EDSS 531: Educational Philosophy/ Model Integration

               After the class presentations of the eight teaching models: Inductive thinking, Attaining concepts, Scientific concepts, Scientific inquiry, Role playing, Memorization, Synectics, and Simulation overview; there are two that fit well with my teaching style and educational philosophy, which are the scientific inquiry model and attaining scientific concepts.

My passion for the scientific inquiry and attaining scientific concept model is rooted in defining the nature of science.  Science is the discipline where critical thinking and analytical thinking processes are required to excel in the subject.  Students must have great attention to details and at the same time be able to compare and contrast their observations.  Taking the information gained through observations, students must be able to organize the information using high order thinking skills to present the information in a concise, clear and understandable way. The scientific process also involves presenting the information discovered to others, teaching the findings or newer questions to others, to the community.  The scientific process is a lot like teaching! I found out during my clinical practice, that if I organize my lesson plans directly to the way the scientific process is, I am also using the higher order thinking skills that the scientific process end result.  The beginning of the lesson, the INTO, is designed to get the student to transition their thinking from whatever subject, topic or thought into the subject you are teaching.  The INTO is a lot like the scientific process of an introduction or surveying the area/background what you already know about a science process.  It focuses your thoughts on the upcoming subject.  The THROUGH is the hypothesis generation which focuses the scientist on the essential question needed to cover the topic.  A teacher must modify their lesson according to the students’ responses or the students’ feedback from the activities and ongoing assessment and progress monitoring. An educator must then test the students’ content knowledge much like testing a hypothesis to see if a certain teaching strategy was effective or not.  If not, the educator then adjusts her teaching style and strategy to re-test their hypothesis and arrive at a conclusion, which is the BEYOND portion of a lesson.

EDSS 541 RR30

The best practices for conducting an IEP Meeting:

1. Develop a common understanding of the student's strengths, interest and needs
2. Share information and observation of the student's behavior and learning in a variety of settings.
3. Understand academic and non-academic priorities for the individual student.
4. Plan measurable long term goals and benchmarks of short term objectives specific to the educational benefit of the individual student.
5. Develop a multi-factored evaluation including formal test results, current levels of academic and nonacademic functioning (social, emotional, and behavioral), written observations from teachers and test administrators and anecdotal records of parent perspectivies.
6. A statement of measurable goals and benchmarks of short term objectives related to meeting the student's academic and nonacademic needs that results from the student's disabilities.
7. Statement of program modification or support for school personnel that will be provided.
8. Explanation to which the student will not participate with non disabled students in regular classroom, extracurricular activities, and other nonacademic activities of the general curriculum.
9. Statement of individual modifications in the administration of state or district wide assessments of student achievement so that the student can participate on these assessments or explain on why the student cannot participate in any state or district-wide assessment or any part of that assessment.
10. A statement that indicates the anticipated frequency, location, and duration of any services and when program modifications will begin.

EDSS 541 RR29

The best practices for preparing for an IEP Meeting are:

1. Review student's past evalutaion and arrange meetings at appropriate times for all team members.
2. Provide sufficient advance notice of meeting date and time to students' parents.
3. Arrange interpreters for parents/grandparents if have a language, sight, hearing limitations.
4. Provide reliable data about the student's achievement, socialization, and behavior in classroom.
5. Provide input from the perspective of a knowledgeable, skillful general education teacher.
6. Be aware that some of the components of the IEP's implementation may be a part of your responsibility.
7. Know that the IEP binds a school district, not an individual,to the provision of services, to which the parties have agreed.
8. Don't worry that the student needs annual goals for all general education academic and performance areas.
9. Consider the IEP a confidential document available on a need to know basis.
10. Make sure each goal statement reflects measurable behavior meaningfully drawn from present performance levels and contains an appropriate time frame.  Don't depend on curriculum guides.

EDSS 541 RR28

The differentiation strategies that I would use to support Mwajabu in my Life Science class are:

Content:
Her strengths are in visual and experimental subjects, thus she will most likely enjoy demonstrations and the option to draw and present visual representations of the content processes versus writing and reading.

Process:
Activities involving visual stimuli (drawing, mapping and technology use) will be encouraged and allowed during cooperative learning groups to increase social and adaptive skills with peers.


Product: 
Pair Mwajabu with hearing partner during experiments to encourage improving her social skills.

EDSS 541 RR27

 Key information for Mwajabu that will inform educational goals and supports for her IEP include:

• Mwajabu lived her first 10 yrs in Tanzania, attended ungraded school
• speaks Swahili and tribal language, Second language English learner, deaf
• drawing outstanding, understands concepts through cartoon strips and communicates better through illustrations
• Peabody Picture vocabulary test-3 (PPVT-3) scored 11 years 5 months
• Photo Articulation Test-Revised (PAT-R) articulation errors in production of sounds /s/, /z/, /s/ blends, /r/, /r/ blends, and /l/; omits consonant sounds
• Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Upper Extension (EOWPVT-UE) scored at 10 yrs and 3 months, significant delay in expressive vocabulary ability
• Test of Language Development-Intermediate (TOLD-I) scored significant delays in all subjects, exception in Grammatical completion
• math is her best academic subject
• likes to read picture books and rather draw

EDSS 541 RR26

The differentiation strategies that I  would use to support Leanna in my Biology1 class are:

Content:
Provide one-on-one tutoring by a qualified instructor (myself or other science teacher) before, during lunch and after school. Needs repetition of new vocabulary words and vocab memorization strategies. Provide hands-on learning, manipulatives and demonstrations of science concepts as much as possible.


Process: 
Information and instructions for laboratory experiments presented visually and kinesthetically in small, sequential steps. Leanna would come to the demonstration/set up table and model each step from the experimental procedure before she would be allowed to work on the experiment.
Product: 
Allow Leanna extra time to complete assignments and provide her with my instructor lecture notes, encourage her to talk to her peers, provide modified rubrics and instructions if necessary for her.

EDSS 541 RR25

 Key information for Leanna that will inform educational goals and supports for her IEP include:

•  shy, hard worker, lacks social skills and close peer friendships
• WISC-IV, Full-Scale score of 64, consistent across domains indicate mild level of cognitive impairment: "Leanna demonstrates considerable difficulties dealing with tasks involving verbal comprehension and expression and those requiring the manipulation of concrete materials and visual-motor skills.
• PPVT-III, obtained age equivalent of 10 years and 9 months (lower average range for speech-language abilities)
• WIAT scores fall below 6th percentile
• unable to answer math problems involving more than one operation, contain extraneous information, or require money skills.
• adaptive skills below average
• difficulty with decoding strategies, does not make generalizations and inferences accurately, reading vocabulary at 3-4th grade levels
• spontaneous writing unorganized, simple sentences
• what she likes: walks, swimming, volleyball, basketball, computer, family, badminton
• what she dislikes: household chores, bike riding, reading, camping
• what she wishes she could do: puzzles, lose weight, draw, decorate, vacations, experiments, more time with family