Grading with the IEP's

The whole process of grading is to see what progress they made in each graded subject. For those who are under IEP each subject could be modified if needed if so then grading might be adapted towards what their specific progress is in those subjects they are learning. It all depends on the Individual and the IEP.    

cedar rapids case

I'm on the parents side, because we need to protect those who can't protect them selves and I understand the money thing and it is a big issue, because schools don't get much money. But at the same time students with disabilities need to have right to be at school to be with their peers and have the same right to the education system that anyone else has.    

General Education Teachers and IEPs

It is important to have the general education teacher involved in the IEP process for a lot of reasons.  The first is they are with the child more than any other adult in the school. They see the student in a range of environments and situations and know the student best.  secondly, they need to be involved so that they can implement the IEP in the classroom.  The student should be in the classroom as much as possible and the teacher should never give up on them.

classroom management

The best way to have good classroom management is to have the class come up with the rules themselves.  I would direct them through their examples of classroom rules to the rules "respect others, respect property and respect yourself".  In my classroom I will use a clip chart and have class points.  At the end of a certain amount of time the class would get some kind of reward.  It is important to teach your students the first day of class what you expect so there will be no question of what is appropriate and what is not for the rest of the year.

Pre and Post assessments

Pre-assessments are really important because not only do they show you where the students are in their learning but it also directs your teaching.  You can see if there are subjects you can completely skip and you can see if there are subjects you need to spend extra time on.  Pre-assessments can also be a tool to show your students what they are going to be learning and what they objectives of the lessons are. They are like a little preview into the next section. Post tests are also really important.  They show you what the students have learned, where you may need to reteach and they are a motivator for student learning.

Grading with IEP's

I feel like the best way to go about grading students with IEP's is to set up a system to grade them according to the goals of their IEP's. Since accomodations are being made to help that student to come closer to reaching the A standard, making grad accommodations should happen too. They should be able to see the progress toward reaching their personal learning target.  They will be more motivated.  If they see how far behind they really are they may get discouraged and not see how much they are improving.

Service Hours

For my service hours I spent the day helping in Springlake special needs preschool in.  My mom used to work there and so they were willing to help me with this assignment and help out in the classroom.  Most of the things the students were learning in this preschool are the simple everyday skills that everyone needs to get by.  We talked about washing our hands the day i visited.  Because all of the students attending the school have special needs (and are only 5 or so anyway) most of my time during instruction was spent bringing students back to their seats.  For the other part of the day we played with toys and colored.  It was so much fun to spend time with them. They are so sweet! I can't wait to visit them again.

Visual Impairment

I didn't like the visual impairment because although i could not see the people around me, I felt like they were watching me the whole time.  I wore the mask during one of my classes that we do not do a lot of writing and therefore i don't feel like i missed a whole lot.  One of the hardest parts was moving around.  I could not tell where i was very well and could not see what the people around me were doing.  I feel like i didn't get the best experience doing this because i was only listening in class.  If we had to do more than that i would have struggled a lot more.  I feel like if you did have a student with a visual impairment you would want to make sure they sat in an area of the classroom where they the most possible.  I would also make sure that they knew the classroom really well so that moving around would not be so uncomfortable.

Wheelchair

I did my hours in a wheelchair while i was visiting home one weekend.  Since my mom has some trouble walking at times we have a wheelchair in our house. I felt a little lucky that I was able to do it at home because there would be less people looking at me.  Even though there were a lot of hard things that we had to do in the wheelchair, seeing people look at you differently would probably be the hardest.  The hardest physical thing to do was when I had to use the bathroom without using my legs.  I could not believe just how difficult it was to do!  It was also crazy hard to wash my hands i could barely reach the soap and could not reach the towel to dry my hands at all.  Going up a hill was also really difficult.  After i was done my arms ached. Overall this was i really interesting experience.  I am glad I had it. It made me so much more aware of what students in wheelchairs have to do everyday. I hope that someday when i have a student in my class who is in a wheelchair I will remember this experience and be able to make accommodations to help my student because of my experience.

Visual Impairment

This was extremely hard for me to do. I was fine with not being able to see very well I had a hard time with feel self conscious about the masks. I found the masks gross to put on so half of the challenge was putting them on without the inner germaphobe ripping them off my face. I was hard to see and I cant imagine what it would be like to see like that every day. My grandma is just about blind and so it helped me see how she sees. My grandma can only see like 13% of what is considered normal. I could at least take off the mask and se again at that was such a relief.

Grading With IEPs

I feel like grades are a way of showing progress in what they are learning. Giving a child an A on something that they have not learned is not something that I like. I think the report card should be modified on what they are learning. This is tough because I know that children share their grades as kind of a competition and if a child sees that someone who is not up to their level is getting an A on something that they didn't have to do a lot on then the value of getting that A won't mean as much. I don't know if that made much sense.  

Visual Impairment Blog

This was a very interesting experience. I was really scared and nervous to do this activity because I knew it would kind of freak me out. I did not like doing this but I have a huge appreciation and understanding for those who are visually impaired. I got a huge headache and did not like not being able to see what was going on. Even being half blind was really hard for me and made me have to accommodate differently to try and see what was going on. This has really helped me open my eyes to those who are visually impaired. I have a girl in one of my classes who is visually impaired and color blind. She has very thick glasses and has to hold things up super super close to be able to see them. She can not see the PowerPoint most times and is given papers that she can not really even read. She really has a lot of patience and has learned to accommodate and not be afraid to ask others for help. Although this was really hard for me, I really do appreciate it because I am able to understand her better and I am more willing to help her.

Wheelchair Experience

This was a pretty cool experience. I did not realize how hard it was to move around in a wheelchair. I did it for 2 and 1/2 hours and that was just a small experience of what people in wheelchairs have to go through. It was harder than I thought to go through doorways and go to the bathroom. I needed a lot of a help and it was so nice when people would push me around. It helped me to see the people willing to serve on this campus because they were all so kind to give me a helping hand. There were some doors that did not have the automatic button so it was nice to have people help me go through those. This experience was really good for me because it helped me realize what others have to go through and now when I see someone in a wheelchair I will be able to understand them a little bit more and I will be more willing to help them when they need help.

My Thoughts

Imagine you are the 5th grade classroom teacher and have two students in your class on IEP's. When it comes time to do report cards, your principal informs you that the grade you assign these two students should reflect their progress toward IEP goals and not how much of the in-class material they have mastered.  You also cannot make any notes to indicate this in the report card because that is illegal (this is true in Idaho and maybe other states).  Essentially, these two students will get A's in reading because they are making good progress, but they are unable to do 5th grade level work equal to that of most of their peers.  Please explain your thoughts about this.

I think that this would be a very hard situation to be in. I would do what I had to do but I would also make it a priority to inform the parents exactly of how the students are doing. I would call a meeting with the parents so that I can tell them how much they have progressed in their IEP goals but also how much they have progressed in class in general and the subjects or things they need to work on. I think that this is very important because it is essential to get the parents on the same page as you so that they understand fully about what is going on in class and how their child is doing. If the student also has a paraprofessional with them mostly I would also include them in the meeting. 

Grading children with IEP

I would want to find a different way to give the students grades that show how they are improving relating to their IEPS. I feel that giving them grades on report cards relating to their IEPs would not be honest. Yes most of the time students on IEP will improve over time. Growing up I was on an IEP. It would have been nice to have a separate report that showed how I was improving but also seeing where I was compared to to other students would have been nice also.

Pre and postassessments

There is a time and place for tests. The need for pre an post assessments are very important because they help to see where children are at. With out them you will never know how much the students have learn or what they are really struggling with. I agree that there are to many test, but there need to be a way to see where students are at.

Grading Children with IEP

It would be very hard to grade someone with an IEP fairly in comparison with an average grade student for me. I feel I would be very bias when overlooking their paper and looking at their improvements rather than how accurately the work had been done. I am not sure if this is right or not. Should we compare their intellect equally with those of other students? Or should we compare their intellect with only themselves alone. If an average grade student did the same work as someone with an IEP how would I justify my lower grade for them to them? I still think I would be more lenient in my grading of a student with an IEP, but I am not sure if this is right or not. I wouldn't give them perfect scores for work that didn't have right answers, but I wouldn't fail them if I could see improvements and effort being done.

visual impairment

My experience wasn't the first being visual impaired, I have really bad eye sight that is why I wear contacts. At times I have lost those contacts and have experience visual impairment. For this activity though it was interesting seating in class blind, just when people are talking you like to look them and kind of read lips plus hear the words at the same time, but when your blind it like your whole focus is in the hearing process and felt that my hearing was a lot better. Maybe it was because there wasn't so much distractions. Now for being one eyed blind was a lot harder then being totally blind, because that one eye works hard. Because I have experience this before having had only one contact at time knew kind of what would happen and guess what it happen it I got a headache which totally stinks. But it gave me a sense of what those who only have one working eye.              

Wheel chair

The wheelchair was interesting experience, just the fact of having people help. I'm a person who does things for myself and asking people for help is the last thing I like doing. But at the same time it was great to see, so many people willing to help from opening doors to pushing me up the hills. At the same time the whole experience let me experience a little bit of those who have to be in wheel chair every day and I'm grateful for two legs that work. And I'm more sensitive to the needs, because of this experience.   

pre and post test

In testing there has to be a reason behind assessments. You don't test for the heck of it. You test to first to see where their ability and knowledge is and what needs to be taught for the year which is pretests and two to asses the knowledge at the end of the year to see what they learn from your teachings. Those or to me why you do assessments.   

Service hours

I was able to referee a special needs basketball game. I noticed right away when I first got there I could see the joy that came from the kids faces, that they where excited. One of the kids names was Jason and he was one of first person to come to me. He told me and the other referee of how he was, so excited to be able play in his first real basketball game. As the game went on I meet and be came friends with a lot of those kids that were playing. The best part of the whole experience was just seeing the faces of the kids when they made a basket, they would smile, they would put there fist in the air and they would jump up in excitement. The over all experience was fun and joyful totally was worth it.