The Education of Dual Sensor Impaired Children - Dissertation Example

? learning and achievement increase substantially when teachers work in learning communities supported by school leaders who focus on improvement’. (Michael Fullan, 2008) When I first came to teach in special school I had not worked with a multi-professional environment which requires people from different professions and agencies to work together towards meeting the needs of the pupils. As a new teacher, learning to work  cooperatively and collaboratively with others to address the needs of pupils was not an easy task. However, over time I learnt that collaboration is actually a meaningful tool because of the synergy that it creates leading us towards a mutual goal that we want to accomplish. In this assignment, I look forward to discussing how crucial collaborating with the other colleagues is in order to bring about a drastic change in the teaching and the development of the teaching resources. For a clear sense of understanding, this assignment is divided into the following sections. Firstly, I’ve tried to point out the various benefits and challenges that were presented to me during the course of my collaboration with the other professionals. Secondly, I’ve tried to point out how my planning abilities were strengthened by my on-going communication with these professionals, and how it helped me with my teaching. Lastly, I’ve discussed how this collaboration has benefitted my students and their learning abilities. In recent years, the shift from a perception of the teachers as solely responsible for educational outcomes to the perception of education as a process that includes collaboration colleagues (teachers and support staff) and other professionals e.g. a speech and language therapist, etc. has change the way we think about team dimension and working with our colleagues. Team-work is highly important for the success of any activity. Be it a workplace, a football field, or the members of a certain community, teamwork can bring forth amazing results. However, working together as a part of the team is not always as easy as it sounds. Although the benefits that you can derive from the successful implementation are immense, it also requires a great deal of compromise as well as hard work. (Woloch, 2008) There are several ways in which professionals today work together within schools for e.g. in middle schools across the globe teachers usually collaborate in an informal way all the time. These interactions help build up more formal modes of professional collaboration which are directed towards improving teaching and learning. These collaborations are very important for effective learning in any educational institution because the sum of parts is better than the parts itself. (Wheelock, 2000) Many schools are encouraging teacher collaboration. For example, peer coaching (Joyce & Showers, 1988) and interdisciplinary curriculum development (Brandt, 1991) are premised on teachers' collaborative relationships, as are current trends in the design and delivery of professional development programs (Barth, 1990). Many aspects of currently recommended school reforms call for greater collaboration among teachers (Goodlad, 1984). The trend toward school-based decision making is also consonant with the recognition that collaboration is becoming an essential ingredient in successful schools. Smith and Scott (1990) have asserted that the collaborative school is easier to describe than define. In my opinion, in order to educate children successfully it is very important to clearify your role in the process of collaboration, and also respect the roles of the others. This is important in order to use our input and knowledge for the purpose of delivering the best quality of education to the children. This is the best gift that you can give to any child: quality education. As in the immortal words of Aristotle, ‘Those who educate children well are more to be honoured than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.’ Hindrances in collaboration: The two major barriers that I faced while collaborating were the lack of time and the non-cooperative staff attitudes. The lack of time within busy school schedules made it nearly impossible for me to collaborate effectively and fully. Moreover, there were always different points of views with regard to the variety of issues faced at schools, and everyone had their bit to offer. This made collaboration a little more difficult because the tendency is always towards sticking to our own views and paying little attention to the others’ inputs. As a result, we stick to our own judgement that is familiar and trustworthy and don’t venture into the unknown territory because of the fear of being struck out. This approach is very wrong in the sense that we don’t really explore the possibilities of what could be. A break-through is made when we go where we have never gone before. However, without the initiative and the love of risk we’ll always be stuck where we are. However, over time I’ve learnt that doing everything one’s own way is not the right way to go about it. At times, people can offer very valuable advice that can help you make the right choice or steer you towards the right decision. Hence, it is important to trust your own abilities and instincts while making a decision, but keeping in mind the views of the others is very beneficial too as it can provide us with something we’ve never tried before. New things lead to new possibilities. Moreover, at times I also faced the issue of lack of communication while collaborating with the staff. At times there were different approaches to communication too. All people don’t work the same way, and I saw a clear picture of that whilst the collaboration was going on. Also, there was an increasing conflict among the teaching staff due to the close working and overlapping tasks and responsibilities. In the beginning, I was invited to collaborate with a speech and language therapist as well as a teaching assistant was a part of my team. The speech and language therapist had vast experience with multi-sensory impairment (MSI) and a global developmental delay (GDD). She was also an expert at working with children who behavioural difficulties in normal situations. The collaboration had every feature to be a complete success. However, to my dismay, his collaboration remained pretty much unsuccessful for me as a team-work experience. ‘With a little courage, teamwork and determination a person can overcome anything. –‘ Dodge, B I completely agree with this statement that while as individuals we may lack in certain areas, as a team we can fulfil the short-comings and change the world. However, sadly this is not always true. My team and I found that collaborating with each other was a continuous challenge and was very difficult. It was not always easy to be in the middle of conflicting issues. And it certainly wasn’t fun to have someone whose opinions differed from yours in every single way. Firstly, as a new team we were not all that comfortable with each other. There was always this communication barrier that hindered the communication. Moreover, we had clashes due to the difference in personalities and ideologies as a whole when it came to teaching. Finally, as mentioned before there was always this barrier we encountered in terms of time as none of us had the sufficient amount of free time at our hands to collaborate effectively. Benefits of collaboration: Despite all the shortcomings of the collaborations there have also been benefits of working with a speech and language therapist. With the collaboration, we had access to tools such as language tools etc.. Since I was working in a class with children with communication difficulties, language delays and sensory needs e.g. MSI, SED and ASD, this proved to be very helpful at times. Moreover, the therapist was school based and worked directly with me to provide support to the teaching. They were always close by whenever I needed help of any sort, and proved to be strength for me. They encouraged me to try out new strategies to bring up changes to the activities for e.g. use of resources, tools to communicate with the pupils e.g. BSL, symbols, photos, real objects, cover learning through all senses etc. to help pupils make sense of the activity. Also, they shared good practises and ideas on how to improve my activity and engage support staff in learning an assessment process rather than my activity of being a ‘one person act’. They also observed my sensory story and provided directions for the use of language, resources and structuring the session. They became my critical friends during the teaching process as we were working towards one and the same goal. I also successfully learnt from them the skills that we could use in classes for better learning. The whole experience of collaboration has increased my sensitivity towards other people’s responsibility and roles. It has also taught me the value of team-work and sharing, as it is an important part of any successful activity. I have learnt sheering skills and resources from the process, as in how to change my sessions etc. Moreover, it has also led to better communication with my pupils as a whole, because I have arrived at a better understanding of them. By addressing the needs of my pupils I have also paved way for improving their learning. Moreover, it has made me better understand a wider range of issues e.g. team working. In my class I teach eight pupils with GCD and two with MSI, aged 5 to 10, who function at very low developmental skills and have other complex needs. As an educator, my main aim is to reach out to every single one of them despite the fact that they have very different needs and learning patterns and they also progress further at varying speeds. I, as an educator, accept diversity in my pupils and respect it. Not everyone’s the same, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, some students always find the classroom activities difficult to cope with for long hours. They get bored and fidgety and lose interest after a while. Hence, managing and taking along everyone together can always be a humongous challenge and careful thought and planning should be given to how an instructor should go about it. This is very important at every step of teaching because gives us a step-by-step ladder to the top of the educational experience. Designing the teaching resources in order to meet the needs of the students It is very important for an educator to design the teaching resources to meet the needs of the students because they are made to cater to their specific needs. Special kids require special attention in order to provide them with an excellent educational experience. Hence, it becomes important to identify what they need and how to go about providing exactly that. This can be a challenge for a teacher, but the satisfaction that one gets after seeing the progress of the pupils in any way is heart-warming. Many children have potentially useful residual vision (…) they must be taught to use this potential (…) as they will often function at a level below their capabilities. (McInnes & Treffry, cited in Etheridge, 1995) I would start off by stating that one of my pupils with multi-sensory impairment (MSI) also has a severe visual impairment, so I have developed an opinion that children with disabilities regarding learning are also likely to have sight problems (Aitken & Buultjens 1991; Mencap, 2010; RNB, 2010). However, the visual capabilities of all the pupils should be challenged as well as recognized. According to the informal activities that I carry out with my pupils it is clear that they respond to visual cues with varying abilities, some better than the others. For instance, as an example I will quote that most of the students in my class will explore objects closely with their eyes only as they suffer from visual impairment. However, by engaging all five of their senses together to help them provide the vital information they need to observe the world. (Longhorn, 1988; Davis, 2001, Pagliano, 2001; Fowler, 2006). ‘The teacher will consider their residual senses and their ability to use them in arranging environment to create the best possible conditions’ (Hodges, 2000) I completely agree with Hodges in the regard that the development of visual skills is required to be carefully considered. Nevertheless, it remains important that we, as the teachers, not only provide ample support to the pupils in the form of guidance but also give them the necessary tools in order to make them self-sufficient. This is necessary to provide them with the best conditions possible to facilitate learning in every form. ‘We need to support our pupils accessing information via the tactile mode by providing interaction in all activities, controlling the physical environment and seeking out potentially motivating activities.’ (Pease, 2006) There are many students in my class who have additional needs that require attention, such as cerebral palsy and other motor problems which limit their ability to function physically, and to develop a sense of touch. This requires interest from the adults in the form of motivation to the pupils to stimulate their interest and increase their limited experience. They should be given incentives to reach out beyond their existing potential. ‘You will provide the motivation which will encourage the child to reach outside himself and to indicate interaction with his environment’ (McInnes & Treffry, 1982) Motivation is very important for the well-being of the child and for him to develop interest in various activities. Sometimes, adults need to be aware of the pupil’s needs and cater to them in order to enable them to overcome their problems. Interaction with the environment is a very important part of motivation because it helps him get a feel of what’s around and what he’s capable of accomplishing. The class staff as well as I had to make significant effort in order to make the pupils interested in the tactile stimuli around them, in order to get them interested. However, over time we came to the judgement that many of the pupils didn’t really need motivation but were more interested in exploring the stimuli themselves without any additional help from me and the staff. Therefore, it seemed like we need to be more sensitive to the needs of the pupils as well as give more thought to the idea of how we wanted to introduce new skills in order to increase the learning of the pupils. Another thing that I found out after careful examination of my pupils was that a lot of them had the tendency to explore objects by mouthing them. According to me, this was a vital issue that we needed to address. Moreover, some of the pupils were interested in exploring the toys etc., with their toes rather than their fingers. This was also a phenomenon that interested me as an educator. It is significant that motivation is instilled in a pupil because it is the basis of their self-esteem. Children need to be driven and reinforced by their educators so that when they grow up, they are able to make the right choices. It's difficult to teach your pupils things like motivation; however, they can be taught how to be self-motivated. Self-motivated children almost always grow up to be self-motivated adults. In general, we see that children who have a range of special needs tend to have below-average motivation as well as perceived control. We, as educators, have conducted an inquiry of whether and how the differences that exist between the types of problem in different special groups are real or not. The theory aims to create a visible difference between the two types that either face lower motivation levels or perceived control, and this is based on a low perceived contingency, or on a low perceived competence. These two sorts of problems are going to need two different interference approaches for their successful resolution. The progress of these types is directly related to a bunch of causes that might vary methodically in various special groups: certain histories of information or understanding of success and failure, the likelihoods of recognizing contingencies, and the kind of response and attributions from others who are important to them. We asked teachers to rate their pupils and found, in accord with our outlooks, that children with social, emotional and behavioural problems as well as children with moderate learning difficulties and children with some sort of learning difficulties have more problems in perceived competence than children with physical or visual impairments. There was a significant inclination in the anticipated direction for children with physical impairments to have lower perceived contingency scores than the other groups. It was also concluded that carefulness is required in simplifying research findings from one special group to another, and in the submission of interference techniques that have been developed for one particular set of group. References: Aitkens, S. & Buultjens, M. (1991). Visual assessment of children with multiple impairments: a survey of ophthalmologists. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, April, pp. 170-173 Davis, J. (2001). A sensory approach to teaching the curriculum: For pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties. London: David Fulton Dodge, B (2010) Quotes about Teams and Teamwork http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=cWcaPUGE87IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Teamwork+quotes&hl=en&ei=zl1-TaHXEam-0QH9iYHdAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false Etheridge, D (1995). The Education of Dual Sensor Impaired Children. Recognising and Developing Abilities. Fulton: London Fowler. S. (2006) Sensory Stimulation: Sensory-focused activities for people with physical and multiple disabilities. London: Scope. Fullan, M. (2008) The six secrets of changes (Online) Available at: http://www.michealfullan.ca Hodges, L. (2000). Effective teaching and learning. In Atikens, S., Brultjens, M., Clark, C., Early J. T. & Pease, L. (eds.) Teaching children who are deafblind: Contact, communication and learning. London: David Fulton Hodges, L. (2006). Learning style in deafblind children. Unpublished handout. Whitefield Schools and Centre Longhorn, (1988). A sensory curriculum for very special people. A practise approach to curriculum planning. London: Human horizons. Mencap (2010). A clearer vision for people with a learning disability (Online) Available at http://www.mencap.org.uk NutBrown, C. & Clough, P. (2003). The Index of Inclusion: Personal perspectives from early years educators. In Nind, M., Sheely, K. & Simmons, K. (eds.) Inclusive Education: Learners and Learning Contexts. Buckingham: Open University Press. Pegliano, P. (2001). Using a multisensory Environment: A practical guide for teachers. London: David Fulton. Snell, M.E. & Janney, E. (2000) Collaborative Training. Teachers’ Guide to Inclusive practises. Paul H. Bookers: London. Woloch, P (2008) The Importance of Teamwork. Retrieved 14 March 2011 from http://www.articlesbase.com/team-building-articles/the-importance-of-teamwork-381813.html Wheelock, A (2000) Conversations. Retrieved March 14, 2011 from http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:tDusFXBO-c0J:www.turningpts.org/pdf/Conversationsfall00.pdf+professionals+collaborate+at+schools&hl=en&gl=pk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShfo53ezvasbukV35Bsr6ybgI0Yg1722SS3h4bzLGI037A0I6sSDGw-nT84xuozUxEd-kNCJwJKC6L6jtPKoUCpZLn-Rea0oHK6_Z3KcQndGHxQWyErLkA_EpUltzDC5IOJJare&sig=AHIEtbQqyk72HLXc8hbiAP9vHwURcTrwkQ Read More