Special Education Teachers play an important role in the education of children who have any variety of learning or physical disabilities because they work with kids who are often required immediate attention, special education.
The special education teacher job is very challenging as compared to the other teaching jobs; this unique profession requires adapting lessons and adjusting educational materials to the needs of each individual child, as well as consistently monitoring his/her progress; to maximize the child's potential. Therefore a special education teacher requires much insight into each personality, as well as a large pool of techniques to work from. In process, one develops expertise in a variety of special education field. Successful teachers are patient, kind-hearted and responsible, they must be a good communicator and be sensitive to the special individual needs of each student.
In addition to teaching students basic subject materials, responsibilities can be ranged from working with educational technology such as computers and using technological tools to work closely with parents to provide and review new teaching and learning techniques.
As we mentioned before, It’s quite challenging career but knowing that you are making a positive contribution to the educational or social developmental for these children will affect the way you view your own life and the challenge you phase.
Let get inspired by watching the video for Sadie Guthrie, a special education teacher at Lawton Alternative School in San Francisco; teaching her students real world skills and an entire school about compassion by "Mobile Coffee Cart". Enjoy watching it.
Special Education is a Service, not a Place
The Student Services process is designed to ensure that appropriate interventions have been utilized to help the student overcome their learning problems before beginning a referral for special education services. So What is Special Education Referral Process and services ? What is special education services?
Referral process is the First step in identifying a student for special education services and should be addressed to the teacher, the principal or the school system's director of education.
The second step is evaluation and eligibility. To determine eligibility for special education services, special education laws require the child to have an initial evaluation in the areas of concern. An evaluation is a careful look at a child's abilities, strengths and weaknesses, by a team including the child's parents, teachers and specialists. An evaluation is based on a review of assessment data, information from parents, observations by teachers, classroom-based, local and State assessments. This is to determine whether a child has a disability and requires special education instruction and related services.
This week I had an interview with my amazing, highly-experienced Secondary Learning Support coordinator; she is my inspiration she has three beautiful boys with Autism spectrum disorder and she still has the big smile on her face.
We talked about the Referral process, parents involvement and signs of struggling students at our school in Saudi Arabia. But first let me share with you the Referral Exit/Entry procedure at Our school.
As we can see in the following part of the Referral process, At our school we have three ways for referral:
1. Student’s declining academic /
behavioral performance prompts
staff concerns; student referral
form submitted to LS teacher
2. Student’s quarterly GPA falls
to 2.0 or below, and/or any
grade of F in any class
(checked quarterly by LS)
3. Student’s MAP score is 20%
percentile or below
(checked following every MAP
series by LS)
But before that we should be aware that the goal of every teacher is developing a classroom that is focused on learning; Learning doesn’t happen by accident. It takes carefully designed instruction that embeds both Formative Assessment and Differentiated Instruction. so we make sure that the teacher tried many ways of differentiated instructions that would help the student.
So teacher starts with pre-referral intervention or data collection and analysis to determine whether referral to special education is needed. If a teacher sees that a child in his or her class is struggling, that teacher may try some form of classroom-based intervention to help the student overcome his or her struggles. Teachers will continue to monitor and collect data on the child’s progress or lack of progress with these classroom-based interventions in place to determine if they are effective in helping the child overcome their struggles.
If that did not work, Learning support/Special Education will give an observation and got a feedback from the teacher about the student's academic achievement to check if he/she needs learning support.
In Saudi Arabia, there are many Special education centers, but not enough inclusive schools. Our school is one of the best inclusive schools in Saudi Arabia; It has the Learning support services, they do their best not to isolate the students; that is why they are having high needs of Shadow/Learning support teachers. but our school is not dealing with severe medical health impairment.
After that we talked about the parents involvement for Referral process; Our coordinator mentioned that almost 30 years of research and experience has demonstrated that the education of children with disabilities can be made more effective by strengthening the role and responsibility of parents and ensuring that families have good opportunities to participate in the education of their children at school and at home.
Here in Saudi Arabia we can see some families that are collaborative and cooperative with the school and Learning support department to assure that their kids are receiving the knowledge and support they need. However, The uninvolved parent sets the tone for underdeveloped social skills, disrespectful relationships (to environment, to their own work, to their teachers), underdeveloped physical skills and a host of emotional problems due to the socioeconomic background of some families here; usually high socioeconomic background helps students to develop their academic performance but in Saudi Arabia it is different story; Most of our students do not see their parents, parents are busy, they got nannies, drivers all of that affect negatively on our students academic achievements. Our role in special education in Saudi Arabia and in our school is trying to make it easy for everybody to say yes I have some area where I need help with, Is there anybody for help rather than trying to hide things.
For more information about Parent involvement in special education check this video.
I have read about improving the special education referral process; there is something called The practicum which has been designed to improve the process used to identify kindergarten and first-grade children who are at risk for academic failure and may need to be referred for a comprehensive special education evaluation. I can tell that reevaluation part of Referral process is important step to find out if the child continues to be a child with a disability, as defined by IDEA, and what the child’s educational needs are.
In the end, I believe that Teaching kids how to learn might be more important than anything else.
As we can see in the following part of the Referral process, At our school we have three ways for referral:
1. Student’s declining academic /
behavioral performance prompts
staff concerns; student referral
form submitted to LS teacher
2. Student’s quarterly GPA falls
to 2.0 or below, and/or any
grade of F in any class
(checked quarterly by LS)
3. Student’s MAP score is 20%
percentile or below
(checked following every MAP
series by LS)
But before that we should be aware that the goal of every teacher is developing a classroom that is focused on learning; Learning doesn’t happen by accident. It takes carefully designed instruction that embeds both Formative Assessment and Differentiated Instruction. so we make sure that the teacher tried many ways of differentiated instructions that would help the student.
So teacher starts with pre-referral intervention or data collection and analysis to determine whether referral to special education is needed. If a teacher sees that a child in his or her class is struggling, that teacher may try some form of classroom-based intervention to help the student overcome his or her struggles. Teachers will continue to monitor and collect data on the child’s progress or lack of progress with these classroom-based interventions in place to determine if they are effective in helping the child overcome their struggles.
If that did not work, Learning support/Special Education will give an observation and got a feedback from the teacher about the student's academic achievement to check if he/she needs learning support.
In Saudi Arabia, there are many Special education centers, but not enough inclusive schools. Our school is one of the best inclusive schools in Saudi Arabia; It has the Learning support services, they do their best not to isolate the students; that is why they are having high needs of Shadow/Learning support teachers. but our school is not dealing with severe medical health impairment.
After that we talked about the parents involvement for Referral process; Our coordinator mentioned that almost 30 years of research and experience has demonstrated that the education of children with disabilities can be made more effective by strengthening the role and responsibility of parents and ensuring that families have good opportunities to participate in the education of their children at school and at home.
Here in Saudi Arabia we can see some families that are collaborative and cooperative with the school and Learning support department to assure that their kids are receiving the knowledge and support they need. However, The uninvolved parent sets the tone for underdeveloped social skills, disrespectful relationships (to environment, to their own work, to their teachers), underdeveloped physical skills and a host of emotional problems due to the socioeconomic background of some families here; usually high socioeconomic background helps students to develop their academic performance but in Saudi Arabia it is different story; Most of our students do not see their parents, parents are busy, they got nannies, drivers all of that affect negatively on our students academic achievements. Our role in special education in Saudi Arabia and in our school is trying to make it easy for everybody to say yes I have some area where I need help with, Is there anybody for help rather than trying to hide things.
For more information about Parent involvement in special education check this video.
I have read about improving the special education referral process; there is something called The practicum which has been designed to improve the process used to identify kindergarten and first-grade children who are at risk for academic failure and may need to be referred for a comprehensive special education evaluation. I can tell that reevaluation part of Referral process is important step to find out if the child continues to be a child with a disability, as defined by IDEA, and what the child’s educational needs are.
In the end, I believe that Teaching kids how to learn might be more important than anything else.
We begin the teaching process by requiring kids to look back on their learning and determine what worked for them and what did not.
We will be amazed how honest students can be and how much their behavior changes; Model reflection with students and reflect upon teacher's own best practices as well, we as teachers and our students will both be better.
Sources:
1. Learning for Tomorrow’s World The Future of Education in Jersey; Summary of Consultation responses February 2013, Retrieved from https://www.gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Government%20and%20administration/R%20Learning%20for%20Tomorrows%20World%2020130228%20KP.pdf on october 9, 2016
2. UNESCO Global Report; Opening New Avenues for Empowerment ICTs to Access Information and Knowledge for Persons with Disabilitie published by United Nations Educational, Scientiļ¬c and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2013, Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002197/219767e.pdf on October 9,2016.
3. Special Education: The Referral and Evaluation Process, Retrieved from
http://www.parentcompanion.org/article/special-education-the-referral-and-evaluation-process on October 13,2016.
4. Referral Process by Sheppard Prat Health System, Retrieved from https://www.sheppardpratt.org/special-education-services/referral-process/ on October 12,2016.
5. Five Steps to Becoming the Edunator by Edunators helping teachers to focus on learning, Retrieved from http://www.edunators.com/ on October 14,2016.
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