On Wednesday, March 8th, I observed a mixed class of fifth and six graders at Astor’s Children’s Day Treatment at Bronx, New York. The children who attend this school were all classified as children with emotional disturbance.
There were eleven students in this class, 3 girls, and eight boys. Four of the students were Hispanic, six of them were African-American and one of them was Caucasian. One of the students was also an English Language Learners. Since they are all classified as children with an emotional disturbance they all have IEPs. The classroom’s educational team consisted of Ms. J. the special education teacher, and three paraprofessionals Ms. G, Mr. T. and Ms. P. The classroom is considerable small for the number of children in
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Their day started with breakfast in the classroom, there’s no cafeteria at this location. While they were eating breakfast they all started their “DoNow” activity. As the children were coming in Ms. J had to help a couple of them settle in. One of them didn’t want to be at school and was upset that one of the other educators had called home. She was very upset about it, didn’t want to eat or participate in class. Ms. J spoke to her about how it’s important for her to come to school and learn, but she wasn’t willing to let it go. Another child was upset because someone she didn’t like sat next to her in the bus. Ms. J had to help her get her jacket off to get ready for the day. She was so distraught about the incident, she was able to calm down when Ms. J asked her if she could give her a hug. The same girl was having a hard time coming up with an answer to the “DO Now” question. Ms. J. asked her if instead of writing the answer, she wanted to type it in the computer. She agreed and wrote an entire page as an answer. Two of the paraprofessionals in the classroom mainly work with specific children, and the other paraprofessional is in charge of collecting and checking homework and assisting Ms. J when needed. Many of them were having a hard time completing the “Do Now” activity. Ms. J. and the paraprofessionals went around helping the children complete the activity and the math sprint. One of the children kept saying the math sprint
The women’s role in The Things They Carried are both significant and symbolic. Even if just supporting characters, various attitudes and mindsets towards females during the 1900s can be deducted from the novel. Women were perceived as objects used for personal escape from war and stereotyped by men. Tim O’Brien incorporates these beliefs in the setting of his novel, also including how women grew out of this sexist image throughout the Women’s Rights Movement.
John, a 15 year old male, is an 8th grade student attending a local middle school. John is a transfer student from another state and he been placed into an inclusion classroom because he has been identified as a student with a disability and requires an IEP. Lately, John has been verbally and physically disruptive during math class. Some of the disruptive behaviors John often exhibit in the classroom include making loud noises and jokes during instruction, calling his peers names, physically touching his peers, and grabbing group materials. John’s teacher collected data and learned that his verbal disruptive behavior occurs 4-8 times during each sixty minute class meeting, and his physical group disruptions occur 75% of the time he works with a group. After meeting with John’s other teachers, his math teacher learned that his disruptive behavior is only present during math class. According to John’s math test scores on his IEP, his math instructor also learned that math is a challenging subject for John and he is significantly below grade level. Both John’s math teacher and his IEP team reached an agreement that they would like to decrease the number of times John disrupts instruction and eventually eliminate the disruptive behavior. The replacement behavior for John is to remain focused and on task during math instruction and assigned activities without triggering any disruptions (i.e., distracting loud noises or jokes causing the class to go into a laughing uproar, physical contact with peers, name calling, or grabbing his peers’ materials). Instead of John being punished for his disruptive behavior, the replacement behavior would allow him to remain in math class, and he will also be able to receive posit...
The disabilities identified were Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Emotional Disturbance (ED), and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). The special education teacher began to interact with all of the students right as they entered the classroom and also while the teacher provided them with instruction. She was extremely personable and approachable. It was apparent that even though it was a three- week summer school session, she had established a connection with the students and, therefore, developed a learning bond in the process. The boys seemed to have a great bond as well, and they worked together to complete their assignments. There were also obvious interactions among the boys that were unrelated to the lesson but not disturbing or distracting to the class. The special education teacher jokingly came near the boys and began to talk to them and suggested they continue to work together to keep each other engaged. The special education teacher mentioned that there were times when the boys will not respond to encouraging them to stay engaged and will resist her advances. Therefore, she has to make the decision when to press on to get them involved and when to back off and give them some time with the hopes that they will
When I walked into the school, I was greeted by the receptionist who kindly showed me where to sign in and then directed me to the teacher I would be observing for the day. The staff was dressed very appropriate for the day and on Friday they were able to wear pink because it was October. Although I did not see much interaction with factuality with each other, I was able to witness when the teachers of a certain grade would come to pick up their students. I saw how the teachers interacted with Mrs. Lee and they were very respectful. The student’s behavior varied from class to class. Most of the classes were well behaved with only a few students causing disruption. Mrs. Lee had warned me that the kindergarten class is normally noisier than other classes, but to her surprise the students were very quiet and did their work independently with no interruptions. Mrs. Lee did a wonderful job at keeping the students disciplined within the classroom. She would give positive re-enforcement and correct students when they would do something incorrectly. She worked really well with the students and they students responded in a respectful manner to Mrs.
Over the course of several years there have been several critical court cases that have completely transformed the way that special education policies and procedures are implemented into the classroom. These court cases have given rights, protection, and opportunities to those with disabilities that were not readily available before. The most important court cases that affected special education were Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas; Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Armstrong v. Kline; Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley; Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Education; Diana v. State Board of Education; Lau v. Nichols; Oberti v. Board of Education of
For this field assignment, I chose to observe a seventh grade self-contained math class at William A Morris I.S 61 on Staten Island. I am currently a substitute teacher at the school and has worked at this school for approximately two years. For the purpose of this observations, I worked with Mr. Karl Knutsen, a 6th and 7th grade math, special education and technology supervisor at the school. Mr. Knutsen has been a teacher for seven years and has worked in I.S 61 for five. He currently teaches all self-contained math classes and is the "tech guy" for the building, meaning he is the go-to guy for all SmartBoard or computer based questions and emergencies. I am currently observing and working with Mr. Knutsens first and second period 7th grade class, 717. This class has 12 students, 11 boys and 1 girl, ranging in ages 13-14. Each student has an IEP for varying
In the past two decades many changes have been made in education. Many of these changes have occurred in the special education area. There has been an increase in the number of students who need services in many different areas. Due to the vast array of ability levels and disabilities among students with special needs the teaching techniques and methods used in the classroom must also vary greatly. This is important to effectively facilitate a child’s needs and learning style.
This particular class period consisted of around 3 students, but one student was working particularly just by himself with his teachers aid. Even before it started Ms.Metcalf classroom energy felt a bit off, and come to find out that during lunch one of the students had been teasing the other student. The student that had also been causing trouble had out of nowhere stolen paper clips off of Ms.Metcalf. The other student was not able to stay on task, because he still felt upset from the incident that occurred during lunch. This soon became more of a discipline class rather than the student learning about math, and apparently the "bully" had created pointer with the paper clips that could have actually hurt someone. Soon after Ms. Metcalf had to call the assistant principles to step in to discipline the student, and lost a entire day of instructions due to one student misbehavior. After the misbehaving student had left she went over to the emotional distraught student and began discussing that he should never let people 's words if they weren 't nice and that entire lesson became a lesson on
The modern classroom has many challenges that face it. Shrinking budgets, less parental involvement, higher expectations, and growing class sizes, just to name a few. If this list is not daunting enough, you also have the special needs students that have an array of problems in your classroom that need specialized attention, lessons and seating. There are many forms of diverse learners, from students who suffer from ADHD to physical disabilities to students with autism to those that are bullied in school. There are so many things going on in our students lives we sometimes forget they have lives, pressures and disabilities that affect their performance and attitude in our class that have a profound impact on how they learn.
For my visitation I went to the public high school in my hometown. Due to time constraints I was not able to visit the school on a weekday when classes were in session. I did however get to witness another part of the special education/inclusion program called the Rooster Buddies. I did, however, get some information on the special education program from an administrator via phone and fax.
My observation is in a diverse title I class which allowed for me to experience and gain knowledge not only on ELL students but as well as special education. My interview consisted of a preschool and second grade classroom which help me understand the different milestones and differentiated instruction. When having a language barrier teachers need to not only know their students but check that the student is understanding the lesson. Instead of just asking questions that can make the student feel uncomfortable or different is by planning ahead and having activities where all students participate and answer (Herrell, 2015). When having everyone answer it helps students who don’t like to participate to feel comfortable when it’s their turn to
The school that I visited was new. It was the first year of the school opening. The school board had combined two schools into one, so the students had to adjust to their new environments and new individuals. They seemed to be getting along well with each other. Since the school is new the teacher has to adjust to new problems that araise. Times for the subjects and times for using the computer labs change. So the teacher must always be fixable for anything. In this observation of this classroom I learned about the enjoyment of teaching. How you have to adapt to each of the students.
I attended a second grade class at Smallville Elementary on February 22, 2014; the class began promptly at 0855. There are 26 children in this second grade class. There are 15 male students and 11 female students. The student diversity is 2 Hispanics, 1 African-American, 1 East Indian, and 1 New Zealander (White but with an extreme accent). Three children were left-handed.
The students that I observed in the classroom were of middle to high school. I went to see 8th, freshman, 10th , and seniors classes, they seemed excited and very curious to why I was there. The middle school was more alive and rambunctious while I observed them. The High school kids were more relaxed, more comical. Some were paying attention while others seemed tuned out to the lecture or involved in socialization with friends within the class. By the end of the class Mr. Hasgil had restored the attention of everyone by using tactics such as history jeopardy with candy as the prize with the high school kids. In both he middle school and high school the kids were mostly Caucasian with a mixture of black, Asian , and Hispanic in the classes.
For my observation experience I went to Southern High School in Harwood, MD. Southern High School has a special education department for the students with disabilities. The teacher that I met with for this classroom observation was Ms. West. In the classroom there were at least four assistant teachers that helped Ms. West throughout the school day. The assistant teachers helped Ms. West co- teach the class and were there to help the students if they needed extra help. The school also has a couple of student aides that come in to help the teachers and the students in the classroom. There were at least twelve students in the classroom. The students in the class had many different exceptionalities such as learning disabilities, Down syndrome,