Archives: General

The claim

General education teachers can accurately refer students for special education services.

The facts

General education classroom teachers play a key role in the identification process for students with disabilities. Researchers such as James Ysseldyke have found that classroom teachers are highly accurate in referring students who later are officially identified with a disability. This week’s post will focus on factors that play important roles in a student’s referral for special education services: school/district curriculum expectations, school demographics, classroom practices, teachers’ perspectives, and students’ characteristics.

State/district curriculum expectations

Teachers are now required to adhere to strict curriculum expectations paired with more stringent assessment requirements. These curriculum expectations can play a role in when and whether a student is referred for special education services in a number of ways:

• A greater focus on early intervention enables teachers to address students’ difficulties as early as possible in order to increase the chances for students’ success in later grades.
• General education classroom teachers play a key role in the delivery of curriculum in which students are to demonstrate learning.
• Teachers’ role in teaching state curriculum has been recently complicated by changes in educational policy that has impacted how general education classroom teachers view referral guidelines for struggling students. For example, new grade-level expectations require that students demonstrate academic skills at or above their benchmark level. Students also need to demonstrate adequate yearly progress in reading, writing, and math. These curricular challenges pose problems for struggling students and force many teachers to make referrals for special education services when students cannot meet these requirements.

School demographics

Schools’ demographic characteristics also can influence referral of students for special education. For example, many smaller rural districts face challenges such as a lack of resources for students and an inability to cover the costs of preparing students for state-mandated assessments. Schools with large student populations and those without programs that address struggling students’ needs or early intervention are more likely to nominate students for special education services.

Research has also found that in schools or communities with higher poverty rates, teachers are less tolerant of student misbehavior. This highlights the important role of the classroom teacher for classroom practices, instructional strategies, and treatment of students, and how demographics can influence teachers’ perspectives.

Teachers’ perspectives

As we’ve just seen, general education classroom teachers’ individual perspectives can create a variety of conditions that may encourage or deter referral of a student for special education services:

• Teachers who have a more demanding instructional style tend to set higher expectations and push students to meet them.
• Some teachers have a more student-directed view of curriculum and may be more patient with students who have difficulty with classroom practices and curriculum expectations.
• The growing diversity of school communities has forced teachers to face the reality of addressing the needs of students from diverse cultural, ethnic, and class backgrounds. For example, in a previous post, we presented findings that showed that African American boys were more likely to be identified with severe emotional disturbance and mental retardation in affluent, large white communities, but not in communities where at least 30% of the population represented African-American families. As a result, it may be easy for teachers to overlook the students who actually need assistance due to their focus on issues such as race and culture.
• Some teachers’ ideologies may negatively affect students’ level of motivation and desire to excel.

It is easy to see how teachers’ perspectives can be influenced by demographics and curricular expectations, and in turn, greatly influence their classroom practices.

Classroom practices

The ways in which teachers organize classroom practices are related to factors such as pressures to cover mandated curriculum or to prepare students for assessments, school demographics, and their individual perspectives. All of these factors are reflected in the skills and confidence a teacher brings to the classroom, as well as the different instructional practices that need to be managed in a diverse classroom.

Teachers are more likely to feel they have accomplished something positive when they can implement classroom practices that they regard as “good teaching.” This is accomplished when teachers feel they can teach students the content they need to know, while at the same time providing a learning experience in which students can grow and mature both intellectually and socially.

Classroom management strategies are often used by teachers to establish supports for the academic and behavioral success of all students. All students benefit from effective classroom management. However, many teachers find it is even more critical for students who are at risk for poor academics or for students with behavior problems.

Student characteristics

Student characteristics may also influence a classroom teacher’s decision to initiate a referral for special education services. Students’ inattention, misbehavior, and gender are the factors teachers have traditionally identified as reasons for making special education referrals. For example, many teachers have reported that male students who misbehave are more likely to be noticed and referred for special education.

More recently, teachers report using five major criteria for special education referral:

• student inattentiveness
• requiring constant assistance
• inability to apply information learned
• inability to complete tasks, and
• students’ demeanor, disposition, or attitude of not wanting to learn.

It’s clear that classroom teachers consider students’ academics and inattention as important factors when making referrals, but there are also social reasons such as peer relationships that some teachers target when considering referral for behavior reasons.

Conclusion

This week’s claim depends upon the specific situation, but the general statement should be regarded as fact. Research supports the claim that general education teachers can accurately refer students for special services. Certainly each classroom, teacher, and student provides unique differences where accurate referral of students for special education services might not occur. But the important message in this post is that even general education teachers, not certified in special education, can help the referral process of their struggling students.

Next week’s post will continue the discussion on the issue of referral for special education. I will provide some helpful suggestions and tips for teachers when it comes to referring students for special education services.

The claim

Students with disabilities do not benefit from the use of technology in the classroom.

The facts

Many teachers adhere to the common myth that students with disabilities cannot benefit from the use of technology in the classroom. In fact, the opposite is true: Students with disabilities can not only benefit from the use of technology, but they often thrive on it. Research shows that incorporating the use of technology in the classroom helps students with all kinds of disabilities.

One of the reasons offered for this common misconception is that students with disabilities don’t have the ability to use the technology themselves or to understand it. As a result, they cannot benefit from technology. However, this assumption is itself a myth: Research shows that most students — even students with disabilities — are typically far more technologically skilled than their teachers. Often, teachers simply underestimate their students’ ability to use the technology. When this happens, a critical opportunity for these students is lost simply because their teachers underestimate students’ abilities. It is important to note that not all students with disabilities will benefit from the use of technology: Students with more severe disabilities might lack the ability to benefit from particular technologies. But overall, the use of technology should not be dismissed so quickly.

Technology in the classroom has a variety of applications. It can be used to help students improve their writing skills, reading skills, and overall academic motivation. Students with disabilities can use technological tools to help improve their reading and writing skills just as easily as their typically developing peers. Here are some helpful ways to incorporate technology in students’ writing.

LEARN NC

LEARN NC has a terrific set of resources for teachers to explore on a wide variety of subjects. One of LEARN NC’s collections, “Best of the Web,” provides links to web resources that have been reviewed for quality and educational appropriateness. On the LEARN NC home page, click on “Best of the Web” in the left sidebar, and then click on the “technology” link listed alphabetically in the tag cloud. The search results consist of a massive amount of resources covering all types of material and subjects. You can browse keywords like biology, engineering, art, even North Carolina. This is a great resource for teachers linking technology and content in the classroom.

Word processing software

Technology as simple as a word processing program is often overlooked in discussions of educational technology, but word processing software can help students by providing immediate feedback on things like misspelled words and grammatically incorrect sentences. In addition, this technology can be used to provide ways for students to substitute alternative methods of writing.

VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a free software program that captures voices, photos, and links while sharing information and opinions on a particular topic. It offers a technological substitute for typical written papers. VoiceThread allows students the freedom to design their own projects and narrate accordingly.

Bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is a terrific technology that helps students organize their thoughts graphically and electronically. It can be used to help brainstorm ideas or even organize papers. It is easy to use and helps engage the students in the content of the assignment.

Prezi

Prezi is a great technology for presenting information to the class or even for students to use themselves. It is an alternative to the more-commonly-used PowerPoint presentations. I find it more engaging than the typical presentations as it creates a sense of adventure for presenting the material.

PBworks

PBworks is a hosting service that allows users to set up personal wikis. Wikis are simply collaborative web pages used to display and edit information. They also offer a very handy way for teachers to display lots of information in one space. You can set up a wiki for each teacher or even for each class in a school. This allows students to log on and access all of the available course information. Students can also interact with the teacher and with each other by posting messages or concerns.

Wordle

Wordle is a creative website that helps classes brainstorm or develop a graphic display of associated words in specific contexts. You create this graphic by typing or copying a specific paper, paragraph, or series of notes into Wordle. The website produces a sort of collage of the most common words in the highlighted text. It is a great resource for presentations or to get students started with assignments.

Conclusion

This week’s claim is almost certainly fiction. Although there are some circumstances where a student’s severe disability might negatively affect his or her ability to use technology in the classroom, most students with disabilities absolutely can and do benefit from technology. Incorporating technology in the classroom increases students’ motivation to learn and gives them ways of displaying their knowledge that is innovative and effective.

The claim

Pacing guides are ineffective when dealing with students with disabilities.

The facts

Teachers today often face significant amounts of pressure from school districts to cover specific material in order to provide students with the best opportunity to succeed in standardized tests on specific subjects. This pressure is often stressful and even overly demanding for teachers to follow, especially with a wide range of student learning abilities. One specific tool used throughout classrooms across the country and worldwide is Pacing guides.

Pacing guides are standardized lists for planning learning objects into units. They also assign specific amounts of time to be spent on specific learning objectives, often specifying number of days or even hours and minutes in some circumstances. Different school settings have different ways of forming of these pacing guides; however, the majority of pacing guides are formed through a collaborative effort amongst teachers, counselors, and even administrative personnel. It is through this collaboration between professionals that pacing guides should be developmentally and age appropriate and encourage the input of teachers in the classroom. These pacing guides should typically be used by all teachers teaching the same subjects in a school in order to assure that all students are learning the same material.

Although pacing guides are widely used throughout school systems, they spark some controversy as to how effective they actually are. Do they hurt students and teachers more than they help? Much of the criticism of pacing guides begins with the issue of pressuring teachers and students to cover everything required in the suggested amount of time. This restricted amount of time brings about concern for teachers because, as previously discussed, students learn at different rates. Students with disabilities are of specific concern for these pacing guides: Because these students may struggle to master the material as quickly as their typically developing peers, remediation of instruction is often deemed necessary.

The following are some claims, positive and negative, associated with pacing guides that are described in educational research. It should be noted that these are just observations from the literature and not necessarily applicable in all cases.

Positives of pacing guides

• group learning objectives into units for evaluation
• allocate time to each unit
• create a sequence of units in calendar format
• structure classroom curriculum
• cover material included in end-of-grade tests
• give students a structured outline of the class for reference
• through collaboration, highlight the most important material in subjects
• well thought out and organized
• make lesson planning easier on teachers

Negatives of pacing guides

• time restrictive
• provide no room for leeway
• too rigid
• do not consider different learning rates
• may not allow time for remediation
• take away from creativity — both student and teacher

Conclusion

According to the research, the claim appears to be fiction, if pacing guides are implemented appropriately in the classroom. When teaching students with learning difficulties, remediation is a vital part of student mastery of material. Therefore, pacing guides can be appropriate only when they include time for remediation. Although not all students will need this remediation, it is imperative that students with difficulties get this extra attention to detail in order to learn specific material. During this remediation time, alternative assignments can be given to the students who do not need the remediation, allowing them to still be active in the classroom and perhaps even take part in peer tutoring.

In order to be effective, pacing guides also need to be well organized and detailed, while still leaving room for change, restructuring, and creativity on the part of both teacher and student. Teacher creativity is vital for job satisfaction and students should be encouraged to be creative with their work. Restructuring should also be a key aspect to an effective pacing guide because there are times when some material will not appeal to students as much as other material. Pacing guides should be able to incorporate this variable by being adaptable to allow for more time on topics of interest while sticking to material appropriate in the curriculum.

Although certainly not a foolproof tool, pacing guides can be very effective in classrooms, even those with students with disabilities. It is critical, however, that these guides are appropriately formed and implemented, taking into consideration the different learning rates of students. Overall, it may be difficult and stressful for teachers to use pacing guides, but it is not impossible and should be considered as a potentially valuable resource.

To get started with our discussion of special education, let’s consider this important (and basic) question: What is different about special education?

The claim

Teaching students with special needs is the same as teaching regular students — you just give them less work that is easier to complete.

The facts

The term “special education” means specially designed instruction created to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability. Most students with learning and behavior problems have access to and are required to learn the same curriculum as general education students. Therefore the part that is special about special education should be in how something is taught and not what is taught. Many teachers have an idea that students with special needs require something different than their typically developing peers. Unfortunately the kind of instruction most often used, even in classrooms containing students with special needs is not entirely different at all.

Just what should that “something different” look like? Researchers such as James Kauffman and Daniel Hallahan have been examining the ways in which special education classrooms are different than regular education classrooms.

• First, the pacing of instruction should be adapted to meet the needs of individual students. Some students learn at different rates than others whether they have special needs or not.
• Secondly, the intensity of the instruction is often different because students may need repetition of material, or extended time in lessons to learn the same concepts as their peers.
• Next, you need to be relentless — never giving up and trying new interventions or strategies until something works for a student.
• Another difference is classroom structure. To be successful behaviorally and academically, students with special needs require a higher level of classroom supports and structure — clear expectations, specific instructions, and posted schedules or rules.
• The need for specific and consistent reinforcement is yet another characteristic that sets special education apart. Students with special needs are often taught with lower student-to-teacher ratios than most regular education students. The individual attention provided during small group or one-on-one instruction provides many opportunities for teachers to modify the pacing and intensity of instruction. Often, students with special needs learn better using an alternate curriculum that has been specially developed with specific learning deficits in mind. For example, many reading programs provide leveled books at various reading levels so that teachers may modify the curriculum to better meet students’ needs. Along with changes in curriculum, teachers often engage in progress monitoring or assessment more regularly with students who struggle academically or behaviorally. Daily timed readings can provide insight into students’ reading growth, daily behavior checklists, and weekly assessments can provide valuable information to teachers so that instruction can be adjusted if students do not master key concepts or ideas.
• One final thing that sets special education apart is collaboration. Special and regular education teachers, related service personnel (occupational, speech, or physical therapists), school counselors, and parents work together to provide supports for students to ensure academic and behavioral success.

Conclusion

This week’s claim is fiction. Although what is taught to students with learning and behavior problems is more than likely the same as regular education, the way they are taught looks much different. In fact, most teachers find that using these same strategies with their entire class often helps all of their students learn.