Design Experiment 4

PBWorks

I am not sure I have understood wikis in general before now. If you Google a definition, a wiki is a website that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by its users.  I need to add “a templated“ into this definition before website. I now understand each wiki has a different template which applies to various areas. 

I really like the format of PBWorks and its potential for distributing assignments to my students. PBWorks provides an opportunity for a course outline, assignments, and activity tracking. I love that it also allows you to add another writer to add to the course as well. Several other formats have been a problem for teachers in my school who are not self-contained.

Based on my specific student population (students with significant disabilities), I would be excited to provide specific videos which support my students’ learning. Each day we watch several videos, none of which apply to all students. Because my classroom is made up of students from 1st – 5th of various developmental levels, some students must watch videos about knowledge they already have and some must watch videos well above their current learning level. These videos range from the alphabet, to the sounds of the letters, to the parts of a sentence, to counting by 5.

This wiki would be a great way to distribute learning. I can give my students a number of ways to obtain the knowledge they need to obtain their goals, not just individualized per student, but giving them options of different videos per topic. This way, they could use one or all of the videos I assign to learn a topic. This format really excites me!

Design Experiment 3

I will be honest, I have always associated Khan Academy with upper level middle grades and beyond. I have led my personal children to this site more than once. Therefore, I was blown away with what I found. I started by looking at the K-12 section (alarmed at that breakdown - what does Kindergarten have in common with seniors in high school?).  I then went to the counting section. Wow! Khan Academy has lessons on counting! There was a video, and a practice session. In addition, the practice session has a "hint" for each practice question. The scaffolding given to the learner is great. If you miss a question, the program suggests you watch the video. 

From a behaviorist standpoint, the program also gives points and badges. The points and badges allow you to build your character. The program also gives ideas and printables to help teachers to utilize the points in a reward system.

I love that Khan is proud of its status as a free resource and pledges to be so. I also appreciate teachers being able to track students. I will totally be utilizing this program in the future! The ability for my students who struggle to control their scaffolding and for me, as a teacher, to set up their learning, makes this a great asset. 

Design Experiment 2

I found Edmodo to be easy to use, but not as versatile as the Pearson Learning Studio. I was unable to find a audio recording ability on Edmodo, while I have used an audio recording system on Pearson. In honesty, I have become concerned about the far reaching control Pearson seems to have in education, it is hard to not defend it against other products. I know many groups of teachers have attempted to use Edmodo as a communication/idea sharing forum, but without an instructor to push the conversation, the forum went unused after the primary question/answer session. I appreciate the Pearson Learning Studio (used by the university) allows for easy a.udio and written responses and attachment and access to many other formats. This allows for the instructor to reach a variety of learning types, whether learners prefer writing, audio, or even drawn output, Pearson allows all of these formats to be turned in. These affordances support a variety of learning styles.

Design Experiment 1

Google Docs

Google Docs is an incredibly versatile tool. In addition to surveys and votes for staff, Google Docs allows special education teacher to create weekly information requests from their students' general education teachers that are quick to fill out, traceable, and automatically put into spreadsheet from. Tests can be created for your class, and automatically put into spreadsheet form. What a quick and easy formative assessment!

Google Hangouts

When I teach a group of teachers this summer, I feel this would be a great tool. While I am teaching, this could be an open forum for questions, comments, and concerns. In a classroom, some classrooms have a "parking lot" where students put questions for the end of class. In a tech-friendly classroom, this could be the equivalent...in a quick and easy format. This app could become the exit ticket of the future.

Google Earth

Many students seem to have a good grasp on the Social Studies concepts of neighborhood, city, state, and country, however, my students really struggle with this. The vocabulary word 'apartment'  came up recently. The student looked up the word in the dictionary and had looked up pictures on google images, but still did not understand. The perplexing thing is, this student lived in an apartment. So, using Google Earth, I pulled up this student's apartment. In a stroke of luck, his mother's SUV was parked in front. I was able to show him the apartment and the path he took each day to school. I could not have done this before Google Earth without planning, cost, and permission forms. This made the concept relevant and real to him.

eJournal 6

I will be using video, for one, based on affordances.  Instructing other teachers who hold the same position I do, makes me feel a need to show my classroom in action early in the presentation.  Anyone can state they are doing a great job or claim they have extensive knowledge in a subject area, but showing this expertise is much more effective.  Since it is not feasible for these teachers to see my classroom in action themselves (especially since the training is during the summer), video is the next best method.  

In addition, I am planning to use a real-time polling program (most likely polleverywhere) to quickly assess how comfortable my audience is prior to moving on.  I will also use a real-time response software for questions the audience is not comfortable asking aloud.   I have not previously utilized these types of programs, however since this is a one time, short time span class, I feel these would add value to the course.  

eJournal 5

I am fairly certain I have never had to list all of the instructional strategies I use in any given day.  This leads me to question if it is normal to plan for so many in a 2.5 hour class.  I find that most of my strategies overlap, so the list seems less excessive.  However, I still tilt my head at the length of the list.  So, here it is:

Intro:
Comparing similarities and differences (differentiation in general ed and special ed)
Connect to prior knowledge/learning (IDEA)

Hook:
Giving students examples (my classroom videos)
Use of media/videos (my classroom videos)

To best explain these needs in our classrooms:
Addressing student learning styles
Considering Multiple Intelligence
Differentiating Instruction

The rest of the time:
Active Participation
Checking for understanding
Cooperative Learning
Demonstration
Direct Instruction
Feedback to student
Formative Assessment
Guided Practice
Lecture/presentations
Nonlinguistic representations
Note taking by students
Use of technology
Use of visuals
Whole group instruction

Ending:
Summary/Closure

I am worried that since I have never presented to adults for this length of time (I have given a behavior presentation each year, for the past 4 years, during professional development to my school for about an hour.) I am overestimating the amount of information I can cover.  I do know that in any given 2.5 hour time, with 11 students (each with different goals and objectives) I probably use at least this many strategies, but don't know how that will relate to an adult presentation.

1) motivation: how will you engage and motivate your learners to learn?

I plan to use personal stories, videos of my classroom (yes, I will have parent permission), data showing the jumps in academics I have seen in testing, and videos of my students over time (I record students performing objectives prior to each ARD for their parents and have many students over years.).

2) prerequisite and subskills: what is that they will learn and in what order?

What differentiation looks like from an goals/objectives standpoint, in small groups, in large groups, and individually.

3) practice and feedback: how will you know that they have learned it? and how will you let learners know whether they’ve learned?

I will ask questions and receive feedback in real time (although only by percentage), I will have an open, real-time question/answer board that I can answer during breaks and small group time.  I will monitor small group work and answer individual questions.  I will provide take away materials to support the use of the instruction.

eJournal 4

I write a great deal of goals and objectives for my students, but I have never written goals and objectives for adult learners, or for a presentation that lasts for only a few hours.  I am not sure I am 100% happy with these yet, but here they are:

Following active participation during presentation, 80% of learners will be able to describe and define differentiated instruction in life skills classrooms and demonstrate that knowledge by:

• providing the three important variables (what the student knows, what the student needs to know, and how the student learns best).    
• identifying the characteristics of the three basic learning styles by determining the learning styles of the people in their group.

Following active participation during presentation, 80% of learners will be able to demonstrate steps necessary to successfully plan differentiated instruction in life skills classrooms by:

• accessing free assessment products online that could be used for summative assessment  OR identifying the summative assessment tool they currently use.
• demonstrating an understanding of the connection between summative assessment and goals/objectives by successfully creating at least one objective from a (provided) completed assessment.
• demonstrating an understanding of needs of students based on learning styles by correctly identifying the best types of activities for each learning style.

                                                                                     
Following active participation during presentation, 80% of learners will be able to demonstrate steps necessary to successfully differentiated instruction in life skills classrooms by:

• creating a whole group differentiated lesson using a provided lesson plan and provided student profiles.
• creating a small group differentiated lesson using a provided lesson plan and provided student profiles.

eJournal 3

I thought after days of researching (and many, many articles printed) that I had learned nothing at all.  I will say I have learned a great deal, but nothing about the demographics of teachers in Texas who teach students who spend >60% of the day in special education (PEIMS 44).  With a number of different class names (Life Skills, Life Class, Functional Academics, Adapted Learning Environment, Moving Toward Independence are just a few I know of), it is difficult to search for this class type.  I had the best luck when using the PEIMS value of 44.  I have learned, at this point in time, the Federal Government has allowed states to determine the student:teacher ratio.  I have learned there are many terms for the statistic I am looking for - class size, caseload, workload and pupil-teacher ratio.  I have learned that Texas has decided to leave this ratio up to districts.  I have learned Region Service Centers across Texas have attempted to help determine a maximum value for special education classes, based on a number of values, including the PEIMS values of the students.  I have learned this is a recommendation, and not a binding value.  I have learned the fact that the state allows districts to determine the class size of students with a high percentage of time spent in special ed, districts do not have to report the value.  So, basically, other than what I have seen, I am unable to truly determine class sizes are getting larger.

Additionally, because all special education teachers are created equal (at least in terms of demographics in Texas), I am not able to gather accurate demographic data concerning age, number of years of experience, number of years in special education, or gender.  I am not 100% sure where to go from here.  If you have ideas, I will run with them.    

ETEC 578 eJournal 2

A simple Google search leads to many articles and papers which talk about increased student:teacher ratio which has occurred over the last several years.  These papers refer to the increase in general, bilingual and special education.  I have searched extensively for student to teacher ratios in special education, but in reality, even if I could locate the information, it would not be specific enough.  I would like to know the student:teacher ratio of only low-incidence population classrooms.  I know, from talking to other teachers who teach these students, that our populations have grown.  Even 5 years ago, it was rare to hear about classes with 10 students in them and now many are.  My current class has 11 students.  We appear, at meetings to be a tired bunch.

Since the instruction I would like to design would be for specialty training situations, specifically the Life Skills Boot Camp for Region 10  I feel the teachers who sign up to attend the training, during the summer, would be more open to ideas than groups of these teachers at the district level.  I also understand that as a group, we have a lot on our plates.  I think the extent of material being transferred to other settings is my major concern.  The reason that I want to design this instruction is to better the education quality of the students, so if I fail to design the instruction so that it is not transferred back to the classroom, the design is flawed.  I have considered this and feel my instruction will need to include examples of how to find materials to add to the student helping books, via internet searches, an extensive list of sources of specific materials that can be added, and a number of printed (take it and copy it to your heart's content) pages of common, useful pages that students might need.  I feel my best chance of convincing other teachers to try this method in their classroom is basically to turn it into a make and take.  

Other ideas I have considered for this design that I feel would be effective is video of students using their books, video of parents talking about the pride they feel at their child's independence, and data showing growth over a year when students have used this method.  I understand that my delivery will have to be passionate, but honestly, I think I have that part covered.  :)  

I hope these were the types of things you were looking for as far as learning context for today.  

578: eJournal 1

I intend to design a professional development course to give special education teachers (especially those who teach low-incidence disabilities) the knowledge to implement a classroom program that gives students the tools to help themselves.

Although I am not certain the course has never been designed before, the practice of students' with significant disabilities helping themselves is not widely practiced.  In the past, lower student populations allowed for teachers to provide more individual support (whether this is for the best of the student I will gladly debate at another time).  The increase of student:teacher ratios in special education has created a greater need (and, perhaps, a reason for teachers to listen to an alternative idea) for students to help themselves.

The increased student:teacher ratio in special education is also causing increased student:teacher ratio in general and bilingual education classes.  The culprit is decreased funding.

The majority of decreased educational funding can be linked to the recession of 2007-2009.  As the economy declined, many districts suffered.  Locally, many home foreclosures caused a decrease in home values which resulted in less property taxes being collected by school districts.  According to a February, 2014 article from disabilityScoop, this decrease in local funding is not the only problem.  The article states that the original 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (often referred to as IDEA), Congress committed to funding 40% of the cost of special education but has never paid more than 18.5 percent.

I think the 5 Whys technique led me down an interesting, but perhaps irrelevant path.  I do not feel this is a flaw in the process, but perhaps my answer to the second why.  While increased student sizes have resulted in teachers need for an alternate method, I think the answer could also have been teachers of students with significant disabilities should work to teach independence and self-reliance, which will serve these students for the rest of their lives.  This may have changed the path to a more relevant outcome.