Chapter 5 Creating an Environment That Fosters Acceptance and Friendship

Without a doubt, all new teachers will find themselves in diverse classroom whether they be physical, cultural, or intellectual differences. Inevitably, some of your students may have preconceived notions about people who are different. It will be your job to help your students understand individual differences in a positive light and to be open and accepting of all people. Chapter 5 teaches various strategies to address these sensitive issues to ensure that your classroom is a safe place for all of your students.

1. Teaching students to be accepting of all people no matter what individual differences they may posess is difficult because students often come to school ingrained misconceptions. Teachers must use care when presenting material about those that are physically, mentally, emotionally, or culturally different from the rest of the class. The opening vignette in the chapter was perfect because the teacher knew first hand how it feels to be different.
The website below has material focused on:

Educating Children About Disabilities: Encouraging Inclusion And Acceptance

Advantages Of Discussing Disabilities With Mainstreamed Students

Ideas For Classroom Presentations About Disabilities

 Inclusion Teacher Preparation Time Tips for Collaboration

http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/59506.aspx

2. When addressing attitudes about acceptance in your classroom, teachers need to reflect upon their own beliefs, views, and misconceptions they may have in order to be fully affective in creating an accepting classroom.

The link to the article below shows that a teachers attitudes about the world and themselves is reflected in their teacher and ultimately has an impact on the performance of the students.

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5392553/Self-efficacy-of-urban-preservice.html

3. I loved the SODA social skills instruction depicted in the book. Developing social skills can be a stressful time for many children and this type of prompting will get on the right path. This is a valuable resource to use for students with autism or other social restricting disorders.

The PDF below has the steps to use to teach the SODA method of socializing as well as example scenarios so students can hear it in conversation.

SODA guides students to interact with other people, such as peers, in various situations.The purposes of the strategy are to
(a) teach the student a set of rules that can guide his social behavior,
(b) teach the student the ability to self-monitor his thinking processes and choose better options
(c) help the student participate in social interactions appropriately.

http://www.txautism.net/docs/Guide/Interventions/SODA.pdf

Chapter 4 Creating Collaborative Relationships and Fostering Communication

This chapter gave a lot of insight into different forms of collaborative teaming and co-teaching. I am happy to seeschool trying new approaches in order to be more effective. Some of the ideas introduced seemed unrealistic, but there were definately some unique strategies in creating a positive learning environment for all kids.

1. Even though thsi topic amounted to basically a paragraph in the chapter, I think it deserves mention because of the immense need for it to happen everywhere. Teacher mentoring could truly be the deciding factor as the whether a good teacher becomes a great teacher. The recent uproar over the education system in this country has all the fingers being pointed at how difficult it is to get rid of mediocre teachers. As harsh at that sounds, I truly believe this is what needs to happen. Granted, as a student I can point the finger all I want without knowing what type of teacher I am to become. Even so, there is something truly wrong with the system and I think it stems from lack of support for new teachers.

http://www.alt-teachercert.org/Mentoring.html

The website above depicts the typical process of teacher/mentor relationship. It is a valuable source so that when you become a teacher, you will see how a mentorship can provide additional support for your first year. Although many areas still do not have mentoring programs, other school staff understand the need for additional support for 1st year teachers.

2. Co teaching could be the wave of the future as many teachers excel in some areas and may be weaker in others. In our teacher certification programs, we learn to focus on our student's strengths and play down their weaknesses. Maybe we should take a lesson from our own play book. Additionally, having two teachers in the classroom could prove much more effective in reaching every child. A co-teaching arrangement can also minimize the distractions of pull-out programs. However, I think this method could suffer under the constrains of the two teachers. A good solid plan that is agreed upon equally by both teachers is necessary in order to create a positive and engageing learning environment.

http://www.k8accesscenter.org/index.php/category/co-teaching/

The website above is focused on improving access to the curriculum for students with disabilities through collaborative teaching. This site is hands on and has tons of various links for implementing co teacher arrangements addressed at both teachers and their administrators. The module explores the components of the definition of co-teaching, how co-teaching looks in the classroom, scheduling and planning issues, and the challenge of supervising and evaluating a co-teaching team.

3. Creating a positive effective relationship with families is important to that they may be a part of their child's education. This can be accomplished in many ways:

• engage families in curriculum planning
• hold meetings with them to discuss student progress and develop necessary IEPS
• invite them to volunteer and attend social events
• provide them with information and resources to assist them
• solicite information from families about their child's strengths and weaknesses

http://www.kidstogether.org/beanincluder.htm

This website is solely focused on implementing inclusion for to provide the least restrictive environment for all students with disabilties. It has a ton of information on what you can do to help impact the practice of inclusion.

Chapter 1 Understanding Inclusion

Chapter One

Understanding Inclusion

Chapter one of the textbook gave a great foundation of the basics on inclusion and how it works. Most notably were the principles of effective inclusion, least restrictive environments, and factors that contribute to the possibitlity of full inclusion. The chapter was also helpful in breaking down federal laws that affect special education. Finally, the book discussed the various impacts of inclusion not just on the student with the disability, but all of the students. After reading and having many of my questions answered for me, my brain woudl not stop with more questions about various aspects discussed in the chapter. Below are a few of my main areas of interest as well as  some links to good websites dealing with these issues.

1. As I was reading about universal design and how it could be applied to apecial educaiton, I think I got it's definition completely wrong. I was under the impression that universal design as related to education was to design all education resources and procedures so that they may be easily understood by all. With this thought, I wasn't sure how significant this idea was. In hindsight, I should have thought about it more clearly and closer related to architecture. In architecture, making things with a universal design simply means to make it accessible to greatest amount of people. In looking at it like this, it is easy to see our goal with inclusion in the classroom. By making a general education easily accessible to as many kids as we can, we are practicing universal design. The link below is a great website that clarifies universal desing in education by not only defining it, but also by compary it to the universal design of learning. The website also includes how to use universal design in creating your classromm instruction.

A Primer on Universal Design (UD) in Education

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/edyburn/www/ud.html

2. Another aspect in this chapter that had me reeling was the idea of how rampant overrepresentation of group within the special education arena. From all the things I have read, I can see that students are sometimes put into special education wrongly. Especially with the amount of culturally diverse learners growing rapidly within our school system, I worry for these and I wonder how prominant the problem is here in Charleston. As I perused the iris website, I found the case study on Serge who was mistakingly put into special education up his enrollment into the school system because they gave him tests in English as opposed to his native tongue.  Unfortunately, it was a few years before teachers realized the mistake in placement. This can be incredibly negative toward a student's academic success. The website below is basically a FAQ site about dispoportionate representation. It had quality answers to a lot of various questions like

What is disproportionality? What is the role of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) indisproportionality? Why should parents, educators, and community members be concerned about disproportionality? How is disproportionality monitored in school districts? Does disproportionality refer only to ethnicity in special education or specific disability categories? What is the most effective strategy for reducing disproportionality for ethnic minority students? What disability categories have an overrepresentation of ethnically and racially diverse students?

Disproportionality The Disproportionate Representation of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Special Education http://www.emstac.org/registered/topics/disproportionality/faqs.htm 3. In examining the effect of inclusion on disabled students, it is imperative to also look into it's effect on all of the students in the classroom. It is easy to assume that inclusion would have a positive effect on disabled students as they will have a general education environment with a lot of peers to learn from. From the perspective of inclusions effect on students without disabilities, I wondered whether the impact would be positive or negative. Academically, I assumed there would be little impact, but I felt that social impacts of inclusion could be amazingly positive for both parties. Learning that many elementary students have a positive attitude toward inclusion made me believe that these peers could actually become advocates for their special education peers. I also believe by having an inclusion classroom detracts form the stereotypes placed on the disabled. The website below had some great info on the social impact of inclusion including The 5 reactions of nondisabled students about inclusion. 1) reduced fear of human differences accompanied by increased awareness, 2) growth in social cognition, 3) improvements in self-concept, 4) development of personal principles, 5) warm and caring friendships. What is the impact of inclusion on students and staff in the middle school setting? http://www.ncmsa.net/ressum14.htm