Strengths and Weakness of Collaborative Consultation for Students with Disabilities - Coursework Example

Reflection on Leadership Project Reflection on Leadership Project The Reflection Cycle Select
 The experience I have selected is collaboration between teachers. I will address the competency of collaboration. Trinity Elementary School has 469 students in Grades KG-5. This makes the ratio of the students to teachers be 1:20. They only have four special education teachers for forty-five students with disabilities and twenty-five students with speech and language disabilities. Collaborative consultation is especially necessary in the current society in which students with disabilities are included in general class setting. Describe Strengths and Weakness The weaknesses surrounding the experience are the lack of enough teachers to serve the student population adequately. Trinity Elementary School experiences a shortage of staff, but they still manage to collaborate and provide the best learning opportunities. The people involved include teachers and students. From the interviews with both the assistant principal, the general education teacher Ms. Frank, and the special education teachers Ms. Pond and Ms. Field, it was evident that there was a shortage issue of special education teachers and lack of inclusive classroom’s programs. Since students in the inclusive classrooms have a disability therefore, they require teachers with knowledge and good understanding on how to handle students with learning disability. One of the main issues is the absence of resources to implement inclusive service delivery in the school effectively. One reason why the inclusive classroom lacks resources to effectively implement is that there was less staff trained in dealing with students who in need for special education in inclusive classroom. Some teachers who are trained to teach typical students how to read are the same teachers who are teaching the students with learning disabilities how to read and write because of the special education teachers have filled up schedules. In addition, these same teachers even teach other technical subjects such as mathematics even without the required qualifications or training required for special education. The strengths are that the school also has life skills, cross category, recourse, and three inclusive classes that help create awareness about students with special needs. In addition, it provides a favorable environment to allow both the students with disabilities and without disabilities to co-exist in a harmonious way. One major issue with this program is the gap in the public education sector that only equips school with reading teachers who are trained to teach the typical children. Therefore, they do not have enough teachers trained to on special education. The other teachers, especially these of the kindergarten from 1st to 5th grades usually take about 45 minutes during the day, every day to plan how to approach their duties. Those teachers of students with special needs are a little busier, so they can only find time once in a month to make their meetings. These teachers serve all grades, as there is not enough labor to do so. Their meetings usually take place during the weekends or after the normal working hours. This clearly shows the tightness of their schedules. Analyze I selected this experience in collaboration and understaffing because it relates to my teaching practice. I saw the extent that the teacher in general education collaborates with special education teacher. In addition, it provides information on inclusive classrooms and the challenges they undergo in serving students with disabilities and those without disabilities. One of the reasons of the creation of the inclusive classrooms is to provide special services for students with special needs while learning with typical students. The main required improvement in the inclusive classroom is to enable all resources to serve its purpose in a proper way. If this fails, then students will experience challenges in both learning, and transitioning into the next phase. There is an urgent need for additional special education teachers who are well trained in special education needs to take them on in the inclusion classrooms. The need is urgent because there is a likelihood of teachers rushing students with disabilities over lessons and the result will be poor learning outcomes. Although collaboration between teachers currently arrests the problem in Trinity Elementary School, there is the likelihood that it will affect negatively in the future. In addition, there is no mention of supervision for the collaborating teachers, and this may result in poor teaching practices. Appraise 
 Changes That Might Have Improved the Outcome Collaborative strategic reading is a requirement to achieve its goal in inclusive classroom. When dealing with students with learning disabilities, there is an intensive and systematic practice on how the strategies should be applied to the learning activities of the children (Causton-Theoharis, 2009, p. 37). To achieve this, there should be adequate support from teachers, peers and parents. However, in the inclusive classroom the most important person to implement this issue is the teacher. When the teaching staff is limited, or not properly trained, they might not be able to implement these strategies effectively. Firstly, the ratio of teachers to students should rise to ensure that all students receive adequate services in the most suitable way. Secondly, there is a need to develop trained teachers for special education services. From the findings, the school only has four special education teachers. There is a stringent need for close supervision and attention to children with disability requirements (Peebles & Mendaglio, 2014, p. 246). When they are in the resource class where they meet their special education teachers, they are taught those concepts that they did not understand when they were in the general classroom. Thirdly, there is a need to devote more time to a particular student to help them at personal level, with their writing, mathematics and reading skills. Since the teachers who take them through this session are few, it would be hard to attend effectively to all these students. The result is that, some students will go unattended or not effectively attended. For that reason, they cannot learn effectively to balance with their counterparts without learning disabilities. Some short-term strategies can help arrest the situation. There are other ways of obtaining more teachers and co-teachers to assist in duties. For instance, the school can invite volunteer teachers who can offer their services to the school for a short period. This could be cheaper and will work effectively for the school since there are those who are ready to volunteer and help with the special education services. In addition, since the school has a good relationship with the staff at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, they can request them for co-teachers who are both in-service and pre-service to help them with some of the special class duties. These teachers sometimes only need facilitation; otherwise, they are a cheaper way of obtaining more teachers for the school. Even so, this is just but a short-term strategy that is not sustainable in response to student needs. Transform: Ideas Related To Future Work on this Topic This information is very beneficial to improve and transform my practice. I have learned the need for utmost concentration by teachers in inclusive classrooms. In addition, I have gained an insight on how to collaborate with other teachers in case I am in an environment where teachers are understaffed. The current shortage of special education teachers in inclusion classrooms is apparent in this study. I have also learned the need for maximum concentration in classrooms with students with disabilities. Such students are special and require more attention than students without disabilities require. The special needs teacher has to reinforce areas that require extra effort for the students to understand, and this is only achievable though concentration. This helps them iron out few misinterpretations that could have occurred to offer confusing information to the students. It is also essential to have regular training on recent standards in the field. The special education environment constantly changes, and students with disabilities often require newer strategies to address their needs. In lieu to that, specialization is also critical in the practice. One should train and specialize in a particular section of learning disabilities, for instance, the use of language. This enhances perfection and ensures that a teacher gains maximum experience in the field. In addition, it also promotes the process of collaboration, especially when the other teacher has also specialized in a separate field. References Causton-Theoharis, J., & Kasa, C. (2010). Achieving inclusion: What every parent should know when advocating for their chld. Peal Center , 2. Peebles, J., & Mendaglio, S. (2014). Preparing teahers for inclusive classroom: Introducing the individual direct experience approah. Learning Landscpe, 7 (2), 245-254. Read More