Placement Learning Portfolio

Reflections on Learning

Placement is an incredible learning opportunity and a place to grow as an EA. The placement has helped me expand my familiarity with different disabilities and disorders as well as issues related to disabilities. It has given me the opportunity to support various students with exceptionalities in different classroom settings and get exposed to different behaviours, problems, personalities and environments. It allowed me to learn and adapt my approach to certain situations. I have dealt with students with ASD, cerebral palsy, brain tumours, ADHD, challenging behaviours, etc. The placement has significantly shaped my attitudes and beliefs toward students with disabilities. It changed my expectations towards the ability of students with disabilities to benefit from inclusive instruction. It enhanced my personal creativity to work on removing barriers as well as setting goals. I learned how to research for different resources and use them to assist students to overcome their disabilities. It taught me how to work collaboratively with students, teachers, and parents to make a collaborative educational team. It taught me different terminologies and labels used in the educational field. I have shared special moments with students and staff in the classroom, gym, recess, lunch and even with bus staff. I gained new traits such as flexibility, patience, compassion, resilience and empathy. It showed me different teaching philosophies and approaches. Placements have increased my curiosity and made me eager to learn more. Every time I leave the placement, I leave feeling happy because I learned something new and feel that I have successfully supported students to enjoy their life. Finally, placement taught me that supporting students' needs can be accomplished across a range of program areas like academic, personal care, social, and behavioural.

SMART Goal #1 Reflection

The SMART goal I aimed to accomplish was finding teaching and learning strategies that aid a student with ASD in working independently and being on track despite their developmental delay. The process started when I was successfully able to use my learned strategies to build the student’s self-esteem and confidence. One of the strategies was to classify the student’s mood by zone (blue, yellow, green or red) and to help the student move to the green zone where they feel good, able and ready to work. During the process, I quickly learned that the student is a visual learner, so I had to adjust and use a chart that includes the four zones with images for each (pictured below). Another strategy was to use a visual daily schedule to improve the student's ability to transition, follow the daily timetable, increase their flexibility and promote independence and confidence. Chunking the work into simple parts was also a great strategy and encouraged the student to work independently. The student successfully achieved the goals we set on time. Accomplishing the goal encouraged me to do more research and attend workshops to better my knowledge and learn new skills. Minimal change in applying strategies was needed to accomplish the goal, although there were some obstacles. In the beginning, it was hard to make the student listen to instructions and follow the rules, and building a relationship was not very smooth.

Evidence of Goal #1

Some of the evidence of accomplishing the goal includes the interest shown by the student when completing their work, especially on time. The student also chose the reward they preferred by themselves and transitioned easily between tasks during the day, which also can be considered evidence of accomplishing the goal. Additionally, the student's recognition of the difference between zones (pictured below) is strong evidence of their progress.

SMART Goal #2 Reflection

The second SMART goal I aimed to accomplish was how to include students with exceptionalities in class activities using modified curriculums and assistive technology. The process started with interviewing parents and collaborating with teachers to set a plan to help include the student in class activities and specify the student's needs. Since the student has visual impairment, they required simple tools to participate in class activities.The tools includes noir glasses and a pocket magnifier. Both tools help make words clearer for the student and motivate them to read instructions. The tools are compact, easy to use and safe. Also, the braille translation software was easy to use for accessibility and helped to convert the class work to a braille file. This file was then sent to the student’s iPad and helped the student participate in class activities. The teacher was also able to modify the curriculum before adding it to the braille translation software. Paper sheets with big simple words were used to help the student concentrate and focus. One challenge we ran into was that one of the tools we wanted to use was expensive and required time for the school to order and receive them. After doing some research, we found equivalent tools that were readily available and much cheaper, so we decided to use them instead in order to shorten the wait time for the student. Overall, the student is progressing very well and improved in various areas. Since incorporating the modified curriculum and the assistive tools, the student began showing interest in being in class and always has a smile. My SMART goal is almost accomplished, but not fully, so as an EA I would like to keep working with the student to achieve the goal. Additionally, I would like to use more online resources to accomplish the goal on time.

Evidence of Goal #2

Using the modified curriculum helped the student to be able to work and feel included rather than feel segregated and helped ease the process of following the instructions to finish tasks independently.

The student's ability to sort the big bear toy to the corresponding colour (pictured below) independently is great evidence of their progress.

Accepting Feedback

Placement is an incredible learning opportunity and a place to grow as an EA. Everyday holds a new experience, it is a wide world to learn new skills. Only once on my first day of placement, in grade four, I shadowed a teacher helping a student with ASD and she was giving instruction to the student many times and the student was not listening to her, I tried to talk to the student to pay attention to the teacher,s instructions, when the teacher told me that too many instructions can confuse the student. I realized that I should only observe the teacher and never get involved unless she asked me to do so, so immediately I understood and apologized to the teacher and this incident was a lesson for me on the first day of my placement and never happened again. Generally my own experience in my first placement was great as I always get positive feedback from teachers, SERT’s and students. One of the students I helped wrote a card for me to till me that she likes to work with me. I always feel invited and the professional invitation is always sent by the people, the place and the program. In the future, I will always apply all the feedback, tips and advice and remember to be professionally inviting to students, the team I work with, and importantly the parents. I will keep instruction with less words and try not to confuse students, as well as never interfering or breaking in others comfort zones unless they ask for help. I will accept any advice as well as ask questions to support students best needs. I will accept all challenges and behaviours as a gift needs to be prompt not to be eliminated as I now understand that every all behaviours are communication and mean something.

I have received great feedback and compliment from SERTs and team that I worked with during my placement. I was told that they are grate full to have me as a placement student and due to my work ethic with them in the placement they sent over a recommendation letter to the Manager Educational Assistants in the HCDSB school board, to have my any time at there school.

This is a coding robot called Ozobot, It can be used for students with low vision to enhance their colour coronation, as it changes colour depending on the marker line colour. I have used it with the student with low vision and it was fun and taught the student the colours while playing.