Tiffany Langston Chapter Notes and Resources-Midterm
Salend Chapter 1 Understanding Inclusion
· Marie and Mary 1949 one student sent to state institution then sent home versus 1996 early intervention program with family education sessions and home visits to preschool to elementary school with IEPs to inclusive classroom to High School work study program.
· Special education involves delivering and monitoring a specially designed and coordinated set of comprehensive, research based instructional and assessment practices and related services to students with learning, behavioral, emotional, physical, health, or sensory disabilities.
Contains:
§ individual assessment and planning
§ specialized instruction
§ intensive instruction
§ goal-directed instruction
§ research based instructional practices
§ collaborative partnerships
§ student performance evaluation
§ Inclusion- philosophy that brings student families, educators, and community members together to create schools and other social institutions based on acceptance, belonging, and community. *Recognizes that all students are capable learners. Principles of effective inclusion: all learners and equal access, individual strengths and challenges, and diversity, reflective practices and differentiated instruction, community and collaboration.
· Difference between mainstreaming-(full or pt program students with disabilities with general ed.) based on educators’ assessment of their readiness-so-implied that student had to earn the right to be educated in age-appropriate general education classroom.
· LRE-Least Restrictive Environment- 10 stages from gen ed, no support to hospital
· Early intervention-DAP, natural environment, family-centered, transition practices.
· Assistive Technology-high and low
· NCLB
· Impact of inclusion on students with disabilities and without disabilities on educators, on families
· Pros/Cons Inclusions
· Early Intervention-Baby Net/Child Find
Resources:
ATPE Association of Texas Professional Educators: Understanding Inclusion-What a classroom looks like, who can help, what inclusion means to students, tips, tells difference of what inclusion is and is not:
Understanding Inclusion and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Booklet: Benefits, questions, resources, national organizations:
NCLB Government site: about, budget and performance, news, publications, teaching resources:
Salend Chapter 4 Creating Collaborative Relationships and Fostering Communication
· Wrap around process-process by which effective teams engage in. By designing and delivering individualized educational, counseling, medical, and vocational services to meet the needs of students.
· Team consists of: (a lot of people!)(Not all will be involved necessarily, must qualify for service in some cases)
· Family
· Administrators
· Educators
· Special Educators
· Para-educators
· School Psychologists
· Speech and Language Clinicians
· Social Workers
· School Counselors
· Vocational Educators
· School Physician/Nurses
· Physical and Occupational Therapists
· Staff from community agencies
· ELL Professionals
· Comprehensive planning team- Roles: initiating, info gather and share, clarifying and elaboration, summarizing, consensus building, encouraging, harmonizing an compromising, reflecting, balancing. *Have a facilitator, time keeper, observer, and summarizer Tips: Be tolerant, listen, present, paraphrase to check understanding, remember culturally based differences, confidentiality, disagree respectively, willing to compromise
· Ways to co-teach (MAPS Map action planning system=1 person centered learning strategy teams use. Draw family in to find out their concerns and goals for child)
o 1 teaching/1 helping
o Parallel teaching: 2 small groups
o Station teaching: students rotate to each teacher station
o Alternative teaching: 1 small group, 1 large group
o Team teaching: 2 teachers at same time
*Inclusion teacher comes into general education classroom to help inclusion students.
· Collaborative Consultation (Problem Solving) meet/work together to solve and mutually agree on solutions to prevent and address learning and behavior difficulties and to coordinate instructional programs for ALL students.
o Work together to problem solve
o Teacher works with a consultant
o Steps:
§ Goal and problem clarification and identification
§ Goal and problem analysis
§ Plan implementation (Plan intervention)
§ Plan evaluation (check effectiveness)
· Congruence-logical relationship among the curriculum, learning goals, teaching materials, strategies used in the general education classroom and supportive service programs. Program is based on common assessment results, goals and objectives, teaching strategies, and materials.
· Gain trust in families-
o Interact in many settings
o Ensure confidentiality
o Meet regularly
o Plan and be prepared for meeting (w/ agenda and evidence/work samples)
o Encourage observations
o Offer educational programs to families
o Written communications:
§ Informative notice
§ Newsletters
§ Daily/weekly note
§ Two-way notebooks
§ Daily/weekly progress reports
§ Home/school contracts
Resources:
Building Teacher and Parent Relationships:
Preventing and Resolving Parent-teacher Differences:
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content3/parent.teacher.3.html
10 ways parents can foster positive relationships with teacher:
Salend Chapter 5 Creating and environment that fosters acceptance and friendship
Ways to assess attitudes
o Instruments: yes/no, I agree/disagree, maybe, I’m not sure
o True/False Questions: What does it mean to____?, If you were______, How would you want others?
o Drawings
o Observations (of interactions
o Socio-metric techniques: confidential survey
o
· Abelism-the belief that individuals with disabilities are in need of assistance, fixing, pitying, and replace negative labels and stereotypes with meaningful info related to individuals and the supports that enhance their learning and inclusion. Key factors: p. 178-182
· How to help students understand students with disabilities:
o Disability stimulations to allow others to feel empathy/understand
o Study about disabilities and individuals with disabilities
o Guest speakers
o Films/videos, books
o Teach about assistive devices
o Use curriculum guides and instructional models
o Exposure
o Build empathy and understanding
o Inclusion
How to teach about culture, language, gender, religion, and socioeconomic differences
o Reflect on own knowledge, experiences, and beliefs related to diversity
o Promote acceptance of cultural diversity
o Incorporate cultural diversity into classroom
o Teach about language diversity
o Teach about dialect differences-Bridge system
o Help student develop a global perspective
o Teach gender equity
o Foster acceptance of religious diversity
o Teach about family differences, socioeconomic differences, homelessness, migrant lifestyle, and AIDS, stereotyping, discrimination, friendships
Resources:
Article: Teaching Children About Diversity:
Article: Teaching Acceptance, Tolerance and Diversity:
Teaching children to respect others who have a disability: Perspective from Grandmother of a child with Spastic Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy:
Salend Chapter 2 Understanding the diverse educational strengths and challenges of students with disabilities
· Comprehensive planning team to mediation to impartial hearing officer
· Response to Intervention (RIT) 3 tiers
o Components:
§ Universal screening
§ Identification of students
§ Tiered instruction
§ Fidelity of effective interventions
§ Progress monitoring-conduct ongoing assessments to check effectiveness
§ Consideration for special education
· IEP Components: (a lot!)
· Abandonment-student chooses not to use technology because none of reasons seemed worth the utilization of technology.
· High incidence disabilities-learning disability, mild intellectual disability,
mild/emotional/behavioral disorders (ODD), and speech and language impairments.
· Low incidence disabilities-physical, sensorial, significant cognitive disabilities.
· Competency-Oriented Approach-rather then seeing student in terms of what they cannot do, focus on what they can do.
Resources:
Strategies for teaching students with learning disabilities:
Students with intellectual disabilities: a resource guide for teachers:
Special Education Resources:
Salend Chapter 3 Understanding students who challenge schools
· Many homeless children don’t attend school because of transportation needs, inappropriate classroom placement, lack of school supplies and clothes, poor health, hunger, and residency and immunization requirements. Also many don’t have birth certificates, school files, and other important records and forms.
· Pyler v. Doe: All undocumented student have the same right as U.S. citizens to attend public school. School staff cannot inquire about students immigration status, ask students to provide social security numbers, and cannot allow INS to enter or remain near the school or requiring students or their families to identify immigrations status. School staff also may not give immigration statue info contained in a student’s school file to outside agencies without family’s permission.
A Guide to Action: Fostering Equity in the Classroom (Tips):
· Avoid grouping student based on gender, race, language background and ethnicity, such as forming separate lines, separate teams, separate seating arrangements, and separate academic learning groups and comparing students across gender and racial variables.
· Hold high expectations for all of your students.
· Learn about beliefs, traditions, customs, and experiences of all students in your classroom.
· Assign students of both exes and all races to class and school jobs on a rotating basis.
· Use lessons and teaching materials that include the contributions of both sexes and all races and groups.
· Use gender-race-inclusive and gender-neutral language.
· Provide all students with models and mentors who represent a variety of perspectives and professions.
· Encourage all students to explore various careers, as well as academic, extracurricular, and recreational activities.
· Display pictures of males and females from all races, religions, sexual orientations, and economic backgrounds performing a variety of activities.
· Use cooperative learning groups and cross-sex and cross-race seating arrangements.
· Identify, confront, and eliminate gender racial, and other forms of bias in your classroom, school, assessment strategies, and curriculum.
· Encourage female and male students of all races and language backgrounds to take risks, make decisions, assume leadership positions, and seek challenges.
· Affirm efforts and attributes that contribute to success in all students.
Resources:
National Center for Family Homelessness:
Local Food Shelter with resources and ways to volunteer:
Immigration Information Source for children (includes NCLB):
Inclusion Strategies (Friend) Ch. 1 Planning Instruction by Analyzing Classroom and Student Needs
INCLUDE:
I : Identify classroom demands
N: Note student learning strengths and needs
C: Check for potential areas of student success
L: Look for potential problem area.
U: Use information to brainstorm ways to differentiate instruction.
D: Differentiate instruction.
E: Evaluate student progress.
I : Identify classroom demands
· Classroom management
· Classroom grouping
· Instructional material
· Instructional methods
N: Note student learning strengths and needs
· Academics
· Social-emotional development
· Physical development
C: Check for potential areas of student success
L: Look for potential problem area.
U: Use information to brainstorm ways to
Differentiate instruction.
· Accommodations-services or support provided to help students gain full access to class content and instruction, and to demonstrate accurately what they know.
· Modifications- are made when the content expectations are altered and the performance outcomes expected of students change.
D: Differentiate instruction.
· Select age-appropriate strategies
· Select the easiest approach first
· Select accommodations and modifications that you agree with
· Determine whether you are dealing with a “can’t” or a “won’t” problem
· Give student choices
· Select strategies with demonstrated effectiveness
E: Evaluate student progress.
How is an inclusive classroom managed?
· Physical organization
· Routines for classroom business
· Classroom climate
· Behavior management
· Use of time (managing transition time)
Scaffolding is an approach that has been used successfully to support students as they develop problem-solving skills. Scaffolds are “forms of support provided by the teacher (or another student) to help student bridge gaps between their current abilities and the intended goal.”
Resources:
Planning Instruction: Planning, Developing, and Organizing Instruction:
How to Manage Disruptive Behavior in Inclusive Classrooms:
Classroom Behavior Management for Gifted and Talented Programs:
Tiffany Langston Final Exam Notes
Salend Chapter 7 Creating a Classroom Environment That Promotes Positive Behavior
Functional Behavior Assessment is a person-centered, multi-method, problem-solving process that involves gathering information to:
· Measure student behaviors
· Determine why, where, and when a student uses these behaviors
· Identify the academic, instructional, social, affective, cultural, environmental, and contextual variables that appear to lead to and maintain the behaviors
· Plan appropriate interventions that address the purposes the behaviors serve for students
Steps in addressing behavior problems:
1. Create a diverse multidisciplinary team
2. Identify the problematic behaviors
3. Define the behavior
4. Observe and record the behavior
a. Event recording- the observer counts the number of behaviors that occur during the observation period.
b. Duration recording- the observer records how long a behavior lasts
c. Latency recording- determines the delay between receiving instructions and beginning a task.
d. Interval or time sampling- the observation period is divided into equal intervals, and the observer notes whether the behavior occurred during each interval. + equal occurrence, - equals non-occurrence. This system shows the percentage of intervals in which the behavior occurred rather than how it occurred.
e. Anecdotal records- a narrative of the events that took place during the observation, it helps you understand the academic context in which student behavior occurs, and the environmental factors that influence student behavior.
1. Give date, time, and length of the observation.
2. Describe the activities, classroom design, individuals, and their relationships to the setting in which the observation occurred.
3. Report in observable terms all of the student’s verbal and nonverbal behaviors, as well as the responses of others to theses behaviors.
4. Avoid interpretations as well as using adjectives and adverbs.
5. Indicate the sequence and duration of events.
6. Vary the times and settings of the observations.
5. Obtain additional information about the student and the behavior
6. Perform a Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (A-B-C) Analysis
a. Antecedents and consequences are the events, stimuli, objects, actions, and activities that precede and trigger the behavior, and follow and maintain the behavior, respectively.
b. Perceived function- determine why the student uses the behavior
7. Analyze the data
8. Develop a hypothesis statement
a. Specific hypothesis address the reasons why the behavior occurs and the conditions related to the behavior including the possible antecedents and consequences.
b. Global hypothesis address how factors in the student’s life in school, at home, and in the community impact on the behavior.
9. Consider socio-cultural factors
a. Time
b. Movement
c. Respect for elders
d. Individual versus group performance
10. Develop a behavioral intervention plan
a. Behavioral intervention plan focusing on the use of function-based interventions designed to address the student’s learning and behavior by changing the classroom environment to better accommodate the student’s characteristics, strengths, interests, relationships, and challenges.
b. Plan should identify specific measureable goals for academic skills and appropriate behaviors, and the individuals and services responsible for helping the student achieve these goals.
c. Should outline the positive, age-appropriate, culturally appropriate teaching, and function-based behavioral supports and strategies and school and community resources that change the antecedent events and consequences.
11. Evaluate the plan
Ways to build relationships with students:
· Get to know
· Demonstrate a personal interest in students
· Listen actively
· Talking to students about topics that interest them
· Showing an interest in their personal lives
· Letting them know you missed them when they are absent and welcoming them back
· Sharing your own interest and stories
· Displaying empathy and giving emotional support
· Letting them perform activities in which they excel
· Scheduling surprises for the and recognizing special events in students’ lives, such as birthdays
· Doing favors for them and allowing them to do things for you
· Participating in after school activities and spending informal time with them
· Complimenting them and celebrating their successes
Resources:
Assessing Student Behavior:
Building Relationships with students:
Behavior Intervention Plan:
Salend Chapter 8 Differentiating Instruction for Diverse Learners
Ways educators differentiate:
· Content (what they teach)
· Process (how they teach)
· Product (how students demonstrate content mastery)
· Affect (how students connect their thinking and feelings)
· Learning environment (how the classroom is designed and what instructional groupings they use)
They use varied curricula and instructional arrangements, strategies, resources, materials, and technology to address their students’ individual learning strengths and challenges, preferences, and styles, as well as, their developmental levels, interests, and experiental, cultural, and language backgrounds.
How can you differentiate instructions for students?
· Tailor curricular goals and teaching strategies to your students and your learning environment
· Individualize and Personalize your curriculum
· Use backward design, and determine a range of formative and summative assessments
· Use curricular accommodations
· Use individualized teaching/instructional accommodations
· Use instructional materials accommodations
· Provide personal supports
· Address student’s learning styles and preferences
· Address students’ sensory abilities
· Consider acceptability: The extent to which you and your colleagues view a specific assessment, curricular and teaching practice as easy to use, effective, appropriate for the setting, fair and reasonable.
Assistive Technology:
· Computer based instruction
· Video-based digital materials
· Presentation software
· Digital/video stories
· Digital, document, and web cameras
· Captioning television, interactive white-smartboards, and liquid crystal display computer projection panels
· Technology-based simulations and virtual reality
· Internet:
o Address accessibility issues
o Teach to be good digital citizens who use technology safely, respectfully and appropriately
o Use to communicate with others
o Use to access electronic resources
o Wikis
o Blogs/RSS Summary
o Podcasts
o Create websites, weblogs, webquests, and tracks
(Specific assistive technology for students with physical, hearing, and visual disabilities.)
Resources:
How to Differentiate Instruction:
Differentiate Instruction Resources:
Family Guide to Assistive Technology:
Assistive-Technology: Enabling Dreams Video and Website
(courtesy of Dr. Perkins from EDFS 687)
Friend Ch. 2 Differentiating Instruction
Ways to make accommodations for students with special needs basic skills instruction:
· Preskills- basic skills necessary for performing more complex skills. Prior to teaching a skill, you should
assess students on the relevant preskills and if necessary teach these skills.
· Careful example selection to use for instruction and student practice can help students learn to
differentiate among problem types.
· Example sequencing- carefully select
· Rate of skill instruction- some students have difficulty learning skills when they are introduced at too fast of a rate. New skills should be introduced in small steps and at a slow rate, enough to ensure mastery prior to the introduction of more new skills. You may want prioritize skills and even postpone some.
· Offer more direct instruction and review
Making accommodations for students with special needs when teaching content areas:
· Activate background knowledge- for students to understand content material, they need to relate it to information they already know
· Prep (Pre-reading Plan) Strategy- determines how much knowledge students already have about a topic so you can decide how much background information to present in class prior to a reading assignment.
1. Preview the text or lesson, and choose two to three important concepts.
2. Conduct a brainstorming sessions with students.
3. Evaluate student responds to determine the depth of their prior knowledge of the topic.
· Preparing anticipation guides
· Provide planning think sheets
Organizing Content:
· Use advance organizers
· Employing cue words for organizational planners
· Constructing study guides
· Creating graphic organizers- concept map
Resources:
Accommodations, techniques and aids for learning:
http://www.ldanatl.org/aboutld/teachers/understanding/accommodations.asp
http://www.ldanatl.org/aboutld/teachers/understanding/accommodations.asp
Making modifications and accommodations: what are they?
Learning disability accommodations:
Salend Chapter 9 Differentiating Large and Small Group Instruction
Ways to differentiate large group instruction:
· Have students work collaboratively
o Collaborative discussion teams
o Send a problem
o Numbered head together
o Think-pair-share
· Encourage student to participate and ask questions
· Help students take notes
o Outlines
§ Strategic note-taking form
§ Listening guide
§ Skeleton/slot/frame outline
o Highlighting main points
§ Oral quizzing
§ Peer note takers
§ Digital recorders
· Teach note taking skills and strategies
· Foster students’ listening skills
o Using cues
o Listening materials
o Listening learning strategies
§ TALS: Think, Ask why, Listen for what, and Say to self
· Gain and maintain student’s attention
· Motivate students
o Intrinsic motivation- relates to taking actions as a result of external consequences such as tangible rewards and approval from others.
o Extrinsic motivation- refers to taking actions as a result of internally based consequences and is viewed as a higher level of motivation than extrinsic motivation.
o Create a supportive and rewarding learning environment
o Offer a meaningful, interesting, age-appropriate, creative, interdisciplinary, and appropriately challenging curriculum and instructional program
§ Problem based learning involves students working collaboratively to create and examine solutions to real-life and community-based situations and problems.
o Use novelty, curiosity, and movement
o Involve students in the instructional process
§ Attribution training involves teaching them to analyze the events and actions that lead to their success or failure.
o Give and solicit feedback
How to use effective teacher-centered instruction:
1. Establish the lesson’s purpose by explaining its goals and objectives
a. Anticipatory set- a statement of enjoyable activity that introduces the material and motives student to learn it by relating the goals of the lesson to their prior knowledge, interest, strengths, and future life events.
2. Review prerequisite skills, and activate prior knowledge
3. Use task analysis, and introduce content in separate steps followed by practice
a. Task analysis- a systematic process of stating and sequencing the parts of a task to determine what subtasks must be performed to master the task.
4. Give clear, specific, and complete directions, explanations, and relevant examples
5. Provide time for active and guided practice
a. Academic learning games can motivate students to practice skills and concepts learned in the lesson.
6. Promote active responding, and check for understanding
a. Questioning
b. Active student response
i. Response cards: take the form of items that are displayed by student in the class to demonstrate their answers to questions or problems posed by their teacher.
7. Give frequent, prompt, and specific feedback
a. Process feedback: you praise students and reinforce their answers by restating why it was correct
b. Corrective feedback: (error correction) identify errors, showing students how to correct them, giving students opportunities to engage in the correct response and acknowledging them for it.
c. General feedback: responses are identified simply as correct or incorrect
d. Right-only feedback: only correct responses are identified
e. Wrong-only feedback: only incorrect responses are identified
f. Instructive feedback: promotes learning by giving students extra information and teaching on the task or content.
g. Prompting
i. Manual: student is physically guided through the task
ii. Modeling: student observes someone else perform the task
iii. Oral: describe how to perform the task
iv. Visual: show the student the correct process or answer in a graphic presentation
h. Praising
i. Student directed feedback
8. Offer time for independent activities
9. Summarize main points, and evaluate mastery, maintenance, and generalization
a. Homework
i. Adjust the amount of hw
ii. Establish and follow hw routines
iii. Teach study and organization skills
iv. Collaborate with families
Resources:
Four ways to differentiate instruction:
How to plan for differentiated instruction:
Using technology to differentiate instruction:
Salend Chapter 10 Differentiating Reading, Writing, and Spelling Instruction
*Principles of effective early reading interventions:*
1. Recognize that reading is a developmental process
2. Use an instructional sequence that gradually moves from easy to more difficult tasks.
3. Promote students’ phonemic awareness, print awareness, oral language, alphabetic understanding and decoding.
4. Provide instructional supports in the initial stages of reading instruction and gradually remove them.
5. Offer direct and explicit instruction to help student develop accurate and fluent work analysis skills.
6. Emphasize use of language and teach vocabulary in a systematic and integrative way
7. Structure learning activities so that students have numerous opportunities to respond, practice, ad receive feedback.
8. Activate students’ prior knowledge.
9. Incorporate students’ experiences, ideas, and referents into instructional activities.
10. Provide students with meaningful interactions with text.
11. Begin to develop students’ comprehension skills by exposing them to a variety of texts.
12. Assess student progress on a regular basis.
*Good idea to have student work in groups or individually to identify and define important content and other vocabulary in instructional material to create the following:*
o Vocabulary cards with the name, picture, and definition of the term on front of card and the term’s relationship to important content and other vocabulary on the back.
o Vocabulary self-awareness charts that contain a listing of key vocabulary words, their definitions and examples, and rating by students of the extent to which they know the words well (+), somewhat (?), or not very well (-).
o Vocabulary picture dictionaries that present vocabulary words, their definitions, and student drawings depicting the major elements of the words.
o Word maps that present the vocabulary word with its meaning, related key words, synonyms, antonyms, as well as drawing of the word and a sentence using it.
o Personal vocabulary journals that contain various entries related to vocabulary words they are learning and hints for learning and remembering definitions.
*Sequence for introducing vocabulary*
1. Visually display the word, pronounce it, and ask students to say it.
2. Discuss the word’s meaning, display pictures illustrating the word, and give students multiple examples of the word’s usage in context.
3. Link the word and it’s meaning to students’ prior knowledge and prompt students to describe their experiences with the word.
4. Provide students with multiple opportunities to use the word in context and different situations and offer specific feedback.
5. Promote generalization by teaching multiple examples and uses of the word, helping students understand slight differences in words that have similar meanings, prompting and reinforcing students’ use of new vocabulary, and having students self-record their use of vocabulary words.
References:
Ideas for vocabulary and spelling instruction:
10 Components of a successful spelling program:
Inclusive classroom in general:
http://www.paulakluth.com/articles/diffstrategies.html
Salend Chapter 11 Differentiating Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Instruction
Differentiating Mathematics Instruction:
Promote success by offering instructions that helps students develop their math fact and computations skills.
Demonstration Plus Model:
· Step 1: You demonstrate the procedures for solving a specific type of computation problem while presenting they key words for each step.
· Step 2: Students view your example and perform the steps in the computation while giving the key words for each step.
· Step 3: Students complete additional problems, referring to your example if necessary.
Ways to improve students’ problem solving ability
· Simplifying the syntax
· Using vocabulary students understand
· Deleting irrelevant or ambiguous information
· Limiting the number of ideas presented
· Rearranging the information and presenting it in the order students can follow in solving the problem
· Using word problems that depict situation that relate to students’ lives
Teach students to use self-management techniques by asking themselves the following questions:
· Does my answer make sense?
· Are my numbers lined up correctly?
· Are my computations correct?
· Did I use appropriate symbols?
· Did I use the correct signs?
Solve It Learning Strategy:
1. Reread the problem for understanding
2. Reread and paraphrase the problem
3. Visualize and draw the problem
4. Estimate the answer
5. Compute and solve the problem
6. Check the answer
Differentiating Science and Social Studies Instruction
End of Chapter questions:
· Read each question to determine what is being asked
· Identify words in the question that can guide the reader to the correct answer
· Determine the requirement of the question and the format of the answer
· Convert appropriate parts of the question into part of the answer
· Identify the paragraphs of the chapter that relate to the question
· Locate the answer to the question by reading the chapter
· Write the answer to the question
· Check the answer for accuracy and form
Enhance students’ memory by
· Visual representations if the words or content to be remembered
· Conceptual representations of what the words or content to be remembered does
· Linguistic representations of the sounds of the words and content to be remembered as well as how they fit into sentences
References:
Differentiating math instruction for all students:
Tiered Differentiated Lessons:
Differentiating Science Instruction:
Salend Chapter 6 Creating Successful Transitions to Inclusive Settings
Transition to general education classroom:
· Understand students’ unique abilities and challenges
· Use transenvironmental programming- 4 steps
o Environmental assessment
§ Analyzing critical features of the new learning environment and the key skill that affect student performance and interviewing teachers and students. Can also assess routines in the cafeteria and at assemblies, movement between classes and expectations in pe, art, and music classes.
o Interventions and preparation
§ A variety of teaching strategies are used to prepare student to succeed in the new learning environments.
· Teach classroom and school procedures and successful behaviors
· Use preteaching
· Teach students to take on independent assignments
· Develop students organizational skills
o Assignment notebooks
o Assignment logs
o Sticky notes and highlighters
· Help students develop daily and weekly schedules
o Generalization to the new setting
§ The transfer of training to the inclusive setting
§ Consider the students abilities, as well as, the nature of the general education classroom, including academic, and social content, activities, and teaching style.
o Evaluation in the new environment
Transition to new schools
· Collaborate with professionals and families
· Adapt transition models and foster collaboration across schools
· Offer student and family orientation programs and student visiting, shadowing, and mentoring programs
Resources:
Tips for parent whose child is moving to a new school:
http://www.schoolfamily.com/school-family-articles/article/10639-ease-the-transition-to-a-new-school
5 Step process to transition to and from a general education classroom:
Transition Practices for teachers with transitioning pre-school to K children with special needs
Salend Chapter 12 Evaluating Student Progress and the Effectiveness of Your Inclusion Program
1. Evaluating student performance
· High-Stakes testing- Federal requirements mandate all students, including those with disabilities, are expected to participate in standardized testing programs. They determine important decisions about students’ educational programs including, grade-level promotion and graduation. They raised concerns about the reliance on one exam as the measure of student learning. Many students report that standardized tests puts an enormous amount of pressure on them, hinders their motivations and learning, and minimizes the effort that they have put in throughout the school year.
· Testing accommodations- are variations in testing administration, environment, equipment, technology, and procedures that allow students to access tests and accurately demonstrate their competence, knowledge, and abilities without altering the integrity of the tests. They are designed to remove disability-related barriers that are not relevant to the validity of the test.
2. Consider a range of accommodations
· Presentation mode testing accommodations-changes in the way test and questions and directions are presented to students
· Response-mode testing accommodations-involve making changes in the way students respond to test items or determine their answers.
· Timing, scheduling, and setting testing accommodations-adjustments with respect to where, when, with whom, and for how long and often students take tests and include giving student extended time or allowing them to take tests in a more private location.
· Linguistically-based testing accommodations-typically used with ELLs, are designed to minimize the extent to which students’ language proficiency affects their test performance. Include ways to adjust the readability of test items and directions.
3. Match test accommodations to effective teaching accommodations
4. Be consistent with State and District wide policies, and differentiate between classroom-based and high-stakes assessment.
5. Consider the perspectives of students and teachers
6. Teach study and test taking skills
7. Address test anxiety
Resources:
NCLB pros and cons of high-stakes assessment:
Research summary of the effects of test accommodations on test performance:
IDEA Accommodations for assessment:
