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.