A big thing that I learned while doing my clinical hours, is that I might have many students with learning disabilities. Since lots of our classes are hands-on, these are places that students advisors might put them in because there is not a lot of reading or writing involved. Mrs. Dazley had several students in her classes that could only read on a 3rd of 4th level. To help with this problem, Mrs. Dazley would have them sit near a friend of theirs that could help them when they did have to do a reading assignment, their friends could help them and nobody else in the class had to know that they couldn't read well. I liked the way that she did that.
Talking with Mrs. Dazley about this really opened my eyes to that. I never really thought about FACS classes having the students with disabilities but it makes total sense that they would be there. Mrs. Dazley even teaches a Cluster Class to a class of disabled students to teach. I think this is a great idea since one of the main goals of teachers for these students is to help them be functional adults who can care for themselves.
As a student in Secondary Education, we are all required to take only ONE class that helps us to teach students with disabilities. It was a general course and covers everything from dyslexia and ADHD, to blind students or students with Downs syndrome. Obviously, I don't think one course is sufficient for me to have a knowledge on how to teach the variety of students I will get, but I think those types of things come with practice and time. The teacher for the cluster class was very cooperative with Mrs. Dazley as they tried to think of things to help these students learn what will be important to them.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Clinical-Some Final Observations
Posted by Emily at 11:36 AM
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3 comments:
You have made some valid points. Most students with special needs have been identified at some point in their earlier school years. Most of the time they spend time with a teacher who has the expertise in meeting their needs. The quicker you can identify who these students are and find that teacher you can plan for them and the other students. I do want to mention that there are students who don't get identified. Sometimes it is because they slip through the cracks. Sometimes it is because their parent or guardian doesn't want them to be identified or there isn't anyone paying attention. It takes time to catch on to these students. You find them most often by observing your students reading, relating to others, and writing.
I agree that it will be difficult to adapt lesson plans to accomidate students with learning disabilities. My mom is a teacher and she has many students with learning disablities especially in her Adult Roles class. (Actually she was teaching about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and one of her students blurted out "Yeah, I have that. That's why I'm so dumb!") I think that they put the special needs students in our classes because they need to know the life skills that can be learned in our classes. I think that that will be one of the most difficult parts of teaching.
Hi Emily, it's Carrie. Yeah for getting your 30 hours done! So much for spring break, huh? Anyway, will you email me your USU address? Gracias!!! cinieder@yahoo.com
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