Inclusive Education Journal

Week 1: There is only one IPP in my classroom, and it is not a behavioral one but rather a physical one. It is for a girl who has spina bifida, and details the extra help that she may require.

Week 2: Spina bifida is from the Latin for “split spine,” and is a developmental birth defect involving the neural tube. An incomplete closure of the embryonic neural tube results in an incompletely formed spinal cord. Additionally, the vertebrae overlying the open portion of the spinal cord do not fully form and remain unfused and open, which allows the abnormal portion of the spinal cord to stick out through the opening in the bones. My student is very mobile, and only uses arm crutches once in a while. She wears braces on both of her legs and walks with a prominent limp. This student also has a severe (and completely unrelated) allergy to latex, so she has to make sure that she doesn’t touch any rubber erasers or things like balloons and band-aids.

Week 3: Since I didn’t have any behavioral IPP’s, I decided to choose one behavior problem to deal with hypothetically. I chose Attention- Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, because I always hear the abbreviation for it but don’t know much about it. It also seems to be more commonly diagnosed in recent years than from when I was young, so I’m interested in learning why that may be.

ADHD is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder that typically presents itself during childhood. It is characterized by a persistent pattern of impulsiveness and inattention, plus a hyperactivity component. In layman terms, kids with it act without thinking, are hyperactive, and have trouble focusing. They may understand what’s expected of them but have trouble following through because they can’t sit still, pay attention, or attend to details. These symptoms are present over a longer period of time and occur in different setting, impairing a child’s ability to function socially, academically, and at home. ADHD tends to be a chronic disorder and can continue throughout adulthood, but with proper treatment people can successfully develop coping mechanisms and learn to manage their symptoms.

Week 4: For week four I looked at different methods of treating ADHD. Of course there are medications available to help treat ADHD, but there are also non-medical treatment plans such as behavioral therapy. This approach requires an experienced therapist or educator to teach specific techniques geared toward the child and their parents, as well as the child’s teachers and extended family. Unlike medication, this method takes more time, needs to have goals where achievements are measured in small steps, and requires consistency throughout the day.

There are several types of medications used to treat ADHD. First of all there are stimulants, which are the most common and include drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Dexedrine. They work by increasing dopamine levels in the brain, which is the neurotransmitter associated with motivation, pleasure, attention, and movement. This increase in dopamine helps to boost concentration and focus while reducing hyperactive and impulsive behaviors. A major concern with this type of drug is that the long-term impact on young, developing brains isn’t known yet. If stimulants don’t work, then non-stimulant medications such as antidepressants and blood pressure medications are tried. A common one is Strattera; it boosts the levels of norepinephrine, which affects parts of the brain where attention and responding actions are controlled.

Week 5: This week I researched the various way of working with children who suffer from ADHD without using medication. Parents, teachers, and the children will need help in developing techniques for managing the patterns of behavior. In these cases, a mental health professional will counsel the child and the family to help them develop new skills, attitudes and ways of relating to others.

I don’t know how inclusive my practicum school is because they have a separate behavioral problem class in division one that runs on its own time table and thus is quite detached from the regular goings-on of the school. There are only eight students in this class, yet there are two full-time teachers in case one or both of them have to deal with a situation. There is a padded room where they sometimes have to restrain a student. Not surprisingly, all of the students in this class are boys. The following are some techniques that one of the teachers of this class told me about:

· Instead of punishing wrong behavior, set a reward for the correct behavior you would like to see. Rewards should be immediate, as frequent as possible, powerful (something that they care about), and consistent.

· Plan ahead. Give warning before transition, discuss in advance what you expect, and have the child repeat the terms he agreed to out loud.

· If a child’s temper flares, allow time for everyone to cool off before trying to discuss what happened.

· You need to be willing to negotiate on some things and not be inflexible; compromise.

· Divide large tasks into small steps, and praise the child as each step is completed.

· Routines are very important, so make them and stick to them.

· Choose your battles!

Reflective Journal

Entry 3

I have discovered that teachers don't seem to have much personal time! Most days I leave my school close to 5 o'clock. I'm either getting things ready for the next day or helping coach volleyball. Then during the school day your time is taken up by supervision and clubs and meetings! There are all sorts of unplanned surprises that can throw a curve ball at your lesson plans for the day, such as a kids Grandfather showing up out of the blue to read some stories to the class, or a school-wide play put on in the gym, and assemblies and field trips and so on. And on top of that you have short meetings with parents, marking, reports cards, and parent-teacher conferences! So the professional life of a teacher can really interfere with the personal life in terms of free time.

Entry 4

My school isn’t very technologically advanced. There is an overhead in my classroom that I have used occasionally, mostly in math. There is also a small TV up in the back corner of the room with a VCR/DVD player, but I have never seen it used. Its positioning is awkward as it is behind the desks and up high on the wall, so students would have to crane their necks to see it. The school has an aging computer lab that they are hoping to redo with money raised by the parent’s association. It can be hard to get into as the schedule is fairly full, and my class gets half-hour blocks so that doesn’t give us much time. The principal at my school is currently looking into and pricing out Smart boards, but to get the money and the boards installed will probably take another year or so. I wish there was a projector attached to my teacher’s computer so I could show a power point or a video clip, but I guess that will come with the Smart boards.

Entry 5

My school is located in Millwoods, which has quite a large recent immigrant population. Nearly half of my students are of East Indian decent, and two of those have both moved here directly from India. The rest were all born in Canada, but their first language is still what is spoken at home (Punjabi for the most part) and not English. So for most of them, the first time they encounter English is at school whether it be playschool or kindergarten, and then they don’t get any help at home practicing English which can make it difficult to learn properly and efficiently. Parents are often unable to assist with homework because they can’t understand it, so students lose one of their most valuable resources; their parents!

Entry 6

Some strategies, process, games and tools that worked for me:

• Giving very clear instructions
• Group work if well structured
• Strategies such as think/pair/share, literature circles, discussion groups
• Getting to know the students personally has helped with connecting and communicating with them
• Math manipulative tools
• o Fraction circles
• o Thousands cubes, hundreds flats, ten rods and single cubes
• Giving clear expectations for an assignment: this usually involved showing a discussing a copy of the rubric I would be using to mark with. This leaves no room for the students to think of excuses as to why they didn’t do what they were asked to do.
• Jeopardy works great! Kids love it!
• Passing a ball around as a study tool: if you catch it you need to say the answer to the question and then pass it on.
• Playing music throughout the day at various times, like in the mornings when the students enter, after lunch while they read and any other time when they need a pick-up.
• Moving around throughout the day, getting the students up and out of their seats
  

What doesn’t work:

• Yelling at students
• Expecting quiet and sitting still all the time
• Giving unclear instructions
• Getting frustrated or showing anger/defeat
• I have to watch how I word questions because the students would get confused easily sometimes
• Starting a unit where the text book thinks students should be. I’ve learned to start really easy to see where everyone is at and then you can go from there and adjust your lessons.

Reflective Journal

Entry 2: Physically, the desks in my class are divided into half. On one half of the room there are three rows of three desks side-by-side, while the other half has three rows of two desks side-by-side and a row of single desks sideways facing the desks grouped in twos. I have a pretty good group of kids, so classroom management isn't a huge issue. There are still the normal problems of kids talking when I'm talking or when a classmate is talking, but there aren't any major concerns. I usually just use wait time to get their attention and it is working better for me now that I have talked to the class about showing me the same respect that they would to any other teacher. One of the important issues between the teacher and students that I have noticed is homework. I think grade fives aren't used to having to do much, if any, homework. They don't get very much right now, but often the little bit that they do get itsn't finished. Students have all sorts of excuses, like they forgot to take it home, or forgot it at home, etc. This is a constant struggle that sometimes involves the parents because each day at the end of the school day the students write their homework in their agendas and they are supposed to get them signed by a parent.

Reflective Journal

Entry 1: My grade five classroom has twenty-one students; 10 girls and 11 boys. There are seven students for whom English is a second language but they have gone to school in Canada their whole lives so are for the most part fluent. One student recently moved to Canada from India, and even though her spoken English is understandable, her ability to comprehend meaning seems to be low. Most students seem to be from middle to upper-class families. They are well-dressed and fed and parents show interest in their children's school work.

Inclusive Education Journal

My main concern about inclusive education is... not knowing enough about student's behaviour problems and thus not knowing how to deal with inappropriate behaviours.

My plan for addressing this concern while on my practicum is...

Week 1: Talk to my teacher about which students need extra help in my classroom and read their IPP's to become familiar with their issues and problems.

Week 2: Read about any specific diagnoses discovered, such as autism or ADHD. Learn about the kinds of behaviours I can expect to encounter with these students and how to appropriately deal with such behaviours.

Week 3: Discuss with my teacher different approaches she takes to dealing with problem behaviours and see how they vary from what my research said. Decide on the best plan of action for myself for a variety of situations so I can be somewhat prepared (I realize I will have to deal with unexpected problems too).

Week 4: Ask what kind of support the school or school board offers for student's with IPP's. Speak to the person in my school responsible for supporting inclusion and ask for advice on how I can react appropriately to different behaviours. Compare this conversation to my research in week 2 and my discussion with my cooperating teacher and see if there are any differences.

Week 5: Ask the inclusion specialist for suggestions/advice on how best to work all students into my lesson plans.

Week 6: Have the inclusion specialist observe a lesson that we had previously discussed and then ask for feedback and areas where I could improve.

Week 7: Use the advice given to me by my cooperating teacher and others to try out new strategies that I haven't implemented yet.