A Lego Arm

“The NVIV (Next Vista Inspiring Video) series of posts are written by Rushton Hurley and designed to provide students and teachers with fascinating discussion prompts.”

In A Lego Arm. Rushton features David Aguilar who builds his own prosthetic out of Legos.

He gives the following prompts to accompany this video:

“What makes you different? Is it something others can see? If it’s something you feel you need to deal with in some creative way, how do you do so?

Finally, is anyone completely normal? What does “normal” even mean?”

I loved this video because many students I know have special needs. Many have spent a lot of time trying to fit in and be “normal.” I spend a lot of time getting them to believe that it is okay to be special. This boy found a need to use his interests to better his quality of life. He didn’t whine or use his difference as a crutch. He knew what he needed and set out to find a way to make it happen. This video would be great to show students with special needs!

Please check out the video and think of other prompts you might come up with. Please share.

It’s Not Fair

Another question came up into my special education forum:

“Does anyone have recommendations for children's books or social stories that address the "why" some students get certain supports? Getting some resistance from general education teachers being concerned about their students feeling things are not "fair" when a student has a positive reinforcement system (e.g. token board), fidget, etc. "Why does he get a token board and frequent breaks?" "What about the students who are doing the right thing and do not have problem behavior? Is isn't fair to them." Of course, other students are looking and watching what's happening with those students who are being provided academic and behavioral interventions.

Would like to have at least one good children's book and/or social story that explains that everyone is different and how some students need a little extra support.

Thanks for sharing any resources you may be aware of.”

Here is my answer:

Here is a good article that gives a link to some resources: That's not fair! How to teach fair does not mean equal - Special Needs for Special Kids

I have told my students and other teachers that support are a lot like going to the grocery store. We all need to eat in order to survive but we all have different nutritional needs and tastes. What I get at the grocery store may be very different than what someone else gets but that doesn't make someone else better or worse than me. I don't think it is always fair that someone else can eat a lot of candy and ice cream without gaining weight but I can't. People with diabetes can't eat the same things I eat. "Fair" does not mean we all eat the same things.

Do you know any resources to recommend to this teacher? How do you teach fairness in the classroom? Please share.

Photo by Maria Lin Kim on Unsplash

Building Self Concept

Here is another question from my special ed forum:

“My partner teacher and I teach high school students with disabilities in a cross-categorical program called Occupational Course of Study (OCS), in which these students learn job skills along with academics in pursuit of a standard high school diploma. This school year we have a number of students who are latino/latina that have anxiety and feel extra social pressures around being identified as in a special education program, and do everything they can to "hide" that fact from the rest of the student body.

I thought it would be helpful for these students to get perspectives from other current/former students in a similar demographic, and have been searching YouTube, social media, and other places online. I found a site called respectability.org, for example, which has resources but they appear largely geared towards representing people with disabilities other than specific learning disabilities or intellectual disabilities.

I'm hoping one of my illustrious colleagues on here has some hidden gems they'd be willing to share, or something or someone they could point me towards. Please let me know.”

Here is my answer:

I taught an Occupational Diploma High School class in SC for years and I know my students acted the same way! I don’t have any specific resources for you other than to share things that I did to help them.

I explained to the students that a disability is not something they can control, just like diabetes or thyroid problems. If they act like they are ashamed of it, then people will treat them that way. A lot of people act this way because they don’t understand specific disabilities and this is an opportunity to educate others. I explain that a disability is just like being on a highway with other cars. But a person with a disability gets to the point where their part of the highway is washed out and they have to take a longer side route. It doesn’t mean their car doesn’t work, it just means the route is longer and with more obstacles on the side roads than the highway.

I had a class motto for 30 years - “I am a Born Winner!” that they had to write on every paper they turned in for a grade. I also ask them when they come into the room to say it out loud. I have them say it before every test they take. Sometimes they have to say it as a group before they leave the room. They have learned to believe that they are losers for so long that I try to break the cycle of the “stinkin’ thinkin’” I met a student from 20 years ago that pulled out a slip of paper from her wallet with that motto on it. She said that it helped get her through tough times.

I got permission from the administration to do some landscaping around the school and wrote a grant for flowers and bushes and tools. Students researched prices and the types of plants we wanted to get. We had so much fun doing this! General ed students saw us doing this and even asked my students how they could get in my class so they could have fun!

Eventually, some of my students even felt comfortable enough that they were willing to go into other classrooms and explain about their disability and how it makes them feel.

I don’t know if any of this helps but it took time to overcome the learned negative thinking that they believed and replace it with positive thinking.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Advice to the General Education Teacher:

Recently a Special Education teacher was creating a document to use at the beginning of the school year as a helpful resource to General Education teachers. This teacher was asking for people to share what advice they might give to a General Education teacher and I thought I would share some thoughts.

1. Use all accommodations and modifications as stated in the IEP even if you don’t like them because it is a federal law.
2. Transitions can throw students with special needs off track so give some warning before changing to a new activity.
3. Announce the plans for class at the beginning so the student knows what is going to be expected.
4. At the end of class, remind students what is due the next day by writing it on the board and announcing it. This helps visual and auditory learners.
5. If possible, have students get in pairs to retell the new information they have learned. By telling someone, it reinforces the learning for some and by hearing it from their peers helps others.
6. Use the special ed teachers as a resource when you get frustrated that students are having difficulty learning a concept. They may know a strategy that you can use to help your students be more successful.

If you are a General Education teacher, what other advice should I add to the list that others might find helpful?

If you are a Special Education teacher, what do you think should be added to the list?

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

The South Carolina Council for Exceptional Children Conference

Please visit our website for Conference information

http://community.cec.sped.org/sc/home .

2020 Annual SCCEC Conference Registration-Vision is Everything

Mark your calendars for February 28-29 for our annual conference. 

Conference Registration: Registration form is attached.

Paper registrations must be postmarked by February 13, 2020

Eventbrite registrations (see SCCEC Website) taken through 2/27/20. Only ONSITE registrations accepted after 2/27/20.  NO DINNERfor onsite registrants This year we are hosting an Awards DINNER on Saturday so please plan to stay. 

EventBrite Electronic Registration Information:

Conference attendees may register by mailing in the registration form with a check, emailing a purchase order, or by accessing the EventBrite page:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2020-annual-sccec-conference-tickets-66041825879

Pre-Conference

Pre-conference sessions, sponsored by the subdivisions, will be held on Thursday, February 27, 2020.  More details will be provided in the coming weeks.  Keep in mind that registration (as well as payment) for the pre-conference is SEPARATE from the registration/payment for the conference. 

We are hoping directors, teachers and para-professionals would join CEC this year (this will also allow them to get a reduced rate on registration as well) Basic Membership is $65.00 visit https://www.cec.sped.org/Membership  or call 703-264-9453 to join.

Mock IEP Meeting

Last week in my Nature of Learning Disabilities class, I decided that we would have a mock IEP meeting. I remember when I graduated as a special ed major, I can’t remember ever holding an IEP meeting. Two days into my new job, I had to set up and run an IEP meeting. Oh my gosh! I thought I would faint! I wanted to at least expose my students to what an IEP meeting would look like

The great thing about my class is that I have 3 graduate students who are already teachers and I have 5 undergraduate students who have never taught.

I assigned roles to my graduate students. I took the role of the special education teacher, one of the grad students was the administrator/LRE, and the other two teachers were the general education teachers. One of my undergrads played the part of the parent.

We would work with a sample IEP for a fourth grader named Bobby Smith. I ran the meeting as if it was a real IEP meeting. We introduced ourselves and I conducted the meeting by going through each section of the IEP. The other students not in the meeting, observed the meeting. I even had everyone sign the last page of the IEP.

After the mock meeting, we discussed how it went and answered any questions that the students had. A lot of them had what-if questions such as “What if the parent asks…” These led to fabulous discussions.

I thought the lesson wen well and would definitely do this again. One of my students (a teacher) said that I should hold a meeting and show what NOT to do. Then ask students to point out the things that I did wrong or should have done differently. I thought it was a great suggestion but thought I needed to model the right way first.

Do you hold mock meetings like this? How do you conduct them? Please share.

US Department of Education Report

The USDOE just released The 38th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2016.

It is a 212-page report but I thought you might enjoy checking it out.

The Second Annual Charles Chadwell Special Education Institute

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Second Annual Charles Chadwell Special Education Institute at Presbyterian College. I didn't realize that I hadn't posted my notes so I'm doing it now and I apologize for the delay. 

Featured Speaker: Dr. Tim Shanahan from University of Illinois at Chicago

www.shanahanonliteracy.com scroll down to “Powerpoints”

Response to Instruction: Literacy Education in Special Education

How do we ensure that all children – including those with special needs – succeed in learning to read? This presentation will explore how multi-tiered support systems can help to ensure that students receive all the instructional support that they need and research-based ways of building students’ reading skills.

Here is the link to the Powerpoint presentation: RTI: When Things Don’t Work as Expected

New studies show that RTI isn’t working.

Based on research, assessing students twice a year, put in small group interventions but kids did worse or no better.

Instead of being a teaching model, RTI became a bureaucratic way to get kids into sped

Dr. Shanahan suggests a 9 tier RTI model (tongue in cheek):

RTI – 9 tier model (RTI on steroids)

Basic idea is that we don’t give up on kids.

·      T1: Classroom Instruction with 2-3 hours per day of actual instruction; pulling him out for RTI during instruction is crazy! Should receive explicit teaching in phonological awareness, phonics, oral reading fluency, vocabulary (oral language), reading comprehension, writing

·      Best way to teach fluency was having students read text aloud multiple times.

·      Reading comprehension: summarize what you have read

·      Writing: 93% of studies show that read a text and then write about it increases learning the most

·      Definition of quality teaching (see slide)

·      T2: Added-scaffold interventions (see slide); planned intentional adjustments made within the classroom

·      T3: In-class, teacher intervention; extra instruction by the teacher

·      T4: Parent involvement intervention; parent involvement was most powerful when it was the most like teaching

·      T5: Pull-out (soft) intervention – additional help by another teacher; small group extra instruction

·      T6: Pull-out (intense) intervention - 1 on 1 or no groups larger than 3

·      T7: Afterschool programs

·      T8: Summer-school programs – make better strides than in the school year

·      T9: Special Education – fewer than 1 in 10 children is likely to need such placements

Two pilots – talk to each other, teachers need to be talking more, offering suggestions, be willing to accept ideas from other teachers

Many times only the tested skills get taught.

Teaching some skills while ignoring other essential ones is not a way to build stronger reading achievement

weekly progress monitoring is “pretend” vigilance; actually could be harmful towards achievement

CCSS shifts attention to skills in the context of reading complex text

New standards: text difficulty is central to learning

Here is the link to the Powerpoint presentation: Teaching with Challenging Text

No performance differences due to question types: literal and inferential

Main idea/author’s approach, supporting details, relationships, meaning of words, generalizations and conclusions

Text differences affect reading performance

Higher levels assigned to the grades (see slide)

Betts (1946): informal reading inventories

used to estimate students’ reading levels

Independent (fluency 99-100%;comprehension 90-100%)

Instructional (fluency 95-98%;comprehension 75-89%)

Frustration (fluency 0-92%;comprehension 0-50%)

This study was never done!

Evidence shows:

Many studies show that – with scaffolding – students can read “frustration level” texts as if they had been placed in books at their “instructional levels.

Instructional level is something a teacher creates.

Examples of scaffolding (see slides)

Some examples given:

1.     Tell vocabulary – if a word is explicitly defined in the passage, don’t teach it but those that aren’t, go ahead and teach them those words

Tier 1 words – basic words that is heard in spoken language

Tier 2 words - you don’t hear too much in spoken language but shows up in text

Tier 3 words – words not frequently used

2.     Help with Sentence Structure - Guide students to interpret complex sentences; in dense prose, help find the subject and verb; complex punctuation, such as split quotes

3.     Use fluency training as a scaffold

In the afternoon we had “Hands-On” Writing Stations: Using a Co-Teaching Model to Support All Young Writers where Professors and Students from Bob Jones University actually modeled the co-teaching models. This was extremely relevant and meaningful because everyone could see how the models work in real life. I like this as a way to show information rather than just telling the audience and expecting them to relate it to life on their own.

My thoughts:

This was an interesting speaker but I’m not sure I agreed with everything he says. He did give some interesting suggestions though. A lot of things he said made common sense and it was sad that teachers were not already doing some of these things.