Educational Services for Students with Exceptionalities

1. Educational Services for Students with Exceptionalities Discussion on Inclusion

2. Inclusion • Diversity • Students with disabilities • Service vs. location • Accountability

3. Reflection #1 • Consider your own school experience. • Describe your experiences with students with exceptionalities or diversity. • How might your experiences differ from students in today’s classrooms?

4. Need for Change… • Modify curriculum • Modify instructional techniques • “Good teaching” • Knowledge base and belief system • High expectations • Learning opportunities and barriers

5. Reflection #2 • Identify “good teaching” practices that are good for all students. • Describe the characteristics of a teacher who believes “all children can learn”. • How can a teacher be prepared for the needs of a diverse classroom and what supports are necessary to meet these needs?

6. General Considerations • Reflective teachers • Flexibility • Individualization • Caring • Natural supports • Fairness

7. Reflective Teachers • Utilize supports and resources • Expand repertoire of teaching skills • Scientific approach • Responsible for all students and for curriculum • Use curriculum as context

8. Flexibility • Manage instructional time • Increase engaged time • Use of groups • Adapt and modify as needed • Use of peers and cooperative learning

9. Individualization • Foundational skills • Unique learning styles and needs • Experience mastery • Quality of experiences

10. Reflection #3 • How flexible can you be when providing “accommodations” • How do you prioritize learning objectives? • How can you respond to the accusation of “unfairness”?

11. Caring • Celebrate diversity • Promote cooperation • All are included and accepted in learning community • Stand by position with proper information • Teachers values reflected in students

12. Natural Supports • Assistance interferes with “natural” opportunities • Availability • Increased success rate • Less intrusive

13. Fairness • Equal treatment or equal opportunity • Adaptations in place not to decrease challenge or expectations • Reduce curricular barriers • “Level playing field” - equifinality

14. Reflection #4 • What is normalization? • What is a “normal” student? • What is a “normal” classroom? • How can normalization meet the needs of students with disabilities?

15. Principles • Natural proportion • Normalization • Problem-solving

16. Natural Proportion • Classrooms reflect community at large • Improper placements

17. Normalization • Same opportunities • Partial participation

18. Problem-solving • Solve instructional problem rather than student problem. • Why the discrepancy between actual and expected performance” • Recursive cycle

19. Reflection #5 • Consider someone you may know who is struggling. • Is the person viewed as “a problem” • Is the focus on the individual or the setting?

20. Universal Design • Cheaper to include adaptations in original design • Accessibility in learning • Future goals • Accessibility • Interactive • Enable progress for all

21. Guiding Principles • Multiple methods of presentation • Multiple methods of expression • Multiple methods of engagement

22. Reflection #6 • Select one of your own textbooks. • How do the three guiding principles apply? • What could be changed? • Can these principles be used for educational practices?

23. Effective Instruction • Collaboration • Parental involvement • Self-directed learning • Peer supports • Flexible grouping • Explicit and implicit instruction • Formative evaluation

24. Instructional Tactics • Successful participation • Age-appropriate • Reduce negative impact • Avoid burdening teacher

25. Reflection #7 • What type of instructional tactic may have a “negative” impact of student learning? • How can Universal Design solve the above problem?

26. Differentiated Instruction • Variety of methods • Multi-sensory in nature • Apply learning • Characteristics • Focus on concepts • Assessment is built-in • Various groupings • Active exploration with teacher guide

27. Elements of Curriculum • Content • Process • Product

28. Content • Many methods used to support content • Aligned to learning goals • Focus on concept, principles, and skills needed

29. Process • Flexible grouping • Classroom management is priority • Grouping varies with activity

30. Products • Formal and informal assessment • Students are actively involved and challenged • Expectations vary

31. Guidelines for Practice • Clarify concepts and generalizations • Assessment becomes teaching tool • Critical thinking encouraged • Students must be engaged • Opportunities for choice-making

32. Reflection #8 • Reflect on your own experiences as a student. • How has assessment been used as a teaching tool? • How has it been used to measure learning?

33. Managing Behavior • Teacher attitudes • Teacher responsiveness • Permit • Tolerate • Interfere • Prevent • Surface Management Techniques

34. Managing Behavior • Surface Management Techniques • Planned ignoring • Signal interference • Proximity control • Interest boosting • Humor • Hurdle helping • Restructuring the program • Support from routine • Appeal to values • Removing seductive objects • Antiseptic bouncing

35. Teacher Reflection • How am I teaching? • Student’s understanding? • Student’s disability? • Classroom arrangement? • Uncontrollable factors? • Class routines?

36. Holistic View • Past efforts may have been too narrow • Child is not always the whole problem • Environmental needs • Consider relationships (or lack of) • Ecological approach

37. Systems Approach • Part of a social system • Balance between individual and the environment • Changes in child • Changes in environment • Attitudes and expectations

38. Levels of Reflectivity • Technical rationality • Application of content knowledge • Reaching acceptable understanding • Practical action • Assessing consequences • Alternative methods • Critical reflection • Moral and ethical criteria mixed with practical action • Serving ultimate goal of learning

39. System-Wide Support • Positive Behavior Support • Clearly defined expectations and consequences • Model appropriate behavior • Data-based, proactive, decision-making and problem-solving process

40. Levels of Positive Behavior Support • Universal support • Clearly defined expectations • Teach expectations • Communicate expectations • Comprehensive reinforcement system • Evaluate progress • Group support • Considering needs of “group” of students • Determine patterns of behavior • Individual support • Define behaviors that impede learning • FBA

41. Functional Behavioral Assessment • Before or no later than 10 days after incident or disciplinary action • Identify possible factors • Biological • Social • Affective • Environmental

42. Four Assumptions • Behavior serves a function • Interventions need to teach expected behavior • Generalizable interventions • Use interventions appropriate for any child

43. Setting Events • Events that influence the impact of interventions • Situational context • Altering pre-existing conditions • Concurrent events vs. preceding events

44. Behavior Support Plan • Decrease problem behaviors • Teach skills to control behaviors and use appropriate behaviors • Collaborative approach

45. Reflection • What types of “surface management” techniques do you recall your teachers using? • Recall a situation when you were “in trouble”. What factors influenced your behaviors? What other systems were involved? What kind of support was used? • What does it mean to be a “change agent”? • Consider a classroom example. Talk through an FBA and a BIP.