The Education of Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and Physical Abilities - Essay Example

Observation Introduction Education with various needs is a tough task especially is the teaching of math and English studies. Apart from the tedious work that comes with teaching a student with special needs is the issue of regular students. Therefore, the successful teaching of students with needs is to also intertwine with the assistance of the regular students who have to respect and understand their colleagues. This notwithstanding, math and English has been a challenge even to regular student therefore, teaching students with special needs is even more difficult. However, there are means and ways put in place to aid in teaching this group of students. This paper is going to address the education of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical abilities, health impairments and traumatic brain injury. Moreover; it is going to describe the type of teaching strategies for this group and how to nurture their self esteem and self advocacy skills. Moreover, this paper is going to explain how regular students can be aided into accepting, understanding and respecting their colleagues and how to respond to their needs appropriately. Teaching Strategies for Special Students in Math and English Language In order to teach special needs student’s teachers need researched, evidence based teaching strategies to be sure of what they are giving to their students. Research and evidence based strategies can be defined as an intervention program that has been researched over and over and has positively yielded consistent results when tested. There are a variety of research evidence based teaching strategies that teachers can use. The first teaching strategy is class wide peer tutoring (Cullinan, 2007). This strategy is meant to teach students who are at different levels with the rest and those who have different needs but are in the same class. Class wide peer tutoring stipulates that after a class lecture by the teacher, the students must then bond together to evaluate and find out if they have all got the information together and in the same manner. Methods here include pairing of students that is regular students are paired with a special needs student, immediate correction of errors; inter class competition and frequent spontaneous tests. This will ensure that the special needs students are at par with the regular students. This method is very effective in math since one method in math is sometimes difficult to understand and group work exposes different methods. The second researched teaching strategy is the Direct Instruction, DI (Cullinan, 2007). This method involves teaching of students specifically that is individually. This kind of teaching is detailed and is in a specific order as per the student. This method is very effective with the teaching of English since some topics rhyme with some and some are not related thus if placed in a certain order learning and understanding is easier. Students with needs like brain injury have memory problems thus DI will prove effective in that as it centers on the fact that every person can learn if specific and unique teaching is administered. The third researched strategy is self monitoring (Cullinan, 2007). This strategy is effective for students with behavioral problems. Self monitoring aims at assisting students self check themselves thus improve attention spans, performance and behavior management. Students with behavioral problems often cause disruptions and low performance of even other students but with on hand tasks on self assessment students can keep track of their behavior which will in turn persuade them to behave. However, self monitoring is also effective for students with impairment needs and aids even the social life of students. Improving Self Esteem and Self Advocacy to Students with Needs There are a variety of actions and steps that can be undertaken by a teacher in order to nurture the self esteem and self determination and enhance the self advocacy skills of students with emotional and behavioral disorders, physical abilities, health impairments and traumatic brain injury. First of all the teacher can allow the students to assume some type and level of responsibility (Cullinan, 2007). Having responsibility will assure the student that they are good at something and that they are dependable which enhances their self esteem. The fact that some decisions are left for the student means that they belong to the school and are part of something which enhances their self determination in order not to fail the teachers and themselves. The teacher can also include inclusionary practices that students with needs and regular students can do together (Cullinan, 2007). This will enhance equality and will assure the students with needs that they are after all not different from the rest of the school. This will also aid the teacher in making the regular students understand and accept their peers and avoid making fun at them or treating them differently. The teacher should also educate the regular students not to unnecessarily help students with need as this makes them feel helpless and alienated. On top of this pity and unnecessary sympathy should be frowned upon to discourage regular students feeling the need to always help the students with need. If help should be given it should be natural and situation rooted for example in dangerous situations. Assisting Regular Students Understand Special Students Students with different needs are often alienated and feel different from the rest of the class. Most of the time their peers make fun or them and their needs or due to the lack of knowledge of their needs. Some of their peers always feel obliged to help the students with needs at all point even in things that are quite normal for the students with needs in other words they feel pity and sorry for these students. It is not bad to help out from time to time in different situations but over indulging in helping the students with needs is not helpful but plain bad. Therefore, teachers have to teach the regular students to understand, respect and respond appropriately to students with needs. Teachers can develop inclusionary tasks where the students with needs and the regular students can work together to make the regular students understand their peers (Cullinan, 2007). Doing tasks together like being paired in a competition further educates the regular students of the ability and incapability of the other student. Teachers can also discuss some of the disabilities and their cause to the regular students so that the regular student can understand the problems in depth and learn to how to respond to their needs appropriately. Teachers can also encourage the students with needs to share their daily life stories with the students. This will help the regular students understand what the students with need undergo and how they can be of help and stop being rude, mean or make fun of them. IEP Meeting Summary At this meeting, forms containing name, age, and grade and school district were to be filled and returned. The representatives included a translator, a special education teacher, IEP manager a school counselor and one parent and a regular class teacher. The meeting started with the teacher showing the report card of a student showing performance. The teacher gave a general talk about the student’s general success and failure in class. The student’s difficulty areas were also shown and the reason for the difficulty illuminated as being caused by the disability. The parent also gave a speech about her child. In general this meeting was like a platform where all those involved in the students life discussed the student and how the student could be assisted. Everybody concerned gave their recommendations and insights as to the students needs. The IEP meeting was an eye opener for the parent of the student with needs and the teachers of the student. After voicing their concerns and insights the parties now know how best to handle the student with needs. Conclusion Students with needs face many problems in their quest for education especially in math and English. However teachers can use different strategies to educate them. Teachers can use class wide peer tutoring strategy, direct instruction DI and self monitoring to teach. Teachers also need to improve on the self esteem of the student with needs by giving students inclusionary tasks with regular students to achieve this. In conclusion, teachers have to teach the regular students how to relate, understand and accept their peers with needs. Reference Cullinan, D. (2007). Students with emotional and behavioral disorders: An introduction for teachers and other helping professionals. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. Read More