Teacher’s Name: Janelle Blue
School Name: Moody Elementary – White Hall School District
Teaching Grade: K, 3, 4, 5 – Self Contained
Teaching Subject: Math, ELA, Literacy, Science, Social Studies
How many students are in the class? 11 students
What technology is available? Chromebooks
Teaching special education, especially self-contained special education because these are the students that could be nonverbal, very autistic, or just have a serious learning deficiency. Technology is a big assist when dealing with a wide range of students with disabilities because the technology can “teach” or review with the students over the lessons they have been over and/or are struggling with. That way, the teacher can focus more one-on-one with students that do not understand technology and cannot complete lessons via technology.
Mrs. Blue stated that a problem in her class was initially that everything was based on paper assignments. Mrs. Blue has recently advocated for her classroom and got Chromebook for her students. She stated that since getting them, more papers are turned in on time and in a neater form. Because her students have special needs, not a lot of her students have legible handwriting, so by having them type answers or do their work via online games, she found that it is a lot easier to grade assignments and also assign work.
There were also students that Mrs. Blue described as not always being in the mood to do paper work. While this seems mind blowing to students in general education that had no choice but to do their paper work, special needs students are different and require different methods of teaching such as teaching via
Mrs. Blue stated that with special education, you must be flexible. Not every student can complete work with technology, but some can. Some students, when having a bad day, only want to play educational games or do their “fun” activities online. A teacher, especially in the field that Mrs. Blue is in, must be able to accommodate the needs of their students. If you cannot learn to work with your students, your student will not work with you.
Teacher: Mrs. Janelle Blue – Moody Elementary, White Hall, AR – Special Ed. Self Contained
Issue: Mrs. Blue often faces the problem of not being able to assist all her students at once. A lot of her students require serious attention when it comes to completing assignments. Teaching special education is difficult because you will have students that range from nonverbal autism to just a speech impediment that is keeping them behind in their general education class. When she is having to aid another student, Mrs. Blue does not like to have to worry about how her other students are preforming Sometimes it is necessary for Mrs. Blue to depend on other resources to help her make sure her students are succeeding to their best ability.
Technology To Be Used: - - - TeachTown (TeachTown - Log In) ABC Mouse (ABC Mouse: Educational Games, Books, Puzzles & Songs for Kids & Toddlers) Book Taco (The foundation for lifelong reading)
Proposed Solutions: Tool no. 1: TeachTown There are many instances where children that have autism, especially those that are nonverbal or are very close to it struggle to perform well on a day-to-day basis. While Mrs. Blue is having to assist some of her other students, it is important that these children are still learning the information that they need to be learning to succeed in class. TeachTown offers a fun alternative to learning when a student is unable to do paperwork or successfully complete work without the assistance. By using this website, Mrs. Blue’s students along with Mrs. Blue will not have to worry about falling behind in class or on their work. This alternative allows for more fun options that can cater to the needs of Mrs. Blue’s students and allow them to do well and keep up with their peers. Without TeachTown, Mrs. Blue would have to worry about assisting her students with autism one-on-one and would not be able to assist her other students in the classroom.
Tool no.2: ABC Mouse ABC Mouse would be useful to Mrs. Blue’s students because like TeachTown, it has educational games and videos that allow for Mrs. Blue’s students to work independently while Mrs. Blue works with other students in her classroom. ABC Mouse would be better utilized by students that are higher functioning and do not need as much assistance as someone with severe autism. For example, if Mrs. Blue had to help with a student that required on-on-one attention, her other students, those that do not require as much one-on-one assistance, would be able to do their work independently. It is important that her students have something that will give them some challenge. If Mrs. Blue solely used TeachTown, her students that were high functioning, would not be as challenged and thus would not reach their full potential that they might be able to achieve with ABC Mouse.
Tool No. 3: Book Taco Book taco is important for all of Mrs. Blue’s students. Many of them cannot read due to their mental setbacks and while they might be able to sound out words with enough time, they have specfic goals set for them throughout the year. For example, Mrs. Blue set a goal for her students to read and test over fifteen books in a week. While this does not seem like a big deal to students in general education classes, it is difficult for these students to be able to read that many books and comprehend what they are reading. By utilizing Book Taco, Mrs. Blue’s students can listen to a book being read to them, comprehend the book, and then successfully take a test over it to reach their goals. This is important because it makes the students feel like they can be successful no matter what they are going through. No student wants to be looked down on because they cannot read as well as other students or comprehend what they read as well as others.
Assessment: It is very important while there is work that keep students entertained to complete their work, it is also very important to have some type of ability to test their students. I think a couple ways of successfully testing her students, Mrs. Blue can have assessments on Book Taco, but she can also assign quizzes on Kahoot or Quizzez. Both Kahoot and Quizzez give students multiple chances to get the right answer while also testing their ability to comprehend and remember the lessons they have been taught. It is important that while these students are being tested on their knowledge, they are still able to have fun and enjoy themselves. These assessments have fun background music and also creative colors and backgrounds that can keep the students entertained while learning.
Subject: Reading Grade Level: Self Contained 3rd-5th
Introduction: This lesson would be to help students learn to comprehend different reading assignments. There are many students today that are not able to efficiently comprehend reading excerpts to take a quiz or an exam after reading it. A lot of this is due to COVID-19 stunting the academic challenges provided to students during the 2019,2020, and 2021 school years. If students are unable to comprehend reading stories, books, excerpts, poems, etc, many students will find that they will struggle later in life whether in their career or maybe just in everyday life. By utilizing these different websites, students will be able to improve their comprehension skills in the classroom and at home.
Curriculum Alignment: These websites would align with the Arkansas English Language Arts Standard 3.RC.1.RF: which states that a student will be able to understand and comprehend reading materials. It follows the knowledge constructor ISTE in that the students are finding different ways to help further their knowledge in reading comprehension. Since students are using different website to encourage different ways to learn reading comprehension, they will learn to be versatile in their learning strategies.
Technology: - TeachTown (TeachTown - Log In) - ABC Mouse (ABCmouse: Educational Games, Books, Puzzles & Songs for Kids & Toddlers) - Book Taco (The foundation for lifelong reading)
Activities: Tool no. 1 (TeachTown): There are many instances where children that have autism, especially those that are nonverbal or are very close to it struggle to perform well on a day-to-day basis. While the teacher is having to assist some of her other students, it is important that these children are still learning the information that they need to be learning to succeed in class. TeachTown offers a fun alternative to learning when a student is unable to do paperwork or successfully complete work without the assistance. By using this website, the students along with the teacher will not have to worry about falling behind in class or on their work. This alternative allows for more fun options that can cater to the needs of the students and allow them to do well and keep up with their peers. Without TeachTown, the teacher would have to worry about assisting her students with autism one-on-one and would not be able to assist her other students in the classroom.
Tool no. 2 (ABC Moususe): ABC Mouse would be useful to students because like TeachTown, it has educational games and videos that allow for the students to work independently while the teacher works with other students in her classroom. ABC Mouse would be better utilized by students that are higher functioning and do not need as much assistance as someone with severe autism. For example, if the teacher had to help with a student that required on-on-one attention, her other students, those that do not require as much one-on-one assistance, would be able to do their work independently. It is important that her students have something that will give them some challenge. If the teacher solely used TeachTown, her students that were high functioning, would not be as challenged and thus would not reach their full potential that they might be able to achieve with ABC Mouse.
Tool no. 3 (Book Taco): Book taco is important for all students. Many of them cannot read due to their mental setbacks and while they might be able to sound out words with enough time, they have specific goals set for them throughout the year. For example, the teacher set a goal for her students to read and test over fifteen books in a week. While this does not seem like a big deal to students in general education classes, it is difficult for these students to be able to read that many books and comprehend what they are reading. By utilizing Book Taco, students can listen to a book being read to them, comprehend the book, and then successfully take a test over it to reach their goals. This is important because it makes the students feel like they can be successful no matter what they are going through. No student wants to be looked down on because they cannot read as well as other students or comprehend what they read as well as others. All three of these websites could be utilized to help teach students about reading comprehension and how to strengthen their reading comprehension skills. They would give them excerpts to read or will allow them the option to have the website read to them and then provide a small test at the end.
Assessment: It is very important while there is work that keep students entertained to complete their work, it is also very important to have some type of ability to test their students. I think a couple ways of successfully testing her students, the teacher can have assessments on Book Taco, but she can also assign quizzes on Kahoot or Quizzez. Both Kahoot and Quizzez give students multiple chances to get the right answer while also testing their ability to comprehend and remember the lessons they have been taught. It is important that while these students are being tested on their knowledge, they are still able to have fun and enjoy themselves. These assessments have fun background music and also creative colors and backgrounds that can keep the students entertained while learning. It is very important that the students are still being tested for the knowledge that they have retained. Even though they have special needs and fall behind in general education classes, it is still vital that they are still learning and are still being treated like normal students. Students must be pushed to their full potential even when it gets hard or it does not seem fun anymore. Through the utilization of Quizzez and Kahoot, students can still be tested even when it gets hard because Quizzez and Kahoot almost give off the vibe that they are a game or a fun activity.