Special Education for Teachers Teaching Mathematics - Literature review Example

Analysis of Studies: Applegate et al. reflect on the real causes of literacy failure in a highly insightful article. It is explored whether this failure springs from learning disabilities or teaching inabilities. There are no research participants in this article. However, the study is based on Mrs. Baxter who is introduced as a first-grade teacher in charge of students at a local school. There are no procedures used in the study. Rather, it explores a raging debate going on in Mrs. Baxter’s school. Results of the discussion identify that a solid match between the learner and the teacher is essential to avoid literacy failure. This study has significant implications for learning achievement and cognitive rehabilitation of students experiencing difficulties in acquiring new skills. There are no particular weaknesses in the study pertaining to research design, procedures, or sample size. It provides a very informative commentary on how a mismatch between a teacher and his/her students contributes to literacy failure. Teachers or literacy leaders need to be flexible in their approach and adjust their programs whenever required. However, the article professes that it is the delivery of a trite instructional program which should be blamed for preventing the desired effects in educational circles. This is a slight shortcoming because though reality is that the compulsive repetition of a program can subject students to boredom in the classroom, literacy failure does not depend on any one factor. Rather, it should be acknowledged that this kind of failure results from a combination of factors and the delivery of more of the same program is just one of them. Aydemir’s article is based on the special education teachers teaching mathematics. The purpose of the study is to explore these teachers’ take on delivering mathematics instruction and what methods they employ in their professional lives. It is stressed that for students with disabilities to live independently in society, developing numeracy skills in them should be a key objective of the special education. The participants are four special education mathematics teachers. The procedure chosen to conduct research is qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews, survey reviews, and open thinking are used as key methods to collect data which is analyzed later by content analysis method. Findings of the article indicate that mathematics is a subject which has gained a notorious reputation with students suffering from intellectual disabilities for being exceedingly difficult to comprehend. All teachers expressed this view that mathematics is a very important subject for students with learning disabilities because numeracy has practical implications in everyday life. Regarding the role of families, the research participants expressed that they greatly depend on families of students to make numeracy education successful. Families should have positive attitudes for mathematics education for students to succeed in class. The study provides implications for the future of special education in special reference to the subject of mathematics. It is demonstrated what needs to be done to bring students closer to this notoriously difficult subject and actually develop interest in it. The sample size of this study is really small which is a weakness because views of a limited sample group cannot be generalized to a greater population. The study remains short of describing or representing the larger population. Edgemon et al. (2006) comment on the importance of accommodations for students with learning disabilities in their article on large-scale assessments. The purpose of this study is to scrutinize how many types of accommodations are available to teachers and how they can select the most useful ones. Presentation, time, setting, response, and aids are five basic categories of accommodations available for assessments. This study is more of a literature review than a research based on participants. It offers guidance about how different accommodations can be used in different settings to help students with disabilities in the best way possible. It also offers myriad useful future implications for students with disabilities, but no research design, subjects, or procedures have been used to prove a point. It basically comments on what contemporary literature has to say on the subject of types of accommodations available for large-scale assessments. It is claimed that accommodations help disabled students to behave in the same way as their nondisabled fellow students in context of demonstrating knowledge independent of personal disabilities. The study lays emphasis on matching every accommodation to the needs of individual students. Students with disabilities cannot be helped if there exists a mismatch between them and accommodations. Testing students with and without the accommodation can help to identify possible presence of a mismatch. There are no weaknesses in this study which I could find. Rather, it provides a very enlightening commentary on how the quality of learning process for students with disabilities could be improved with the help of appropriate accommodations. It is stressed by King (2011) in her article that kindergarten talk or K-Talk is the way to go for teachers to help English Language Learners (ELLs) in schools. There is so much diversity in the present age that soon every teacher is bound to become a teacher of ELLs. This is why K-Talk model should be essentially seen as an early and useful academic intervention for ELLs. Four kindergarten ELLs form the participants of this research study. The usefulness of K-Talk model is attempted to be validated with the help of responses shown by these four students. Data is collected and analyzed in this study with the help of close monitoring and observance of ELLs during a Teaching English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL) lesson. Observation-based data collected from two areas, language acquisition and academic achievement, reveals that conversation in nonnative language is must to avoid literacy failure. The Pre-Language Assessment Scale (Pre-LAS) is used to assess language acquisition, while academic achievement is evaluated by parts of Clay’s Observation Survey. It is deduced that conversation helps to support the process of learning for at-risk children. The study has future implications for an age in which diversity and the number of ELLs continue to rise at a fast pace. King (2011) emphasizes on putting the talk or conversation in K-Talk model for things to work. However, the study’s shortcoming is that the merit of K-Talk model remains somewhat ambiguous as an extended instructional time can also affect program success independent of K-Talk. Simonsen et al. (2008) reflect on policies used by school administrators to control student behavior which is considered by many to be out of control. The purpose of the study is to tell right kind of policies from wrong strategies. It is emphasized that administrators nowadays remain so entangled in disciplinarian issues that they are unable to participate in instructional leadership on any level. Many times very strict kinds of actions are taken to control students which actually have zero effect on them. This is why SWPBS or schoolwide positive behavior supports is promoted as an effective tool to ensure desirable outcomes. This tool does not focus on forcefully customizing students, rather it seeks to close the ever-widening achievement gap in schools. It is deduced from the literature review that demonstration of inappropriate behaviors becomes strictly limited with implementation of SWPBS. This is because instead of giving help to students upon actually failing an exam, SWPBS does not wait for a student to fail or behave inappropriately in order to provide help. There is no research conducted in the study. Instead, the authors analyze how an anonymous school administrator established a SWPBS team to get desired outcomes when her frustration regarding a staggering number of discipline referrals in one year reached its zenith. Results of this case reveal that before implementing SWPBS, the administrator was virtually unable to become anything besides a disciplinarian. After implementing SWPBS, she met her desired objective by being able to become an instructional leader as well. Concluding, these articles about education offer a wealth of information from which anyone could benefit, be it a professional like an instructional leader or a student aspiring to build a career in special education. A solid bond between students and teachers is emphasized to prevent literacy failures. It is a very good piece of information because in absence of such a solid bond, teachers become frustrated and students suffer from boredom. The problem does not always lie within the curriculum or teaching methods used in a classroom. It happens so often in our daily lives that we hasten to blame either the teachers or the instructional program when really the failure results due to absence of a match between the instructor and his/her students. This idea is certainly new for me which has introduced me to \new horizons. This is because it holds the potential to convince other readers like me to look in another direction and perceive the subject of literacy failure in a new light. Also, another idea that providing students support and advice on time in place of exercising other tough measures to make them disciplined offers prodigious value. This idea is loaded with logic because it is commonly noticed that students tend to become more resolute or fixated on bad behavior when severe measures are adopted to warn them. References: Applegate, A.J., Applegate, M.D., & Turner, J.D. (2010). Learning Disabilities or Teaching Disabilities? Rethinking Literacy Failure. The Reading Teacher, 64(3), 211-213. Aydemir, T. (2013). The views of special education teachers about mathematics instruction in special education. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 106, 3133-3140. Edgemon, E.A., Jablonski, B.R., & Lloyd, J.W. (2006). Large Scale Assessments: A Teacher’s Guide to Making Decisions About Accommodations. Teaching Exceptional Children, 38(3), 6-11. King, K. (2011). Kindergarten Talk- An Early Intervention For English Language Learners. The Ohio Reading Teacher, XLI(1), 24-30. Simonsen, B., Sugai, G., & Negron, M. (2008). Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(6), 32-40. Read More