Pushed to the Limit

With ever increasing demands on teachers, from preps, to large class sizes, grading and limited support, teachers are forced to prioritize teaching goals. With education under such pressure it's clear that often something is going to break.  One of the most stressful and difficult aspects of teaching is accomdadating the needs of all students and all abilities.  That means modifying a wide range of lesson plans that will push the students who need extra help and stimulate the students that are speeding through their lessons.

Students with behavioral disorders are often the first students to put on the back burner.  With behavior issues and seemingly limited involvment, teachers tend to critize students with beavoral disorders in stead of correcting and adapting lessons to meet their needs.

New information has come out to encourage and train teachers to create a successful and well bahvioed classroom for students with behavioral disorders.

These tips include:

• Creating an online classroom with clear instructions for students to use outside the classroom.  This will allow the teacher to better differentiate and customize students education.
• Join an online communicate specializing if students with behavior disorders to gain knowledge and ideas.
• Use a range of visuals images such as graphs, charts, animations and colored diagrams.
• Create a quiet and calm for the student to learn without the pressures of adult and student interaction.
• Use computer software to train students on impulse control and social cues.
• Use computer software to monitor computer activity and redirect students.
• Create a system of praise when student behaviors well and a non threatening system of correction if students is poorly behaved.
• Create a points or bonus chart for good behavior.
• Have a journal with assignments students can use during down time to prevent boredom and bad behavior due to lack of assignments.
• Monitor class room volume with devices like "the clapper"
• Allow students to use iPods to keep them focused.
• Use educational animation videos, such as those found on brain-pop to engage students.
• Use web based activities to engage students and refocus them during the lesson.

The Digital Divide

As most teachers know, there are numerous laws and measures take by the state and national government to provide all students with an equal education.  These law help ensure that the needs of all students are meet and students are given the opportunity to success regardless of ability or disability.  Let's take a moment to review the two most important educational laws:

American's With Disabilities Act
Public Law 101-336 [42 USC 12101]
The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 
guaranteed that eligible children and youth with disabilities would have a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) available to them, designed to meet their unique educational needs. 

*The following information is quoted from this link. Technology Laws

For this blog, I'd like to focus on a lesser known law that has a HUGE impact on education today.  As was unknown to me, until about an hour ago, that there is clear legislation that dictates that technology resources must be equally administered to all students regardless of ability.

Technology Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities   

Not only does the law dictate that students have the right to access this technology, the law also provides that funds will be given to schools for assistive technology that meets the following criteria:

The technology will

• be in demonstration centers, information centers, equipment loan facilities, referral services, and other consumer-oriented programs;
• protection and advocacy services to help people with disabilities and their families, as they attempt to access the services for which they are eligible;
• Federal/state programs to provide low interest loans and other alternative financing options to help people with disabilities purchase needed assistive technology.

 The following link offers great insight into this law and how to gain funding.
 Assisitive Technology Laws


In addition to the Technology related Assistance act and additional law provides that teachers be given the appropriate resources and skills to use assistive technology.

Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act Amendments of 1998

Schools are required to integrate academic, vocational and technical training, increase the use of technology, provide professional development opportunities to staff, develop and implement evaluations of program quality, expand and modernize quality programs, and link secondary and post-secondary vocational education.

The goal of these laws is to ensure that in a growing digital age, all students are given fair and equal opportunities.  With such drastic technology changes happening on almost a daily basis, it is easy to see how students with disabilities could easily be forgotten.  It essential that as teachers we are aware of legislation in place to prevent this from happened.  Its also critical that we as teachers become advocates for students that lack "voice" in our education system.

Sources:
http://www.fctd.info/resources/techlaws.php
http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/ATBasics/Foundation/Laws/atlegislation.php

It's a Visual Word

It goes without saying that art is a visual subject.  Often attributed for meeting the needs of visual learners, the idea of creating lesson plans for students that have visual imparments can seem very challenging.  The key to tacking the fear of creating lessons for students with visual imparments is to understand that art offers much more then visual stimulation.

I often believe that the best way to help students with disabilities is to learn how to compensate with their abilities. For instance, students with extrememly limited vision will likely have more atune senses of touch.  Think about focusing on the tactile learning skills, like sculpting, clay moddeling or paper mache.  Allowing students to touch and feel works of art, giving them an oppertunitiy to explore how the peices connect or join can be a huge benefit.

Let's walk through a basic lesson on sculpture for students of all abilities.

1. At the start of class explain that the students will be working with sculptures.
2. Have small student made clay sculptures at students desk.
3. Ask ALL students to close their eyes and explore the sculpture just using touch. 
4. Have students open their eyes and describe how the sculpture feels.  
5. Take notes on the conversation using a smart board.
1. The notes can be saved and hand writing can be turned into text.  
2. This will allow you to save the notes for later and make them more readable and able to be enlarged.
6. Give students clay and ask them to close their eyes and practice molding the sculpture just using touch.
7. End class with a discussion about how just using touch helped and hindered the process, allow students to explore the difficulties and create connections with the activity and the students in the class.