Module 5 (Chapters 12, 14, 15)

In chapter 12 I learned about the importance of motivation. There are many things that motivate students. Some are external motivators like rewards and grades and affirmation from peers and family members. Other motivators are internal like the want to succeed, pride in work, self-worth and confidence, etc. One thing that stood out to me was that students who typically have a lot of self-motivation can be deeply effected by emotions, anxiety, and other distractions like problems at home or how they are feeling. As a teacher, I think it is important to meet a child's emotional needs before meeting their academic ones. Even if you have the most motivated student ever, but they are having anxiety and stress, their work will also suffer and they will lose motivation. (pg. 451)

In chapter 14 the topics of direct instruction and differentiated instruction are discussed. (pg. 531) Direct instruction is not something I am fond of, although, I know that in some situations, it is best to teach material directly. The times it is best to use direct instruction is for teaching basic skills and also explicit knowledge. I have not seen direct instruction very much in my placement, but I have seen a lot of differentiated instruction. In special education classes, differentiating instruction is something that takes place almost all the time. For example, the teacher I was observing was teaching about whether an animal is a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore. Instead of teaching each student this information the same way, she would say the information differently for each student or use visuals for some and text for others. When I am a teacher, I hope to be in a small enough classroom so that I will be able to teach information to all my students on an individual level so that they can  learn in the way that fits them best.

In chapter 15 the issue of standardized teaching was hit on. Before I get into that, I want to talk about grading rubrics. Something that was very rewarding for me to see in my last observation placement was when I taught my cooperating teacher about rubrics and how giving students what they will be graded on before they are handed the assignment really helps them know what they need to do and motivates them to do well. She implemented this strategy into her classroom and gave rubrics for her projects and papers and saw her students respond really well. Their grades improved and she had less questions about how to grade them and why students received the grade they did. (pg. 560) Standardized tests are something that I feel like most teachers hate, but know that they are needed in order to get funding for their schools. I personally do not think that standardized tests are the best way to show a student's knowledge, but I know that they are needed to show that students are learning and gain funding for schools. (pg. 576)

Module 4 (Chapters 9-11)

For this blog post, I am not going to focus on chapter 9 because that chapter was really focused on in my concept map, quizzes, and online discussions.

In chapter 10, I really appreciated the emphasis on student ownership of learning through the constructivist views of learning. I think that having student choice and input throughout the learning process really helps students to find meaning behind their education and learn material better and retain it longer. I also liked how the chapter described the constructivist perspective being applied in education. By applying this type of learning through problem-based learning, students find real solutions to real-life problems and I believe this helps them apply what they have learned to their real lives. Reciprocal thinking is another way to apply knowledge and help students understand and think deeply about what they have read.

After taking the communication and collaboration class at Trinity, I found it interesting the difference they said there is between collaboration and cooperation. Woolfolk describes collaboration as how we deal with people and relate to others. Cooperation is more about how we work together with one another to achieve a goal (pg 373).

In chapter 11, I learned about the difference between self-efficacy and self-concept. Before reading this chapter, I would use those terms interchangeably. After reading this, I learned that self-efficacy is future oriented, self-concept is a more global construct that can include self-efficacy. It's more about "Can I do it?" than "Are others better than me?" (pg. 405.)

This chapter also had a major focus on self-regulated learning. Woolfolk says that self-regulated learners engage in analyzing tasks, setting goals and designating plans, engaging in learning, and adjusting their approach to learning. So far, I have not seen this take place in my placement, but they are starting summer school next week and I am hoping to see more self-regulated learning take place rather than sticking to the curriculum and depending on their aides so much.

In the future, I hope to help teach my students explicitly how to become self-regulated in order to teach them independence and help them become better goal setters and achievers outside of the classroom as well.

Classroom Management Teacher Interview

For my classroom management option, I interviewed my mom, Jodi Bordenaro, about her views on classroom management and some other interesting questions I got from a list complied from other people taking this course. Click HERE for a link to the video.

In this interview, a few of Mrs. Bordenaro's answers directly reflect the things I read about in Woolfolk. For example, what she says about her school-wide policy for giving students Mustang Money as a token reward (pg. 264). Also, she spoke about things from earlier in the book like incorporating student's culture into the classroom and her lesson planning (pg. 230).

One of my favorite parts of her interview was when she talked about the importance of going through scenarios in your head about how you would manage all sorts of classroom management issues because you want to spend as much time possible teaching and not dealing with those on the spot. I also loved how instead of punishing her one student for being distracted or a behavior he is showing, that she sends him with a special job in order to refocus him and avoid the behavior completely. I love her proactive approach to classroom management. I think this is a good example of cueing the student away from the behavior by proceeding it with something to distract away from the behavior (pg. 255).

Overall, I really enjoyed doing this interview with my mom and I think she had some great things to say and advice about classroom management. I have observed her teach and I see her putting a lot of these strategies into place. It was a wonderful experience to hear her thoughts on this subject. I felt it really went along well with what I have been learning in this class.

Module 3 (Chapter 7)

After reading chapter 7 in Woolfok, I learned a lot about the Premack Principle (pg 258) and the different types of reinforces and ways in which we discipline our students. The Premack Principle is also referred to as "Grandma's Rule" which means "if you do what I want, you can do what you want after." I have seen this rule set in place in many of my placements including the one I am currently at. One of the students walked in and said, "Can I have my 3 minutes of ball time (self-stim time)?" The teacher responded, "Sure, but first, I need you to finish this worksheet and start this project, then you can have your three minutes." I feel that this principle is effective, but also manipulative.


As an ED major at Trinity, I hear the term "positive reinforcement" ALL THE TIME! In the SPED/ED community, it generally carries a positive connotation. It was not until this semester when a professor of mine gave me a scenario and asked me how I would solve it that I realized I didn't really know what positive reinforcement was. I said I would solve the problem scenario with positive reinforcement and he asked me for an example of what I would actually do and I could not respond. I now know that it means strengthening a behavior through presenting a desired stimulus after the behavior is shown. (pg 251) An example would be giving a student a sticker after they raise their hand without shouting out in class.


I also found the information on Applied Behavior Analysis (pg 256) very interesting since ABA therapy is such a huge deal right now in the Autism community. I have heard of and know one family who pays a lot of money to get their child ABA therapy. I wonder if special education teachers will have to be trained on this and required to teach their Autistic students with this method one day? I am very interested on learning more about this type of therapy. It might be a career field to look into as well...


A quote that I considered from the restorative justice article was this:



"Our schools are places where harm happens, and it can happen at many levels. How do we handle this? Zehr suggests that we go to the Bible to search for the answer to justice and wrongdoing. If our Christian schools seriously want our children to live and learn what it means to be a disciple, we must take a long look at our current discipline practices and assess what we are teaching our children about love, grace, and forgiveness." -Nathan Siebenga


As a Christian, I find it SO important to be an example to my students of God's love. I want to show my students his love and grace through my teaching. A major way to do this is through the ways I interact with them as I have to be an authority in their life and potentially discipline them.

Module 2 (Chapters 4, 5, 6)

One thing that stuck with me from chapter 4 was the information about Autism and Asperger Syndrome. As a special education major who is very interested in Autism and someone who has worked with students who have Autism, this section of the book was very intriguing to me. I did not love that Woolfolk defined students with Autism as "not forming connections with others," and "don't share feelings of enjoyment or interest in others." (pg 154) No one person with Autism is the same and I know more than one person who has Autism that I not only have a "connection" with, but I would say, a relationship. I also have observed them feeling joy, and also being interested in the feelings of others. They just might not have been as good as expressing that verbally or in a conventional way. That description was a bit frustrating to me. I also really enjoyed looking at this chapter after having taken an IQ test and reflecting back on my elementary years of being in "gifted" classrooms. I never identified myself as "gifted" or thought I was exceptionally bright, but reading this chapter really brought back memories of some of my accelerated classes. I wonder if they were really that beneficial to me?...

Chapter 5 was all about language diversity and development as well as immigrant education. One thing that stuck with me from chapter 5 was refreshing myself on the stages of language development and some of the strategies and approaches to bilingual and ELL education. (pgs 116-117) After having just taken middle grades literacy at Trinity, these topics were fresh in my mind. I had never really thought much about the different approaches to teaching ELL students or how language diversity and development can really affect immigrant's in the school system, or how I would approach that in my classroom. I think I have learned that a lot of best practices used to help student with special needs who struggle especially with communication can be some of the best ways to differentiate for ELL students as well. I had never really heard of sheltered instruction though. I learned that it is a way to teach content to ELL students by putting words and concepts into the context to make the content more understandable. I had heard of contextual learning, but I had never heard it called sheltered instruction before. I think this is a great strategy.

Chapter 6 focuses on culture and diversity. The classroom that I am aiding in is not only diverse in ability (since it is a special education classroom), but it is also rich with ethnic diversity. Goodings Grove has a high population of Muslim and Polish students. Both of those ethnicity are present in the special ed population in this classroom. I also aided in a 2nd grade classroom while the main classroom I was with was on a field trip. In this classroom is a boy who recently moved to the district from a town nearby. He is a Polish immigrant student with an IEP who struggles speaking both English as well as Polish. He receives services for ELL and speech, but he has no diagnosis even though he has obvious social skill and aggression issues. His mother does not want him in the "small classroom" or isolated from his "normal peers."  Based off of my interactions with him, I would say that he has an obvious case of Autism. The 2nd grade teacher and special education teacher agree, but he cannot be tested or diagnosed without the mother's approval. I cannot imagine this boys struggle in school with the culture shock, language barrier, and disabilities he is dealing with without much support. I don't know this mother and I do not want to judge her. I am confident she believes she is doing what is best for her son, and who knows, maybe she is, but after reading these three chapters, I come to the conclusion that we need to be doing our best to meeting student's needs at whatever level they are at, and by not having a diagnosis, this boy is unable to receive all the services he needs...

To end, I love what Wollfolk said in chapter 5 when she said, "You can't choose personalities or parents for your students..." (pg 233) How true is that? And despite not being able to choose those things for our students, we can just do the best with what we are given and try our best to have them leave our classrooms having made progress. Students are more resilient than we think and I like to believe that no matter how small the impact that my influence in their life may have, it is still an impact and hopefully a positive influence.

Module 1 (Chapters 1-3)

One concept I read about in this week's reading from chapter one that stuck with me was the concept of the teacher-student relationship (pg. 7). It stated that there is a strong association between the quality of the teacher-student relationship and school performance. Also, behavior problems among students early in school are less likely to have problems later in school if they have good relationships with their early year teachers. I have observed the special education classroom I am observing for this course before and it has many of the same students in it that it has had in previous years. Since the teacher has the students for many years in a row, they are able to build a great teacher-student relationship and I can see the trust and respect they have built for each other over this time. In my future teaching, I hope to build these types of relationships with students whether I have them for one year or multiple years. I think that having this relational support in the classroom helps students in their development and proves that teachers can make a difference in student's lives. One important way that I plan on supporting student learning in my classroom is through building relationships with my students so that they are more comfortable asking me for help and so that they can come to me with any issues that arise.

One concept I read about in this week's reading from chapter two that stuck with me was the concept of cognitive development and how to support it (pg. 42, 64). This struck me as important because I have researched Piaget's stages and his theory of cognitive development, but I like how this chapter talks about the implications this has on teaching. Many of the strategies shown to be most beneficial are just good teaching practices. I find this interesting especially after taking many classes at Trinity that teach strategies for many types of learners and students with disabilities. Most of these strategies that I have been taught can be used in classrooms to benefit all learners- not just ones with specific disabilities. I believe it is the same for supporting cognitive development-as well as all other modes of development- if you are using best practices and good teaching strategies, you will not have to worry as much about differentiating, because everyone can benefit from these practices.

One concept I read about in this week's reading from chapter three that stuck with me was the concept of identity and adolescents searching for their identity (pg. 90). The adolescent search for identity is something fresh in  my mind because I just took the middle grades course at Trinity and identity is something we talked about a lot. We talked about the characteristics of middle grade students and how they are in a stage of self-discovery and they are on a journey that requires a lot of questioning, critical thinking, and identity construction. Students can find their identity in many places; their race, ethnicity, religion, birth order, socio-economic status, gifts and talents, etc. Many students are given labels as soon as they walk into schools. Some are labels given by the school; such as, ESL, SPED, ADHD, etc. Some are labels given by peers, such as; geek, teacher's pet, goody-two-shoes, jock, etc. Adolescence is a time of self-discovery and deciding who they really are and what those labels really mean for them. In my student observation of this special education classroom, I can already see that these students are getting to an age where they want to fit in with their peers. One of the students hates going to special music and refuses to participate because he would rather just go to music with his normal homeroom class. He doesn't participate much in that one either though so they keep him in the special music class. I can see that this student already knows some of his differences and labels. After reading this chapter and reflecting, I can say that I will be more aware of the developmental stages my students are going through and I will be sensitive to them as they are figuring things out for themselves. I will also be sure to shy away from using labels to describe my students. They are people first and foremost, not their labels.

Context for Learning Description of School and Students

Trinity Christian College Field Experience Form

Context for Learning

Description of School and Students

School Name and City: Goodings Grove, Homer Glen, IL

Type of School: Elementary School

Setting: Suburban

1.    List any special features of the school or classroom setting (e.g., themed magnet, classroom aide, bilingual, co-taught with a special education teacher, pull-out program).

This classroom has 4 paraprofessionals and all of the students in the class are pulled out for therapy throughout the week. Sometimes there is push in occupational group therapy. There is one head special education teacher, but some of the paras helps lead groups and do individual work with students who need accommodations.

2.    Describe any district, school, or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations that affects the planning or delivery of instruction, such as required curricula, pacing plan, use of specific instructional strategies, or standardized tests.

               

The school has uses the WIN intervention plan. WIN stands for What I Need. From 1:00-1:30 each day, students are pulled out into specialist’s classrooms in order to receive special attention in areas of need. The school is a pilot school for the PARCC standardized test.

3.    For special education only: List any educators with specialized expertise in the school/district (e.g., specific disabilities, subject-specific pedagogy, English language development, speech therapists).

       

        Mrs. Heintz- Special Educator K-4^th.

About the Students in this Class

1.    Estimated percentage of students eligible for free/reduced lunch: 15.1%

2.    Grade level(s): K-4

3.    Number of

a.    students in the class: 5

b.    males: 3

females: 2

c.     English language learners: 0

d.    students identified as gifted and talented: 0

e.    students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or 504 plans: 5

4.    Complete the chart below to summarize required accommodations or modifications for students receiving special education services and/or students who are gifted and talented as they will affect instruction. As needed, consult with your cooperating teacher to complete the chart. The first row has been completed in italics as an example. Use as many rows as you need.

Special Education Category	Number of Students	Accommodations, Modifications, and/or Pertinent IEP Goals
PDD-NOS	1	Close follow up, resource room, OT
Down Syndrome	1	One-on-one, resource room, OT, PT, Speech
Blind & Autistic	1	One-on-one, resource room, OT
Autistic	1	Speech, resource room, OT
Learning Disability/Premature	1	Speech, close follow up, resource room, OT, PT

About the Class You Observed

1.       How much time is devoted each day to instruction in the classroom? Describe the class periods (if applicable)? Choose a content area of your specialty or major. How much time is devoted to teaching that subject?

All of the students start and end their day in a homeroom class. They go to their specials with that class as well. They are pulled out for various therapies and occasionally have group therapy. Other than those times, instruction is being given. I have observed a 30 minute period of science each day.

2.       Is there any ability grouping or tracking? If so, please describe how it affects your class.

N/A

3.       Identify any textbook or instructional program you primarily use for instruction. If a textbook, please provide the title, publisher, and date of publication.

The students all have individual education plans and there is a lot of differentiation that takes place. Most students are always doing something different that has to do with the same topic or subject but meets them at their level.

4.    List other resources (e.g., SMARTBoard, manipulatives, online resources) used for instruction in this class.

Board Maker, manipulatives, braille, IPads, online resources.

5.       What do you know about what your students know, what can they do, and what are they learning to do? What do you know about your students’ everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds and practices, and interests?

I have observed that the students in this classroom are working on their math facts, daily living skills, categorizing animals, visual tracking and perception, and gross motor skills. They know their animals, but are categorizing them into groups by if they are herbivores, omnivores, or carnivores. They know their math facts and can read some stories but are working on speed/fluency and comprehension.

6.       Describe one teaching event. What best practices in teaching were used?

I have not observed a ton of instruction, but I did notice a behavior chart in the classroom that I would consider putting a best practice to use. The teacher implements the behavior chart seamlessly into her instruction and it plays a huge role into keeping her students motivated.