in my class for her
family travels
- Talks constantly about how rich her
family is and frequently interrupts teacher and peers by her laughter
- Gets out of seat and wanders around
inappropriately
- Argue and conflict with other
students in groups, especially girls and new comers
- Often make noise while sitting on
a chair
- Risk taking to the dangerous level
like sitting on an unbalanced two leg chair instead of a firm four leg
chair, and standing on a tissue paper roll
- Spreading paints all over her
hands and on her own T-shirt and intentionally on other’s ones
- Jam herself in cleaning teams and
make troubles by splashing water everywhere
- Squeeze two different colors of
paint in a running water to see how the color being mixed
- Deny her fault when provided
feedback on behavior (interrupting, disrupting)
- Hide herself after others in
presenting group’s ideas in front of the class
- Incorporate with others in group
works/projects and difficult to find a common solution with peers for the
same assignment
- Take potential risks relating to
the health of others. One day during the PE class, she
found the kit on the field and reported to the PE teacher. He immediately
recognized it because the diabetes cases were already alerted and all
teachers were trained to take needed action in case. So he requested her
to return the kit to the girl who lost it. She came to my classroom and
noticed me that she found something special on my paper shelf. The girl
who lost it immediately felt unsecure and cried. The whole class was
paused to solve the issue. On that day, it took me 15 minutes to solve the
problems, handled the relating persons to the nurse, and came down the
intense atmosphere in the classroom.
Action plans
1. Bring the concerns to the school Counselor
and other subject teachers
I discussed these concerns with Idalia's other
subject area teachers. It turns out that the impulsivity and hyperactivity had
been observed in other classes. I made an appointment with the school counselor
and was confirmed with evidences she used to be like that in the previous year,
and especially this year she happens to have more lunches in the Principal or
Counselor’s office.
2. Report internally to colleagues and to
parents regarding the potential health risks she might cause to her friend
I drafted a fact based report to the School
nurse and related teachers on the day the missing diabetes kit was found in my
classroom. After reviewing all reports from teachers in this case, it turned
out that she played tricks on us even though she clearly knew who has diabetes
and needs special help from teachers and peers. The mother came to the school
the day after and had the meeting with relating teachers, the counselor and the
nurse. She apologized and promised to take actions with Idalia at home.
3. Review rules and behavioral expectations
4R is our agreed rule set at the beginning of the school, which
stands for respecting others, materials, environment, and yourself. The class
gathered in a circle and discussed about how we show our respect in Art
classroom and at school. Then students work in groups to share and present
their ideas in a poster, and signed their names on their work and hung their
poster on the wall. Idalia participated in her group discussion and seemed to
realize her actions are inappropriate.
4. Seat Arrangement
Arrange her seat in order to ensure she can stay focus, not
bother others, and in my close eyes.
5. Peer Assessment
Art Critiques is a method to evaluate and judge other’s artwork.
Generally, her artworks demonstrate her grade skill levels; however she likes
to mess them up after finishing by accident or by intention. When she realized
that artworks will be evaluated and assessed, and not everyone can get the same
good score, then she cared more for her products
6. Peer-helper
One friend in the class broke his hand during a weekend and he
could not continue his paper mache African Mask within 3 periods. In this project,
Idalia was the first student who completed her work nicely and neatly. I then
asked her to pair with him and help him. She accepted with a big proud and
shiny smile. She actively came to sit with him, showed him step by step and
became his second hand. They both made two creative animal masks for the
exhibition in the last December.
7. Promote Responsibility with Positive
Comments and a Praise system
To educate Responsibility along with an awarding system, I hang
a big poster down from the ceiling in the center of the classroom and a
bulletin board for “Responsibility Counts” placed on one class door. To count
each responsibility, I define expected responsibility into small jobs and
students who can complete their jobs will collect stars and either place them
on the board or on their own portfolio.
Surprisingly, Idalia was the one who collected the most stars in
the class. She realized how many works I had to prepare before her class came
and after they all left. She came to talk to me and willingly stayed after
class to help cleaning all materials and dust brought into my class after their
PE time. Some other students were affected by her attitude and also decided to
lend us a hand. They all sang and worked happily, shared storied how they
helped to clean bedrooms, gardens, and kitchens with their mothers.
I was truly touched by her attitude and decided to record that
lovely moment. When we shared this clip with the whole class and officially praised
her and others in front of the class, she was confident to stand up and spoke
to the whole class her feelings to become a teacher’s helper. She was then
voted as a class end clean-up manager, her team now has more and more helping
members who are not only responsible for their own working space but also for
the whole class.
Being generous with immediate and positive comments has a
tremendous impact on students particularly. It is one of the most common sense
for everyone. Praising plus constructivism always works better than criticism.
Conclusion
Idalia is not the only case among my 240 students. Elementary
students are active agents who store unlimited source of energy the whole day
long. They see me one per four days and mostly fall into the afternoon, after
lunch. Keeping them focus and engaged after lunch time is a big challenge for
me. Learning from Idalia’s case, I have been making many changes in my ways of
teaching and controlling the class. Children love exploring, in their space,
and with novel ideas. Physical class design and setting for circulation,
individual and group works are very important. Giving them opportunities to
bring value to the class by meaningful action with peers and for teacher will
help to boost the confidence, the engagement, and the continuous effort.
RESOURCES
Friday, February 19, 2016
M2U5A3 - Planning for English Language Learners
Planning for English Language Learners
M2U5A3
The regional Art theme this year
is “Making ConneXion” and one contest launched by The Association International
Schools in Africa (AISA) is Art Challenge which promotes the connection with
Africa or inspired African arts. In order to align my curriculum and the common
theme, I created a unit called Africa and African Inspired Arts.
For the second grade, I defined
the two objectives for this unit. Firstly, students will be able to make
connection between Visual Arts and Africa and African Arts. Secondly, students
will be able to use elements (lines, shapes, colors, texture) and principles in
Art (movement and rhythm) in drawing African dancers and Djembe (African drum).
In grade two, we have four groups
of English Language Learners, Pre-production, Speech Emergent, Intermediate Fluency,
and Advanced Fluency. In the Pre-production group, we have one Chinese student
who recently joins the school. I therefore use some very basic Mandarin Chinese
words that I still remember to greet him and immediately after that he kept
talking to me in his primary language and called me “Lao su” meaning teacher.
The Speech Emergent group consists of one student from Japan. This is her third
year with this school. She began to use more words and sentences but still
replies on context clues. The Intermediate Fluency group includes one Lebanese
student. She speaks fluently English in academic areas but there are gaps in
vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions. They are able to demonstrate
higher order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion
or analyzing a problem. The Advanced
Fluency group has three Indian students. They communicate fluently in all
contexts and can maneuver successfully in new contexts. They still have an
accent and use idiomatic expressions incorrectly at times, but quite fluent and
comfortable communicating in English. Besides, I still have a majority of
native population in this grade.
Therefore, I employed a
combination of the six strategies for this group age to accommodate different
levels of each and all students.
Join Productive
Activity + Contextualization + Visual Aids
In order to hook student’s
learning and provide a visual concept for the unit, I painted an African
landscape on my glass window and set up my class like a museum exhibits some African
Art works. On the first day of the unit, I invited students to enter my museum,
walk around and quietly observe. This kinesthetic strategy works for all
groups. Then I gathered them in a circle and posed the first question like
“What do you think we are going to learn about today?” Then I allowed 2 minutes
for their discussion with neighbor peers and called for answers. After that, a
presentation on Power Point was shown with a world map, and students were asked
to identify the continent and country where we belong. For some students who
still misused the name of continents and countries, I paused a bit and recalled
the names of six continents.
Next, I posed the question “What
do you know about Africa?” and allowed another 10 minute group discussion plus presentation
by writing or drawing on a poster. This activity encouraged Pre-Production group
to draw and the advanced group to speak. Students brought so much different
life experiences in their discussions and drawings and gradually built their confidence
in collaboration with classmates. The last activity of the first day,
redirected them to the question “What do you know about African Arts?” and
similarly group discussion and presentation. For these activities, Visual aids
and classroom setting are critical and extremely helpful for ELLs.
Through these activities, I
tapped into students’ background knowledge, life experiences and observations.
Students shared responses in pairs, in groups, and with whole class. Then I
connected to the central topic with specific questions.
Visual Aids +
Guided Questions + Meaning-based context + Vocabulary and language development
+ Kinesthetic Strategy:
The second day, I set up the
classroom with a Djembe in the center of the class and invited them to watch a
video about African dancers with Djembe. After 5 minute clip, I employed many guided
questions to direct their observation and encouraged answers using Art
vocabularies in describing dancers, their costumes, and music rhythm and dance
movements. I allowed Pre-Production group to use their body language to
demonstrate their observation, such as using hands to show shapes on the
Djembe, moving body to show dancing positions. Differently, the Intermediate
and Advanced group was asked to use words and sentences to describe dancers and
their costumes and fabrics and musical instruments used in the dance.
Then I invited one student from
the advanced group, who can play Djembe, to demonstrate in front of the whole
class how to play the drum. Honestly, in this session, both students and I learned
from student’s skill and enjoyed her sharing how long she spent to learn this
instrument. After that, I allowed the class to take turn to touch and play a
bit with the drum. Children quickly learned how to use their hand palm to make
different tones. Finally, the class gathered in a circle and made connection
between the movement and rhythm concept in Music and in Visual Arts while recalling
learned vocabularies.
Through this activity, I provided
a few minutes of extra fluency practice for students who need it, said the
sounds slowly and explicitly.
Instructional
Modeling:
On the third day, I recalled the
previous two day activities and introduced the expectations for reflection, named
new techniques used for the art work like print making and tools. The room was
set up with printmaking tools with name on each material or tool. I modeled the
technique while reinforced new vocabularies during demonstrating. Students were
then asked to sit with groups but produced individual work.
Reviewing vocabularies while
modeling is to condition the memory through practice. Instructional
conversation will facilitate content language development.
Metacognition and
authentic assessment + Center setting + Motivation
We spent two days for individual
works, each student was requested to first visit the drawing center to design
an African village background on a foam sheet using their life experience or
creation, then moved to the printing center to printmaking designs.
They then continued to proceed to
the design center to work with Pagne, African fabrics, to tailor and cut
costumes for their dancers. Finally, they revisited the drawing center to add
details for their dancers such as head, moving hair, hands, legs and jewelries
using shapes and lines.
The last day of the unit was used
for personal reflection and Art Critiques. All art works were hung on a board,
students sat in a circle. Each student received on number which was not the
number of their art work, followed steps of Critiques like describe, analyze,
interpret, and decide, which were learned in the previous month combining with
the guided questions on board to talk about each art work using new
vocabularies and learned techniques. During their speaking session, all
students were requested to demonstrate respectful audience attitudes. In order
to build up their confidence in speaking in front of the whole class, I used
many motivation words, eye contact, and gesture codes like thumb up.
In conclusion, the unit yielded
so much fun learning experience for all, teacher, native and students of
different ELL groups. Almost native students shared that they learned a lot
about Africa and African dancers and Djembe through this unit. While ELLs students
overcame silent period, participated using both body and verbal language to
demonstrate their content knowledge and skills with their own life experience.
Importantly, each of them produced art works with their own creation and signature.
And as its result, one student from this grade was one of 12 winners of AISA
Art Challenge 2016.
RESOURCES
Book: 6 Principles for Teaching English Language Learners in
All Classroom – 2009 by Ellen McIntyre, Diane W.Kyle, Cheng-Ting Chen, Jayne Kreamer,
Johnna Parr
M2U5A2 - Standards and Objectives of ELL Programs
Standards and Objectives of
ELL Programs
M2U5A2
The
education of English language learners has evolved immensely over the last few
decades, and most of the changes have been positive. Many school districts
offer bot ESL and mainstream classroom settings for English Language Learners (ELLs),
others offer bilingual education, and still offers extra support outside the
regular classroom for ELLs. Among the programs apparently served English
Language Learners (ELLs), the two most interesting to me are the Two-Way
Bilingual (TWB) and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language (TESOL).
TESOL,
established in 1966, was created out of professional concern over the lack of
single, all-inclusive professional organization that brought teachers and
administrators at all educational levels with an interest in teaching English
to speakers of other languages. It was a joint effort of five organizations,
the Center for Applied Linguistics, the Modern Language Association of America,
the National Association of Foreign Student Affairs, the National Council of
Teachers of English, and the Speech Association of America. Nowadays, TESOL
becomes a global education association with more than 13,000 members and 90
affiliates in over 120 countries. For teachers, TESOL is also a training
program, which emphasizes methodologies in teaching English to speakers of
other languages, including Grammar Translation method, direct method,
Audiolingualism, and Communicative Approach. Actually, those methodologies have
changed over years reflecting change in linguistic theories and the needs of
English Language learners. Therefore, the future of TESOL is likely to continue
to grow and develop as a profession.
In the
TESOL bookstore, the Pre-K-12 English Language Proficiency Standards has
continued to grow and impact educational systems throughout the United States
at all levels, the state, district, and classroom. Addressing concerns by the
No Child Left Behind legislation, these five standards presents five language
proficiency in both social and academic uses of language students must acquire
for success in and beyond the classroom. Orderly from the 1st to 5th
standards, ELLs communicate for social, intercultural, and instructional purposes
within the school setting, then they communicate information, ideas, and
concepts necessary for academic success in the four core subjects like
languages arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.
TESOL
identifies learners as five specific grade-level clusters, PreK-KG, 1-3, 4-5,
6-8, and 9-12. In order to track student progress, it also defines five levels
of language proficiency, orderly from 1 to 5, Starting, Emerging, Developing,
Expanding, and Bridging. The curriculum, instruction, and assessment of TESOL
focus on the usage of four language domains like listening, speaking, reading,
and writing.
Two-Way
Bilingual (TWB) or Dual Immersion appeared in 1963 at Coral Way Elementary in
Florida. In 1968, the passing of the Bilingual Education Act served to address
the reality that limited English proficient students were in need of proper
instructional support to achieve academic gains. In 2002, the No Child Left
Behind Act emphasized the implementation of the English Language Acquisition,
Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act. In the last decade, the
quantity of programs has significantly increased. One of the most changes that
TWB made is to transform a program centered on aiding ELLs to develop fluency
in English to an enrichment program striving for biliteracy, bilingualism and
biculturalism for all students participating. Although TWB was initially
focused on supporting ELLs in their development and acquisition of English
literacy skills, the need to develop bilingualism in an increasingly globalized
society has made the program appealing for many parents of children who are
native speakers. Like it is said, one stone two birds or win-win situation. Both
Native English Speakers (NES) and ELLs are beneficiaries of the gains made through
TWB. TWB education places two language groups together and promotes the
learning of a second language while maintaining the home language. Proficiency
in two or more languages should be promoted for all American students.
Bilingualism enhances cognitive and social growth, competitiveness in a global
marketplace, national security, and understanding of diverse peoples and
cultures.
Transitional
TWB aims to prepare students to enter the mainstream classroom by using the
home language to ‘transition’ into English instruction. Developmental TWB aims
to maintain and develop the home language as students acquire English.
The
three main goals of TWB are students will develop high levels of proficiency in
their first language and in a second language, they will perform at or above
grade level in academic areas in both languages, and they will demonstrate
positive cross- cultural attitudes and behaviors and high levels of
self-esteem. In order to do so, the subject-matter instruction must be adjusted
to students’ levels for both challenging and relevant in both languages. The
Additive bilingual environment stresses the development of two languages, not
using one just to learn the other.
However,
the condition of TWB is only two groups of languages in one class, such as
English and Spanish, English and Chinese, or English and Korean. It is ideal with
the balanced mix of 50/50 to ensure the maximum interaction in the classroom.
The challenges in establishing TWB are to find qualified teachers and the added
costs of teacher recruitment and two sets of content materials.
Indicated
clearly in its standards, TWB requires teachers to have knowledge of the foundations
of bilingual education and the concepts of bilingualism and biculturalism, to
know the process of first- and second-language acquisition and development, to
have a comprehensive knowledge of the development and assessment of literacy in
the primary language, to have a comprehensive knowledge of the development and
assessment of biliteracy, and to have a comprehensive knowledge of content-area
instruction in L1 and L2.
TWB has
been referred to as the most effective bilingual program contributing to
long-term academic success. Thorough planning and effective implementation are
crucial to the success of TWI programs, in addition to ample support from
administrators and access to quality resources. In well-implemented programs,
ELLs have achieved higher academic success than their peers in other bilingual
programs.
In the
point of view of a parent of a minority group, I would love to have my child in
TWB. Through the lens of a teacher, I will feel pressured if I am not a
bilingual. And given the two-mentioned programs to an ELL, I believe, the answer
will fall to the second.
RESOURCES
M2U5A1 - Cultures and Languages in Education
Cultures and Languages in Education
M2U5A1
The
enrollment for school year 2015-16 at ICSA was 430 students coming from 58
countries, in which there is 12 percent of students who are identified as English
language learners (ELLs). In this writing, I focus on the two groups amongst
ELLs, Japanese students coming from Japan and Lebanese students growing up in
Ivory Coast, the host country.
For
the Japanese students, most of them were born in Japan and have been received
some certain levels of the Japanese education system. They speak their mother
tongue and write Japanese scripts. The written language uses three
scripts. These are the kanji (Chinese characters, pictures representing
words), hiragana (for Japanese words), and the katakana (for foreign
"loan" words), which are syllable scripts that use modified Chinese
characters. Romaji (Latin alphabet) also gets frequent use in modern
usage of Japanese for things like logos, entering text into computers,
advertising, and company names. Japanese characters were originally written by
brush, and later by pen and pencil, so the stroke order is important. When
writing by hand, and particularly in cursive or calligraphic styles, using
proper stroke order is crucial. Additionally, some characters look very similar
but are written differently. Students who practice both reading and writing can
easily distinguish these characters, but students who only practice reading may
find it difficult.
Japanese
community in this school is well known by their harmony in any event or project
we do. Their children come to this school following their parents’ work,
business, or mission. Japanese students are recognized by their discipline,
time punctuation, good behavior, and collectivism. They respect teachers,
seniors, and masculinity. In group work, they are motivated team players,
attentive listeners, and critical thinkers. They follow decisions of teachers
and group leaders, and rarely challenge superiors in public. Almost Japanese
students work hard and always try their best in any assignments, homework, and
assessments. Parents send and pick up their children every day, and always find
time to discuss with teachers about their child’s issues, progress, and
integration. Japanese parents care not only about their child’s education but
also school’s events. They voluntarily work as room parents, participate in
PTO’s activities, respond immediately to classroom’s projects or
assignments.
In
contrast, the Lebanese population in Ivory Coast is large. They immigrated to
this country since 1920 and began with commerce and trading, then expanded
their scale of enterprise and began to displace independent European merchants
and gradually dominate the local economy. The majority of their children, who
are born and growing up here either join French schools or American school.
Generally, Lebanese children speak Arabic at home and
fluently French as the local language. Arabic belongs to the group of Semitic
alphabetical scripts in which mainly the consonants are represented in writing,
while the markings of vowels is optional. The basic Arabic alphabet
contains 28 letters. Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one
another by dots. Both printed and written Arabic are cursive and Arabic
alphabets are developed as a form of art, calligraphic styles.
Lebanese
community in this school is popular and children registered in ELL program are
those who switch from the French schools or just start school from home.
Children often go to school every day with their caregivers. Parents are only present
in Parent Teacher Conferences. For some families, the communication with
parents has to go either through caregivers or interpreters since parents speak
French or Arabic while teachers speak English. Since children depend or spend
most of their time at home with caregivers, they can hardly exhibit independent
character at school, especially during meal times and personal care or
responsibility. While working with peers, children tend to be bossy or want to
be group leaders. When being placed as team members, they find difficult to
collaborate with others.
Relating
to the development of ethnic attitude, both groups have strong self-identity
and self-esteem in this school community. Even though they are ELLs at school
and remain their primary language at home, their self-confidence increases over
times. What make them different are the education from home or from parents,
the readiness for school, the life skills, and the progress due to frequently
skipping school. It is visible in meal times, Japanese students demonstrate
their independence, neatness, and table manners while Lebanese counterparts
need helps to complete their meal. Some Lebanese students skip many school days
for some leisure reason and as its results, they hardly catch up with the
class’s progress. Additionally, the level of involvement of parents in their
child education and progress make them different. While Japanese parents often
find teachers after school to understand about their child’s homework or
assignments in order to help them at home, teachers have to search for Lebanese
parents to discuss about their child’s progress and issues if any.
The
greatest challenge for both of them can be evidenced in gaps in language
learning and content learning. On the other hand, ELLs have some limitation in
being exposed to another optional world language comparing with their
mainstream counterparts. In order to address this issue, our ELL department
introduced a new approach called “Inclusion”, which will be tested with some
lower grade levels. In this model, ELL teachers will join teaching with some
key subject teachers, meaning that ELLs will learn content language with both
content and ELL teachers. It benefits both ELL students and teachers since they
align with academic and content language.
RESOURCES
Monday, February 15, 2016
M2U2A3 - Laws and Policies that Affect Teaching - Video clip
M2U2A3 - Laws and Policies that Affect Teaching
Thursday, February 11, 2016
M2U4A1 - PERSONALIZED LEARNING IN SPECIAL EDUCATION
M2U4A1
PERSONALIZED
LEARNING
IN SPECIAL EDUCATION
----------------
Special Education (SE) is designed
to meet the needs of students who have disabilities indentified in the law IDEA
(Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). This writing will reflect why we
need such a law in the States and what Special Education is, what types of
disabilities are defined by IDEA, and why personalized education is so
important for students with disabilities.
Let’s look at the chart below. By
2012-13, the number of children and youth receiving services under IDEA 6.4
million. Out of 49.8 million
enrollments in the school year 2012-13, 6.4 million served under IDEA,
equivalent 13 percent are indentified with
disabilities.
According to IES (Institute of Education
Sciences), among all children and youth ages 6–21 who were served under IDEA,
the percentage who spent most of the school day (i.e., 80 percent or more of
time) in general classes in regular schools increased from 33 percent in
1990–91 to 61 percent in 2012–13. About 95 percent of school-age children and
youth ages 6–21 who were served under IDEA in 2012–13 were enrolled in regular
schools. Some 3 percent of children and youth ages 6–21 who were served under
IDEA were enrolled in separate schools (public or private) for students with
disabilities.
The chart below indicates the
percentage distribution of children served under IDEA in the school year 12-13.
The total enrollment in public
schools differed by race/ethnicity. The percentage of children and youth served
under IDEA was highest for American Indians/Alaska Natives (16 percent),
followed by Blacks (15 percent), Whites (13 percent), children and youth of two
or more races (13 percent), Hispanics (12 percent), Pacific Islanders (11 percent),
and Asians (6 percent). In most racial/ethnic groups, the percentage of
children and youth receiving services for specific learning disabilities
combined with the percentage receiving services for speech or language
impairments accounted for over 50 percent of children and youth served under
IDEA.
In 2004, IDEA (The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) was
signed to ensure free services for 14 categories of disabilities, consisting
Autism, Deaf-blindness, Deafness, Developmental delay, Emotional disturbance,
Hearing impairment, Intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, Orthopedic
impairment, Other health impairment, Specific learning disability, Speech or
language impairment, Traumatic brain injury, Visual impairment including
blindness.
By IDEA’s effect, in the States, schools
have been equipped with assistive technology, with trained special teachers,
and classroom teachers have been trained and worked harder to ensure the
personalized/individualized learning for individuals with special needs. Beside
interventions and modifications in instructional strategies, assistive
technology plays an integrated and vital role for students with special needs,
especially for students with physical disabilities. Students who have been
served under IDEA have a free access to I.E.P (the Individual Education
Programs). In order to obtain this free access, a referral process must be
followed including eight phrases in order to ensure the student’s disabilities
being assessed, supported, and progress being measured.
Similarly in Finland, the
government strongly supports education, especially SE via the law, policy, and
investment. They emphasize on the early detection and interventions for cases
of disabilities, and they equip schools with supportive resources like trained
special teachers and assistive technology to measure progress of individuals.
Welfare teams meet twice monthly to discuss about the progress of individuals.
In order to reinforce the
education system, President Obama signed into law a new education law in
October 2015, the Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA), the nation’s largest education law and
will impact every public school. Two important things about ESSA
regarding SE is to keep students with disabilities on track for
success and promotes Innovation in Education, including many provisions to
expand innovative practices in states and school districts, including
expanding personalized
learning, multi-tiered
systems of support (MTSS), and universal
design for learning, and integrating
technology and competency-based
education initiatives. Importantly, ESSA limits the use of
the Alternate
Assessment based on Alternate Achievement Standards to only
students who have the most significant cognitive disabilities, capped at 1
percent of a State’s total student population.
Personalized or individual
learning with assistive technology best suits students with disabilities.
Simply students can assess to learning at their own space and at their own pace
while reducing challenges and difficulties in learning with other normal peers.
Like one student says in the video clip, it is always easy to ask questions on social
networks than posing the questions directly to her teachers. Assistive
technology for learning helps to reduce stress for both students and teachers.
Another genius trend supporting
personalized/individualized learning must be listed in the popular Khan
Academy. Personally, I learn and use this website every week in self-learning
and teaching my child and my students. Flipped classroom concept is also a good
approach in order to turn class work into homework and homework into class
work.
In order for every student
succeed, especially for students with special needs, beside the framework of
IDEA and ESSA, the constant efforts of UNESCO, and current assistive
technology, teachers play the most important role in impacting students’ life
and changing their future. Through their patience and flexible interventions to
accommodate students with disabilities, the world one day will have more
Stephen Hawking, an extraordinary ability despite of his disability.
RESOURCES
M2U4A2 - THE REFERRAL PROCESS AND THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN TOMORROW'S LEARNING WORLD
M2U4A2
THE REFERRAL PROCESS
AND
THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN TOMORROW'S
LEARNING WORLD
--------------------
This unit gave me an opportunity to
better understand about Special Education (SE) and the role of classroom
teachers, special teachers, schools, and governments in supporting students
with special needs.
After the two interview session with a
counselor and a classroom teacher, I found out some insightful information
about SE at my school. ICSA is operated by the
International Community School of Abidjan Association, and is fully accredited
by the Middle States Association (USA) and the Council of International Schools
(CIS). It is also recognized and supported by the U.S. Department of State
through its Office of Overseas Schools. ICSA holds membership in the
Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA), the College Board, and
the Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE). Before
the country crisis 2010, the school used to have SE. We had one case of
autism and the student was well equipped with a specialist and a special teacher
beside his routine class with the first grade teacher. During and post-crisis
period, the school had to be relocated many times with uneven students
turnover, teaching staffs, facility, equipment, and budget. The school decided
not to accept students with disabilities due to the lack of facility and
resource that was officially stated in the parent's handbook. As its result, SE
has not been existed here since five years ago and teachers have not been
trained or exposed to the field of SE. Starting from 2012, the school recruited
one counselor for the whole school. Due to the need of students, the school
increased one more counselor and assigned one for the Lower School, and another
for the Upper School.
According the Lower School Counselor, ICSA does not have a special education program.
Therefore we do not have a referral process. If a teacher has a concern with a
specific student's academic, they usually make appropriate accommodations,
review student records including contacting the parent and previous teachers if
they are still here at ICSA. She is working on implementing Student
Study Teams (SSTs) for the LS. This would be the closet thing that we have here
at ICSA to address special education needs. SSTs are school-based teams
designed to assist teachers in developing and implementing interventions for
students with academic and behavioral difficulties in the general education
setting. She hopes to start SST in February.
According to the teacher who has been
working with this school more than twenty years and was the teacher of the
autism case mentioned above, the role of classroom teachers are very important
in recognizing or detecting signs of disabilities and in implementing interventions and modifications to meet individual needs. She shared the "Warning Signs of Dyslexia and ADD/ADHD" by www.BrightSolutions.US, as she is
language art and social studies teacher. The case she had was identified by the
parent, who was the US Ambassador in Ivoiry Coast. The student was placed in
grade one with other peers but spent some periods with a specialist and a
special teacher. During this period, ICSA was invested and well equipped and
had a full teaching resource to handle individuals with special needs. The
student obtained the free special education program for autism, and his parents
were pleased with the free services granted to the child.
For SE, classroom teachers play a
very critical and vital role in maintaining both differentiated and personalized instructions. If differentiation accommodates the diversity of student groups, then personalized approach works best for individual needs. Primarily, teachers need to identify students who need special needs, both physical and cognitive disabilities, then use appropriate interventions and modifications in classroom setting, then collaborate with school counselor and parents and special teachers to get students through the referral process in order to obtain a free access to the Individualized
Education Programs (IEPs). This process consists eight phrases, Recognition, Pre-referral, Referral to Special Education Evaluation, Special Education Evaluation, Eligibility, IEP meeting, IEP Implementation, Reevaluation. It is equally important to review the student's
progress with the welfare team consisting of principal, counselor, school
nurse, specialist, special teachers, and parents.
Evidently, SE is uneven around the
world. Watching the video about Finland's public school, it is pretty clear
that the government strongly support education, especially SE via the law,
policy, and investment. They emphasize on the early detection and interventions
for cases of disabilities, and they equip schools with supportive resources
like trained special teachers and assistive technology to measure progress of
individuals. Welfare teams meet twice monthly to discuss about the progress of
individuals. Similarly, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was signed in 2004 to ensure free services for 14 categories of disabilities. Accordingly, public schools must have been equipped with assistive technology, with trained special teachers, and classroom teachers must have been working hard to ensure the personalized/individualized learning for individuals with special needs. In contrast, in some other countries around the world where SE is not well equipped, resource is not provided, and the referral process is not in place, students with special needs hardly access to free IEPs and we can imagine how their future looks like. Social and parental
prejudices always exist unfortunately. I think it is common sense and
understandable. It is not easy to tell others about our disabilities because it
is a kind of embarrassment and we are normally afraid of prejudices and
discrimination.
Beside the law, SE needs assistive technology. The most inspired case of physical disabilities I usually refer to is about the scientist Stephen Hawking. He suffers from a rare early-onset, slow-progressing
form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as motor neurone disease
in the UK, that has gradually paralyzed him over the decades. Assistive
technology plays a key role in his life and his way of communication via a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device. Despite difficulties and disabilities, he became the
famous theoretical
physicist, cosmologist, author and Director
of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. He is one of most unfortunate examples of physical
disabilities with extraordinary abilities. And because of that, he called on governments to prevent disability and
protect disability rights.
On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed into law a new
education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the
nation’s largest education law and will impact every public school. Two
important things about ESSA regarding SE is to keep
students with disabilities on track for success and promotes Innovation in
Education, including many
provisions to expand innovative practices in states and school districts,
including expanding personalized
learning, multi-tiered systems of support
(MTSS),
and universal
design for learning, and integrating technology and competency-based education initiatives. Importantly, ESSA limits the use of the Alternate Assessment based on
Alternate Achievement Standards to only students who have the most significant
cognitive disabilities, capped at 1% of a State’s total student population.
Beside the new law, the current open resources with interventions, modifications, and instructional strategies and exemplars from fellow experts are extremely helpful for teachers or teacher candidates to refer and to implement in their classroom world. Khan Academy is also another excellent resource for self-learning and individualized learning style. With all those resources, I believe unfortunate students with disabilities will be able to sail ahead and find their place in the world like the scientist Stephen Hawking. And the primary resource at school who can help them are teachers of today and tomorrow.
I am not a homeroom, and I teach Art for the
entire Lower School plus ECC. I had some students with Health Impairment like
Asthma and Diabetes. For such case, right at the beginning of the school year,
the school nurse called for a meeting with homeroom and all subject teachers
who teach those students to train the emergency reaction to rescue students and
we all keep an emergency kit at class. As a subject teacher, I arrange their
seat closest to my view and keep observing them during the instruction time,
and immediately send them to the nurse when symptoms happen.
However, I realized we had students with behavior
problems more than students with disabilities. Even though we implemented the Character
Education with focusing theme per month and the lunch bunch program was scheduled
with the counselor, some specific students remain misbehaving inside and
outside the classroom. I am looking forward to learn more about the classroom
management and strategies to deal with behavior problems.
RESOURCES
http://www.understandingspecialeducation.com/
http://www.ecac-parentcenter.org/The-IEP-Team-Process.aspx?sid=95&pid=81&red=yes
http://www.ncld.org/
http://www.ncld.org/archives/blog/the-new-education-law-6-things-to-know
https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/instructional-strategies
http://www.projectidealonline.org/special-education-referral-process.php
http://www.bacb.com/index.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2XlAWcMAUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcWtAmVB9-o
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ICSA SPECIAL EDUCATION POLICY
and
INTERVIEW NOTES
A. ICSA Special
Education policy
In the Student - Parent’s handbook
2015-16, Admission, page 13-14: ICSA is not equipped to handle students with
special needs.
http://www.icsabidjan.org/uploaded/Our_School/15-16/Student-ParentHandbook2015-16_(1).pdf
http://www.icsabidjan.org/uploaded/Our_School/15-16/Student-ParentHandbook2015-16_(1).pdf
B. With Ms.
Formegia - the LS Counselor, dates Feb 8
1.
How is a student
identified for special education referral?
2.
Who takes
responsibility for the progress of the child before and after the referral?
3.
What is the school
administration's directive for special education?
4.
What provisions are
made for students identified for special education?
5.
What is the level of
parent involvement in referral process and special education?
Answers:
Unfortunately, ICSA does not have a
special education program. Therefore we do not have a referral process. If a
teacher has a concern with a specific student's academic, they usually make
appropriate accommodations, review student records including contacting the
parent and previous teachers if they are still here at ICSA.
I am working on implementing Student
Study Teams (SSTs) for the LS. This would be the closet thing that we have here
at ICSA to address special education needs. SSTs
are school-based teams designed to assist teachers in developing and
implementing interventions for students with academic and behavioral
difficulties in the general education setting. I hope to start SST this month.
C. With Mrs.
Adjavon - the grade 1 teacher, dates Feb 9
1. How do you identify a
student for special education?
Answer: By experience individuals in my class, by observing their
interactions with teachers and peers, and by results from verbal and written
tests/assessment.
2. What are the signs of a struggling student?
Answer : There are signs to recognize students with disabilities. I am
a homeroom and teaching Language Art, for example, I am referring to the warning
signs for Dyslexia and ADD/ADHD by www.BrightSolutions.US.
3. Are there alternate
methods of instruction tried out before referring the student for special
education? If yes, what are they?
Answer : Yes, I reduce the
homework and ease a bit the expected outcomes, use more visual instructions, reinforce
routines, spend extra time for one to one teaching, and small group work.
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