Orthopedic Impairment Simulation (Wheelchair)

Being wheelchair bound was a lot harder than I expected, it was hard to maneuver around and hard to talk to people. One of the big things that I noticed was the way people looked at me was completely different than when I was walking around normally. I noticed that I got a lot of pity smiles and less people talking to me that normal. Being in the wheelchair was a difficult experience for me, and things that I had always taken for granted became very difficult. One of the things that I found to be the hardest was simply walking through doors, it was really a struggle to be able to get the door open first off and then be able to wheel myself through it as well. I now understand why the handicap buttons hold the doors open for so long because it took me almost all that time to actually get through the doors.
I also found somethings to be near impossible like using the bathroom and coming up a hill, these things were very difficult and helped me to understand more of what its like to be in a wheelchair. Since I was in the wheelchair I have also noticed that I have had more of a desire to help others that are in wheelchairs. I am also trying to find a balance because I know when I was in the wheelchair I was a little embarrassed when someone asked me if I needed any help, because I wanted to be able to do it myself. While I'm sure I do not completely understand what it is like to be in a wheelchair I feel like I can more fully understand what it is like and I also think that I gained some insight into how to more effectually help my students with orthopedic impairments.

Week of 6/22

This week we mostly focused on the different types of co-teaching. The types of co-teaching include, one teach one observe, one teach one assist, station teaching, parallel teaching, supplemental teaching, alternative, and team teaching. Then we also had the opportunity to use these different skills that we had learned.

We had the opportunity to teach our peers using the co-teaching skills that we had learned about. My group was being taught first, we began with a pre-assessment to see where everyone was at the beginning and then we were broken up into two groups based on our skill level. The teachers then modeled parallel teaching and team teaching. I was in the beginner group as we were learning to lead music and I don't know much about it. Two people taught us about the basics, while at the same time there was an advanced group learning more who were also taught by two people. We were then given a post assessment to see if we had improved or were ready to move up to the next group. This lesson helped me to better understand parallel teaching and demonstrated good team teaching.

My group then had the opportunity to teach, we decided to teach how to whistle through your hands. We also used a couple different co-teaching strategies, the main one we used was one teach, one assist where the person who really understood how to do it taught the whole group then the rest of us were around to help. We also used a little bit of alternative teaching where there were able to help one-on-one in different ways. This also really helped me to understand more about co-teaching, because between teaching and being taught I was able to be see four different teaching styles and come to more fully understand it through the example.

Week of 6/15

This week we spent a lot of time talking about things that are really hard for me to understand and to comprehend. These things are also very sad and aren't very fun to learn about. This week we learned about poverty and abuse.
We spent a lot of time learning about poverty and how it negatively affects the development and growth of students along with their ability to learn. I was not aware of how big of an effect poverty has on student success. This week I have come to understand that poverty causes major stress in families and students and that when students are continuously stressed out then their ability to learn really suffers and they become less successful. Also because of poverty children are less likely to see their parents and are less likely to learn from them. I also watched Dr. Mike Edwards video Saving Brains, A Grand Challenge which talked about how a having a relationship with parents where the students are offered support helps them to develop better. When families are in poverty they are a lot less likely to have that relationship. Because of these factors then the students are likely to be less successful.
We also talked about abuse a little and what our role as a teacher in that situation is. We talked about how if we learn about abuse first hand by a student telling us or seeing marks on the student then it is our duty as teachers to tell someone. We also talked about how if we are reporting first hand signs of abuse then we as teachers are protected. Today I also had an experience that made it very real to me, Brother Cloward came into my other class with him and told us that one of the practicum students had first hand been told about abuse. To me I hadn't ever thought much about it, but this helped me to realize that it does really happen and that it is our duty as teachers to help our students the best we can whether it be through abuse or poverty or whatever their specific needs are we should be there to help them.

Week of 6/1

This week we had some cool opportunities which helped me to learn more abut how I can best help my students and helped me to understand key concepts that can make me a better teacher. 

This week for our preparation work we learned about assessments and how to plan instruction based on the needs of your students. In class we had the opportunity to work together and find the links between these two things and how we can use them to help our students. We found that we wanted to use the results of the assessments to know how to best teach our students. We also talked about how when were are trying to have lessons that most help the students we will also be able to screen students and see if they are struggling a lot in certain areas and if the need to be tested for special education services. I found that these two things are related much more than I had expected them to be and that when you connect them we can help our students much more effectively then we would be able to otherwise. 

We also had the opportunity to look at a student who had been tested for learning disabilities and has learning disabilities. With this student we looked at how we could help him to be able to learn well and understand what he was learning and how we could help him to stay focused and on task. In our group we talked about how having the students have buddies could really help all the students to stay on task and especially our student with learning disabilities. We also talked about how hands on activities could help this student like using manipulatives in math, experiments in science and playing with instruments in music. Having hands on activities will help our learning disabled student to learn well and it will also ultimately help the other students to learn better. 

Knowing and understanding these things will help me to better understand how to help my students and ultimately become a better teacher.