Reflection Paper On Special Education

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Special education has not always been a passion of mine. I went back and forth during my college experience deciding if I wanted to be a certified strategist I teacher. I was convinced my last year of college to take summer courses and 18 credits last two semesters just to finish my special education endorsement. Now that I look back on those who encouraged me to go for it and squeezing in those required courses, I am thankful for those people and happy I did it. Before my first day of my special education placement, I was nervous because my students were seventh and eighth graders. This was huge difference coming from kindergarten general education. I did not what to expect other than I knew I was going to have a lot of students with specials …show more content…

Middle school students can be very talkative just like kindergartners, but can be harder to settle down. I did learn that students, especially middle schoolers, love structure. I let them know when they were making bad decisions, which they dealt with the consequences. There were also times where I would have conversations with them just about something they enjoy to build that relationship. This helped me classroom management because they respected me. Even though I developed my “teacher voice” in kindergarten, I would say I have my “teacher voice” down now. Routine just like in any other grade is key when managing a classroom. One of my classroom management strategies I brought to my special education classroom was a positive reinforce. I noticed that students were always being punished for bad behavior but were not being rewarded for positive behavior. If students were on task for 15 minutes of class period, I would let them listen to music for the remaining of the class period while they continued to work. There was one particular student who was being sent to the office every day my first 2 weeks. Once I took over lead teaching, I started this behavior plan with him. If he received no zeros on his point sheet, he would get a prize at the end of the day. He loved this and he behavior completely changed while I was teaching. I believe he is going to take me leaving very hard because I have built such …show more content…

First, I attended many after school PLC meetings every Wednesday after with the special education team. The first hour of PLC was a meeting with the special education team and the AEA. I learned so much during this time and feel more comfortable when it comes to special education. During the second hour of PLC, it varied each week as to what we participated in. I participated in faculty meetings and PBIS meetings. During these times, I was able to have ALICE training as well as a training on autism. Not only did I collaborate with the special education team, I also collaborated with general education teachers. The Oskaloosa school district is such a strong believer in PLC and I am so happy I was able to participate in

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