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How do we manage diversity in the classroom
Managing diversity in the classroom
Teaching diverse students in the classroom
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As future teacher, I need to be aware that my classroom will be filled with diverse learners. There will be students that need extra attention, accommodations, and modifications in the classroom to reach their academic goals by way of the collaboration of Special Education and general education teacher’s. There will be diverse learners with different issues to overcome that require a knowledgeable teacher who can assist the students to reach particular individualized goals because, as we know, everyone is different I want to be able to reach out and help every single one of my students and by taking courses about learning the needs of exceptional learners, such as Collaboration for Inclusive Schooling, I may learn how to work with and assist students with special needs and provide for them an opportunity to learn.
History and Models of Inclusion
Many physicians, educators, and advocates have helped pave the way for exceptional learners, also known as learning disabled, to receive a free and appropriate education. In the early 19th century, the first systematic attempts to assist and educate the “insane” or “idiotic” were made. Due to the lack of understanding the difference between those that are “insane” and those with disabilities, many were placed into asylums instead of receiving the correct services. With the idea of democracy and individual freedoms, political, medical, and educational authorities advocated for the learning disabled by providing them the necessary skills to become independent, productive citizens.
Physicians, such as Philippe Pinel, Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, and Edouard Seguin, laid the foundation for today’s understanding of exceptional learners. Though, at the time, it was considered revolutionary ideas, ...
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...tunity and responsibility to prove to them that they can. If an exceptional learner has someone believing in them, there is a higher chance of the children believing in themselves.
Conclusion
Though there may be challenges when faced with including students that have special needs in the general education classroom, the benefits out way the challenges. By having these types of students included in to the classroom we, the teacher, exceptional learner, other students, and parents, can all learn from one another by communicating and collaborating on what needs to be done to succeed in and out of the classroom. It is important to consider and understand all the aspects to a child with special needs because I, a future teacher, will have these types of students in my classroom and I want to do anything and everything it takes for them to achieve and succeed in life.
While differentiating instruction and being able to design lessons geared towards the needs of diverse learners are currently highly prized skills for teachers, this has not always been the case. The history of education in the United States is a history of segregation. Even today, schools and curriculum are designed to meet the needs of a core group of students, which does not include students with disabilities (Hitchcock, Meyer, Rose, & Jackson, 2002). In the past, learners who were different, out of the mainstream, or did not fit into the mold to which teachers taught (were not part of the core) learned how or lost out on learning. This is not to say that teachers of the past did not care about their students, about being effective teachers, or about student learning. However, as schools are mirrors reflecting mainstream societal norms (Chartock, 2010; Delpit, 2006)—and, given that our society has not always valued diversity in people, be it due to disability, class, culture, or race—teachers in the past have largely focused their efforts where they could earn the largest return on their investment: the average student .
What she discovered was that the mentally disabled or “defective” children were of average intelligence, but had some type of adjustment issue. Later on, Hollingworth examined the exceptional children. She performed two longitudinal studies and in the first one, she studied exceptional children for three years and measured their intelligence quotient (IQ), family background, psychological state and other traits that distinguished them to be “exceptional”. She followed the group for eighteen years and added on to the study later. For her second longitudinal study, she worked with exceptional children again and her goal was to tailor an education that would challenge the exceptional children.
“The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal” by Jonathan Mooney is the story of his journey around the U.S. in short bus nonetheless to meet with different children and their families who have faced challenges in school due to ADD, ADHD, Autism, and other learning disabilities. Jonathan Mooney himself faced the disability of Dyslexia and often had to deal with many challenges in school himself, but he appears to be one of the more fortunate ones, who was able to grow from his disability and ultimately get a degree in English. Needless to say, his book and journey lead the reader to question what really is “normal”, and how the views of this have caused the odds to be stacked against those who don’t fit the mold. Throughout, this story, for me personally however, this story gave several events that I found moving, and had the potential to influence my further work in education.
Collaboration in the world of education has become an increasingly popular method of addressing a variety of school issues, such as curriculum design, behavioral plans, professional development and management of resources. One of the areas in which collaboration is becoming more popular is co-teaching in special education, where special education teachers and general education teachers share the planning and instruction responsibilities for inclusion classrooms (Friend & Cook, 2010). As academic standards for the education of students with disabilities are held to the same standards as their typical peers due to the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the co-teaching model has been increasingly implemented to meet those needs. Most research has shown co-teaching to be effective in the inclusion classroom, though there are a few studies which have refuted its significance and identified reasons for problems in implementing a successful co-teaching program.
The first idea of a test was created when Alfred Binet was asked to be a member of the Free Society for the Psychological Psychology at the Sorbonne. His group was appointed to the Commission for the Retarded. They were asked, “What should be the test given to children thought to possibly have learning disabilities, that might place them in a spe...
The students in our classrooms, both special education and general education classrooms, require individualized education to reach their full potential. Each child’s potential is different just as each child’s road to reach it is different. Our job as teachers is to be there for the student’s to help them reach their potential through their own unique way.
Two years ago, I embarked on a journey that would teach me more than I had ever imagined. As a recent college graduate, I was thrilled to finally begin my teaching career in a field I have always held close to my heart. My first two years as a special education teacher presented countless challenges, however, it also brought me great fulfillment and deepened my passion for teaching students with special needs. The experiences I have had both before and after this pivotal point in my life have undoubtedly influenced my desire to further my career in the field of special education.
PBS’s Misunderstood minds was an eye opening experience. It gives great insight into learning processes, difficulties and strategies to overcome the challenges faced by the children who have learning disability. The simulations were very frustrating, confusing and irritating for me but they helped understand what it is like to have a lot of hard time on learning things in class. All four were tasks attention, reading, writing and math were challenging for me and I wasn’t’ able to answer correct answers. But out of all four tasks, I found difficulties with attention and reading the most difficult. The whole process of attention and reading problems is so complex that it’s hard to figure out where the signs of struggle appear in children. Parents
Cooperative Learning: The students are placed back into their Rescue squad groups that ideally have four students in each. Each squad will then be given a specific phase of a childbirth. During the learning, each squad will need to determine exactly what the pathophysiology is as well as identify four of the following physical components they should expect to see. For each phase of childbirth the squad as a team need to complete the following.
One of the most famous, and popular hospitals around the globe is “The Hospital for sick Children”. The hospital was founded in the spring of 1875, and stands strong till this day. The hospital was established when Elizabeth McMaster rented an 11 room house in downtown, Toronto. She set up six iron cots and declared open a hospital “for the admission and treatment of all sick children”. The hospital rose into high demand and expanded and moved onto University Avenue. Each year, thousands of patients are treated and cured for there (http://www.paeds.utoronto.ca/about/history.htm). The hospital is currently working on many projects, in which most are related to understanding learning disabilities. One of the many projects includes “Exploring the causes of Reading Disabilities”; this is a project that overlooks at genes to understand the causes of certain disabilities. Another research project that the hospital is currently working on is; “Parent Involvement and reading development in the early grades”, this project focuses on the effects of parent’s involvements in their children’s di...
Quickly, Schmitt learned he could not run away from his disability. Schmitt could not pass any subject taught in German, because he was unable to learn the language. And based on the teacher’s mannerisms to the class, determine if his disabilities would flare causing him to fail. “But subjects such as physics, biology, and algebra, taught using multisensory methods by kind, enthusiastic teachers, [Schmitt] had nearly perfect grades” (118). It wasn’t until twelfth grade did Schmitt discovered that he had “a brain that could work for [him]” (33). Schmitt excelled in his courses becoming one of the top students in his class when he was taught by K.G. Toews, the principle of the school. Toews was the first educator to believe in Schmitt’s success and urged him to attend “normal school, the teacher training school in the province”
academic test scores, higher self esteem, greater numbers of positive social skills, fewer stereotypes of
As an educator, I will most likely experience students who come from a wide variety of different backgrounds. Having diversity within the classroom has both positive and negative effects. The first thing is to make sure that every student is treated equally and that you do not make previous assumptions about where they come from. When you incorporate students with special needs into the classroom, there is diversity right there in a whole. Because they have a different learning needs than other student’s in the classroom. From previously working with special needs students, I see that they are often made fun of because their “different”. I feel that everyone is different in the ways that he or she learns and that as a future educator, I have to be able to accommodate all student’s learning styles to the best of my ability. I plan to do this by planning activities around what students interests are and how they would like to learn it. And I want to teach my students that by doing something new is different just like everyone is different too and no one person is the
Special education is an incredibly important, but often underappreciated aspect of education. There is a stigma around individuals with disabilities, that leads people to assume those in special education are less capable or smart as their peers in in a strictly traditional classroom setting. That could not be farther from the truth though, and the individuals in special education are just as capable of learning and maturing in to successful adults. As a future teacher, I was not really aware of how little I knew about special education until I enrolled in this course. This course has helped change and shape my views of special education, and helped me gain a better understanding of what exceptional children are and how I can better serve them
In conclusion, gifted, and talented children do have special needs, as every child has specific needs. However, the nature of this need requires action to help the millions of children who are above average flourish in their learning. The way that the brains of these children work can reveal ways in which they are growing, and the ways in which they could receive guidance. Gifted children are in no way superior to others; they could just use an extra challenge for their eager minds.