Posts Tagged special needs
Special Education Teachers – Creating a Good Lesson Plan For Your Students
Among the thousands of teachers in America, one particular group in this profession deserves to be recognized more than the others – they are the special education teachers. They are a group of specialized teachers who work with students of special needs that not every teacher is able to teach. If you are one of these teachers this article is to help you create a lesson plan for your students.
If you are a special education teacher you are probably having trouble creating a lesson plan for your students. A special education lesson plan is an educational technique or teaching method that is made specifically for students of any age group that have some disabilities.
Now, the lesson plans do vary depending on the student’s disability, its extremeness and the student’s age. The main goal of the lesson plans are to prepare the students to function on their own, to master certain minimum skills to help them, and to help them build and support social competencies. All of these things are important but the number one importance of a special education lesson plan is to help the student and their family to lead normal and problem free lives.
Some of the topics a special education lesson plan covers are math, language, arts, science, music, computer and internet lessons, P.E., social studies, health, etc. The plans cover pretty much every subject that those in a regular class are learning but the material is changed to suit the students.
The best subject for those with a disability is music, dance, and any other art form. These subjects help students with disabilities to relate to the lessons which directly enhance their learning process. Also, reading, writing and any public speaking should be encouraged by the special education teacher as it will help the students in the long run.
As long as you have a well thought out lesson plan you will be able to enhance the student’s feelings and responses, the student’s reasoning ability and reading skills, create a sense of fulfillment in the student, promote the student to communicate, help the student to achieve motor control and physical wellness, etc. Hence, it is most important for any special education teacher to thoroughly plan out a well thought lesson plan as this will enable and enhance the learning process of these special students.
If you have no idea on how to create a good lesson plan, you can get some references and information on the internet, in books, and in articles. Do not just take the lesson plan and use it but modify it to suit the individual student.
Being a special education teacher is one of the hardest things you could do but is also one of the most fulfilling. With a good special education lesson plan you are able to accomplish so much in making the student’s life the best it can be.
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Special Education Law – Overview
Many of us, who went to school not that long ago, remember that being a special needs student meant riding to school in a separate bus and attending one class with other children of varying disabilities. These classes resembled more of a day care than school, and even the most advanced students had little hope of receiving a high school diploma, let alone attend college. Since that time, the term disability, and special needs student, has expanded to encompass much more than a person with an IQ below a certain arbitrary standard. What I have attempted to do in my first article is to give a little history of the evolution of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
In 1954 the United States Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) which found that segregated schools were a violation of equal protection rights. It would be another twenty years before this concept was applied to children with handicaps, especially learning disabilities, trying to receive an education. In fact, shortly after Brown was decided the Illinois Supreme Court found that compulsory education did not apply to mentally impaired students, and as late as 1969, it was a crime to try to enroll a handicapped child in a public school if that child had ever been excluded.
Due to court challenges in Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia in the early 1970’s things started to change. In 1975 Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. This was the first law that mandated that all handicapped students had a right to an education. Not only did it mandate that all handicapped students had a right to an education, it also mandated that local educational agencies could be held accountable for not doing so. Shortly thereafter, the term handicapped was replaced with “child with a disability”. Although revised in 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the most comprehensive changes came in 1997. This law required schools to identify children with disabilities to make sure that all children have available a “free appropriate public education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living” 20 U.S.C. ยง 1401 (d). Unfortunately, the most recent changes in 2004 made the law slightly more difficult to receive the benefits they deserve, which, depending upon the next administration and the make up of Congress may or may not be a trend that will be followed in the future.
Exactly what is a “free appropriate public education”? Under the law, it is defined as “special education and related services that (A) have been provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge: (B) meet the standards of the State educational agency; (C) include an appropriate preschool, elementary or secondary school education in the State involved; and (D) are provided in conformity with the individualized education program required under [the law].” In other words, the school must provide services that meet the needs of a child with a disability that may affect their ability to learn. These “related services” can be services that are provided in the classroom, such as giving the child extra time to finish taking tests. They can also encompass services that can be provided outside of the classroom, such as tutoring, or having the child attend either a day or residential program outside of the school, along with transportation.
For the historical data, I relied on Wrightslaw: Special Education Law by Peter W. D. Wright and Pamela Darr Wright and Special Education Law in Massachusetts by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education.
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