Student Teaching Reflection 16

This week was very similar to last week. My mentor teacher is still out until Christmas break, so I am acting as teacher for all of her classes. This week went slightly smoother than last week, though, and the classes worked well when they were supposed to work. I think that this has a lot to do with the sub that is there on my days off of student teaching. Last week, the sub was not on top of the students to get their work done, and as a result, they did not do any work when I wasn't there. This week, my mentor teacher requested the building sub for the days I am not at school. He interacts with all of the high schoolers on a daily basis, gets to know all of them, and cares enough to push them to do their work. This helped me out a lot because the students were prepared when I came the next day. The one thing that stood out this week happened on Thursday. The early classes went smoothly, but the conceptual biology students struggled to stay on task and focused. While I was walking around helping the students with their work, I stopped at one student's desk and started asking him questions to guide him through his worksheet. He was not trying to answer any questions, and when I pushed, he told me that he didn't care about working on the questions and he would get the answers when we went over them as a group. I was at a loss and felt like it wasn't worth an argument, so I moved to help another student. I asked both my mentor teacher and her co-teacher (who was there at the time) how they would have handled it, and they both answered similarly. They both said that this was a time when they would have chosen their battles. Since these students are old enough to be responsible for themselves, sometimes a teacher needs to let them make their own decisions, even if that decision will negatively impact their learning. My mentor teacher said that she would have tried again the next day to get the student to engage and possibly remind the student that they are not helping themselves by waiting to get the answers when the teacher goes over it. I think that this apathetic mentality is something that affects a lot of the students in conceptual biology, and this will be my biggest challenge when teaching this class.

Student Teaching Reflection 15

This week was a crazy week for me at my internship. My mentor teacher broke her arm near her shoulder and is unable to come into work for at least 2 weeks. Because of this, I am the teacher this week and next on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday! I am still following her lesson plans, which takes some of the stress of this last-minute change off of me, but I am learning a lot about classroom management this week. For 4 periods of the day, her students are mainly honors students who care about their learning experience, work hard, and pay attention. This makes it easier on me, but even these classes are still not perfect. I have had some trouble with students talking while I am going over things or not working when they have time to work independently. For the other 2 periods, the students are a bit more unruly, but there is a co-teacher who has been taking the lead of the class. Overall, this week has been a very positive experience, if a bit anxiety-producing, and I have gained a lot of confidence. I have also gotten a lot more familiar with the students this week, so it has been nice to get to know more of them.

Student Teaching Reflection 14

This week was fairly uneventful, but my mentor teacher was out on Thursday. For the Conceptual Biology classes, this meant that her co-teacher took the lead that day, and it was nice for me to see a different style of teaching. She kept many things the same since she uses the same or similar lesson plans for her own conceptual biology class, but I was interested to see her use of exit tickets in this class. My mentor teacher had been out Wednesday and Thursday, and her co-teacher had taught the students about Punnett squares and inheritance patterns. As the exit ticket on Thursday, she had the students create a Punnett square for a specific scenario and tell her what percentage of the offspring would be a certain genotype. She had the students turn these slips in, but did not require them to put their names on them. Rather than use these exit tickets to assess the students, she used them to assess herself. She went through them to make sure the students were understanding the concepts to see if she needed to adjust her lessons. I thought that this was an excellent alternative use for formative assessments, and I think that it is something that I will adopt in my own teaching.

Student Teaching Reflection 13

This week, I was in the classroom Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, I had an observation where I designed and ran a Jeopardy-style review game for the biology students’ test. This game was a little bit of trial and error, but by the second section of the class it ran very smoothly. In the first section of the class, the students who were not answering the question were not engaged in the review and didn’t get as much out of the game. To fix this in the second section, I awarded half points to any team who had the correct answer when it wasn’t their turn. This allowed all of the students to earn plenty of points even though we only had time for 2 turns each. This competition aspect helped the students stay engaged and focused on the game. In addition, the winning team earned a bonus point on their test. In the future, I would like to find a game that has a competitive component but has the students answer individually to track who is prepared. We have tried a Kahoot review, but the students easily get off-task and take a long time to get their devices out and signed in.

In addition to the test review this week, I also got to see how my teacher handles SLOs in her anatomy classes. She handed back and reviewed the quarter 1 SLOs. She reviewed the three components that students should have in their responses to the scientific questions: claim, evidence, and reasoning. She also gave a sample response, but specified that it was not the only correct response.

Finally, I was able to observe a different teacher’s conceptual biology class to compare similarities and differences to my mentor teacher’s classes. This class was very similar to my mentor teacher’s conceptual biology classes, but only 1 teacher instead of 2 co-teachers.

Student Teaching Reflection 12

This week, my mentor teacher used a lot of hands on activities that I liked. Monday, she had the biology students complete a page in their journal independently, where typically they complete it as a whole group. This was to teach them how to read through the book and improve their comprehension. As they worked, we walked around and helped them find information in the book and enhance their understanding of the material. I noticed that although there were many students who worked hard, there were almost as many who wanted us to just give them the answers. I think that this could be prevented by starting the year with the expectation that they will work hard independently. On Tuesday, the students put together a DNA model with plastic pieces and modeled DNA replication. I really liked this activity because the sets they were working with used different shapes for different bonds and parts of the DNA molecule. My mentor teacher and myself walked around the room and helped the students make connections. I thought this was a very valuable activity. The last day I was there this week, the students created their own flashcards on mitosis. They had to write the main processes happening in each step of mitosis and then match these descriptions to pictures. I thought this was a valuable activity because they had to rewrite the descriptions and use pictures to visualize the process. It really lent itself to different styles of learners.

Student Teaching Reflection 11

This week, 2 out of my 3 student teaching days were in-service days.  I got to see a little more of the planning side of teaching and my mentor teacher's thought process when planning. I also got to see more about SLOs and the work that goes into them. I saw the process of creating the SLOs, grading them, and how they are used. On the third day, the biology class was preparing for their test and I assisted them in their test prep. This was especially interesting because we are trying to teach the students how to study well so they are better prepared for class tests as well as their standardized biology test at the end of the year. We spent the first 20 minutes of class walking around the room keeping students on task as they practiced quizzing each other. This was interesting to see, because many of the students didn't even know where to start. Some students were just reading their notes or study guide. My mentor teacher, her co-teacher, and myself spent time with each group modeling appropriate questions and helping them study more productively. By the end of this 20 minutes, it was clear that the students had a better idea of what their teachers mean when they say to study. This is such an important skill, and now I know that in the future it may be valuable to spend a little time in class teaching my students how to study effectively.

Student Teaching Reflection 10

This week I observed and assisted with several notable things. The first was in my mentor teacher's Anatomy and Physiology class. During their class this week, the students were strengthening their knowledge of their current unit with lab stations. My mentor teacher placed 12 stations around the room that corresponded with different activities in a lab packet. Some examples of activities were to label the bones in an adult skull model, put together an x-ray of a full skeleton and label it, and use balloons to model the fluid in joints. The students traveled around the room in small groups at their own pace and completed the activities. Some activities, like the x-ray activity, required a teacher to sign off once they completed it, and others were independent. As I traveled around the room helping students and observing their work, I was impressed with the discussions I heard and the work that I saw. The students were very engaged in these activities and clearly working hard at it. I like the design of this type of activity, because the students were able to go at their own pace. Because of that, there was no down time or time to get off track. There were also several lab activities that could be completed in the packet without a station, so if all of the stations were full, students were still working. I also liked that this type of activity was very independent for the students. It ran over several days, so the students would come in and get straight to work. The students took responsibility for their learning.

This week, I also observed how my mentor teacher grades projects. I was not able to assist her with this grading because it was in her Project Lead the Way class, but I got to see how she sets up her rubrics. Her rubric is slightly different from the kind that I usually see. Her rubric had three sections across: Directions, points, and grade. In the first column, she copied and pasted the directions that she had given her students. These directions were itemized in the rubric. In the next column was how many points each direction was worth, and in the final column, she wrote their grade. She then wrote a description of why points were taken off under the directions. I liked some parts of this rubric, but there are other parts I would change. The first thing I liked was that the directions on the rubric were exactly the same as the directions that were given to the students. I also liked how she itemized the rubric. All of the sections were worth 2-6 points, and many were either the student included it or they didn't. However, she didn't specify on the rubric how many points would be taken off for certain discrepancies and the rubric only described what would be included in an exemplary projects, unlike a regular rubric. Overall, I might consider using a similar rubric in the future, but with some variations.

Student Teaching Reflection 9

This week, my mentor teacher showed several videos to her classes, and I got to see how she utilizes video as a tool for her teaching. One thing that I thought was very productive was that she had students in one class complete several questions after watching the video to make sure they got something out of it. This forced students to pay attention to the information in the video as well as reflect on it afterward. Some videos that she showed this week were mostly informative, while others were very engaging as well. It was easy to see that students got more out of the more engaging videos, and I noticed that the less interesting videos were only shown in her advanced classes. This makes sense, because these classes are mainly Seniors who have higher expectations and are preparing for college. A video like that would not be productive in her lower level classes, because these students are much less intrinsically motivated by the information and need a little extra help engaging.

Student Teaching Reflection 8

This week, I observed some commonalities in my mentor teacher's practices throughout her classes regardless of their ages and academic levels that I found interesting. The first was in how she goes over tests or quizzes. She uses a program to score her multiple choice questions that records how many students got each question correct as well as what percentage of students chose each of the responses. Once she has this information, she looks to see if there are some common misconceptions or reasons students might be getting questions wrong. When she discusses the tests in class, she uses this information to determine which questions to go over in detail and how to address misconceptions. For example, one common mistake on one question was that all of the students who answered incorrectly chose "D. All of the above." She made sure to point out that this could be solved by reading the questions more carefully, and she let the students know that "all of the above" is clearly not always correct in her class. Another teaching practice that I think is helpful for her classes is that she writes a "Do Now" task on the board for each class. Sometimes this is a question that they need to think about or find the answer to, and sometimes it is a task they need to do to prepare for the lesson. This helps get all of the students on task, and in the classes with Juniors and Seniors, often the students are prepared when the bell rings to start class.

In the Anatomy class, I also got to see a guest speaker come in and speak to the class this week. The speaker was a Forensic Biologist. I thought this was a cool way to showcase a career that could come out of a Biology degree, since a lot of the students in Anatomy enjoy the sciences. It also helped the students see some real-world applications of the topics they are learning about. In addition, the students were engaged because it was a different experience than a regular class period.

Student Teaching Reflection 7

This week, on Tuesday, I had my first observation. During the class period that I was being observed, my mentor teacher first introduced the topic with a question to get the students thinking: “What is a similarity between photosynthesis and cellular respiration?” The students had already had lessons on both photosynthesis and cellular respiration, so they were familiar with the equations for both and the purposes for both. The students talked in groups about this questions for several minutes and then the teacher asked for their ideas. She guided the students to think about the commonality of energy in both processes. Once the class had discussed the question, we passed out the POGIL (worksheet) and split the class into 3 groups. My mentor teacher, her co-teacher, and I each took a group and guided them through the POGIL. Given my background in tutoring, I was very comfortable with this small-group setting and was able to use questioning to guide students through the POGIL. This class is typically hard to keep on track and unmotivated to complete work in class, but this small-group setting helped them focus and kept them accountable for their work. I was able to help them come to the correct answers on the POGIL, and I was able to use questions to spark discussion beyond the questions on the POGIL.

This Thursday, I also got to see a class play Kahoot. This experience was as entertaining as it was helpful. The teacher offered lollipops to the top three scorers during the game, so the students were working hard to get a high score. This competition could potentially help improve the students’ speed in recalling information, it helps them practice their vocabulary, and it increases their motivation. After each question, the teacher addressed any incorrect answers and offered tips to help students get answers correct next time (ex. oris sounds like oral because they are both related to the mouth). A downside of review games like this is that it does not allow for deeper thinking; the questions are only multiple choice. This is good when reviewing for part of a test or reviewing things like vocabulary, but not when studying for tests that require a lot of critical thinking or applying concepts to new situations. Keeping this in mind, I would definitely use Kahoot in my own teaching because it is still valuable practice and it did improve the students’ motivation.

Student Teaching Reflection 6

This week I spent three full days at my school. During these three days, I got to interact with the students and assist with some lessons. The teacher whose classroom I am in has 4 classes that are very well-behaved, do their work, and are actively engaged. The final 2 classes have many students who dislike school and dislike Biology. Because of this, these classes provide more challenges in terms of classroom management. I have found it very difficult to help my mentor teacher and her co-teacher keep these students on task and engaged in the class. My mentor teacher and her co-teacher have experience and confidence that helps them control classroom behavior, but I have found that the students do not yet respond to me in the same way. I have observed several things that help the teachers with their classroom management. First, they both are very consistent in their expectations and their follow-through. They tell students specifically how they are expected to behave in class and let them know what will happen if they fail to behave correctly. Second, they use classroom activities to help motivate students to be respectful and engaged in class. For example, if students are too loud and not paying attention while the class is working together through a worksheet, then they will do it individually. These consequences do not affect what the students are working on, simply how they are allowed to work. The last thing that I have observed that helps these teachers with their classroom management is their confidence. It is clear to me, and I'm sure it's clear to the students, that these teachers will not tolerate misbehavior. This confidence helps the students respect them and follow directions. This trait is more difficult to emulate than the other 2 because I believe this confidence comes with experience.

Student Teaching Reflection 5

This week, I am finally in a classroom! I met my mentor teacher on Tuesday and observed her classes on Thursday. I was very happy to see the classes and interact with the students. I was able to help with a few of the lessons and began to get a feel for my mentor teacher's teaching style. One class that I am equally excited and anxious about is Conceptual Biology. This is a class for students who passed their biology class but did not pass the Biology Keystone (PA standardized test). These students had a test review on Thursday, and it was obvious that they were not excited about the content of the class. Many of these students find biology extremely challenging or are completely uninterested in the concepts. This provides a challenge for the teacher to make sure that these students remain motivated enough to learn and are able to easily understand the information. I am a bit uncertain about this class because I don't know if I will be able to provide that motivation and come up with fun activities to get the student involved. On the other hand, I am also looking forward to trying to find or create activities that will be a lot of fun and really help these students learn. Another class that I will be helping to teach is Anatomy and Physiology. I am very excited to teach this class because just in the one day that I have seen these students, they were very curious and brought up a lot of good questions. This class, I think, will lend itself very well to purposeful questioning. Overall, I am really looking forward to this experience, and I am excited to see what I will learn from it.

Student Teaching Reflection 4

This week, I am STILL not in a classroom, but I am finally in contact with the teacher who will be my mentor teacher, so hopefully my internship will begin within a week or 2. However, there have been some new programs introduced to the company I work for that have gotten me thinking about STEM, what it means, and how I will effectively integrate STEM concepts and practices into my teaching. The company that I work for offers before and after school care for students in grades K-6. Currently, they are pushing new activities and marketing the program as a STEAM program rather than just daycare. I, being a STEM-teacher-in-training, was immensely excited about this change and was really looking forward to hearing about some of the new activities that our curriculum directors were coming up with. I was then very disappointed to learn that the company would be using the same activities and just labeling them differently. Now, there is nothing wrong with the activities that we are given now, except that many of them do not promote some core STEM/STEAM practices like creativity or cooperation. The art projects given are simply colorless toys that the children color with sharpies, and many of the "science" or "engineering" activities don't give the kids any freedom to try their own ideas or test how things might work. I began to think about how this relates to our class discussion of purposeful questioning. The leaders in the company that I work for have the best intentions in finding or creating these activities, but in practice, the activities aren't meeting the standards that are expected in a STEM/STEAM activity. The same goes for purposeful questioning. A teacher can have the best intentions and expect great discussions and higher order thinking to come out of a question, but if it is not happening in practice, that teacher needs to re-evaluate the questioning. This entire situation at work made me even more aware that as a teacher, I will need to constantly evaluate whether my activities, questions, and assessments are doing what I want and expect them to do.

Student Teaching Reflection 3

This week, we discussed standards in ED 640 and I began to think about how standards will be implemented in my classroom during student teaching and when I become a teacher. Since I live in Pennsylvania, I am expecting my experience to be different than that of my classmates. Pennsylvania does not use the Common Core standards that Maryland does. Because of this, the standards that I use in my classroom may be different than what my classmates are using. I have also noticed that even though my classmates are all teaching in Maryland, even their experiences differ in terms of lesson and unit planning. I am looking forward to finding out what my school's expectations for standards and lesson planning will be.

Student Teaching Reflection 2

Since I am still not in a classroom yet, this week I have been thinking about how the concepts my class discussed last week may be applied in the future. Specifically, I have been trying to think of how I would apply extension activities in my future general education classroom, and how I can differentiate for students that are ahead as well as students that are not. Having extra extension activities already planned can be really valuable to help enrich the learning of students who finish their work early or get bored with general class material. If I have extension activities that bring in different real-world concepts or revolve around different topics, it can pique the interest of students and continue to engage them once they've finished the main activity. Having multiple extensions like this will cater to students with varying interests. However, it would be important to make sure that extensions push students further rather than just provide "busy-work." This level of planning will help to differentiate in class lessons for students who are working faster than the class average. For other students, these extension activities can still be valuable. If they don't have a chance to finish in class, I can give them the option of taking them home and completing the ones they find interesting. Since they will involve different topics, students will engage more and connect with material that they can relate to. Once I get to know my class, I can even create activities that relate concepts specifically to their interests. Extension activities can be a very valuable part of lesson planning, both for engagement and differentiation.

Student Teaching Reflection 1

This past week, as school has been starting, there are many aspects of my student teaching that I am looking forward to, and others that I am apprehensive of. Since I am not yet in a school, my biggest apprehension is that I do not know what to expect. I don’t yet know what grade I’ll be in, who my mentor teacher will be, or even what school I’ll be at. I am also worried that I will not be immediately successful. When approaching my internship I need to remember that my first few lessons will almost definitely not be completely successful, but I can learn from anything that doesn’t go smoothly or according to plan. I am most looking forward to meeting the students that I’ll be helping to teach this year. Having worked with children before, I think I will enjoy learning about my students’ interests and strengths and using these in my lesson plans. I am also looking forward to getting real-world experience applying the knowledge that I have accumulated throughout my education courses. Overall, I am excited to be viewing a classroom experience from the perspective of an instructor instead of a student.

Somebody Else's Kids

While reading Somebody Else’s Kids by Torey Hayden (1981), what really struck me was the way these children looked through her eyes. She acknowledged their quirks, struggles, and disabilities, and celebrated their personalities and successes. I think that in our world, it is easy for people to ignore or even ridicule a child’s disability, but in Torey’s classroom, these kids were able to be themselves and be accepted.

While I was reading this book, I was really drawn to Lori. She was a very intelligent girl who was in the general education classroom most of the day. She came to Torey’s classroom for a short period each day because she had a brain injury that affected her ability to understand written symbols as well as other aspects of her learning. Lori is a perfect example of a student that I may very well have some day. Her disability did not impact her understanding of concepts or ability to learn a general educations curriculum, only her ability to read and write. Since her disability was most likely caused by a physical injury to her brain, it is entirely possible that she would never learn to read or write. By the time she gets to high school, Lori will have had a plethora of classroom experiences involving her disability, some good and some bad. In my classroom, I would hope to create only a positive experience.

Lori’s disability would be qualified as a traumatic brain injury (Who Are Exceptional Learners).  She would most likely have an IEP outlining how her other teachers and I can best meet her needs. Her IEP and Lori’s own comfort level would determine the different accommodations that would be made for her in my classroom, but the following are some ideas of how I could adapt my classroom to Lori’s learning needs.

One challenge that will need to be overcome is how Lori will receive information in the classroom. Many teachers use presentations and handouts with words and symbols that Lori is not able to comprehend. Lori’s instruction will need to be entirely through images and spoken language rather than written down. By high school, teachers rely on students’ ability to read and comprehend some things for themselves, so it would be a challenge to convert presentations and lectures into a form that will benefit Lori. Since Lori would also be unable to take notes, I could allow her to record the lessons or provide her with a copy of any visual presentation. If presentations and lectures are already created, it could be very time consuming to rework every lesson like this.

Another challenge that Lori would have in the classroom would be with written responses. Lori would be unable to write responses to any questions posed in class or for homework. In class, there are several options for helping Lori overcome this obstacle. In group or partner work, another classmate could help transcribe Lori’s responses if she feels comfortable with it. For any in-class work, if Lori has an aide or if I have a co-teacher, either the other teacher or I could transcribe Lori’s responses. I could also accept responses to classwork verbally. In certain situations in the classroom or at home, Lori could use technology to help her answer questions as well. A computer program could be used to speak the questions aloud to Lori and a speech to text program could help her record her answers. A big difficulty that we would encounter with all of these solutions, however, is that if responses require confidentiality and cannot be said out loud, Lori would not be able to speak her answers with the rest of the class present.

This brings up another challenge: testing. When taking a test or a quiz, Lori would be unable to answer questions verbally in the same room as other students. To solve this, Lori could complete her test in a separate room or at a different time than her classmates. The test or quiz could be taken on a computer, using the technology described above or with the help of a teacher or other professional. Another option that would depend on availability of technology and Lori’s comfort would be if there was a computer program that could use images to represent ideas to convert into a written response. Lori would wear headphones to have the questions read to her and then use images to express her answer. A complication with this is that there may be some complex ideas in a high school science class that would be difficult to convey with images.

An additional challenge to Lori would be any time there is a reading for class. In these cases, I would either have to find readings that were previously recorded verbally, record the reading myself, or someone would read it to Lori. The best option would be if the reading was previously recorded, but this would really limit the number of articles and readings I could choose from. I think that having a recording of a reading would be ideal for Lori because she can put on headphones and listen to the reading while her classmates are reading it rather than be secluded from her classmates while someone reads it to her. It would also give her more independence. However, this method would be much more time consuming for me while preparing my lesson, which would create a personal challenge for me.

A challenge facing Lori that would be unique to science classes is completing lab work and lab reports. The lab information and instructions would need to be recorded on a computer or read to Lori. If Lori is working with another student, they could help her understand the lab instructions, but a recording would allow her more independence. If the technology was available, the lab instructions could be formatted in a way that allows Lori to go back and replay individual steps rather than simply playing the instructions straight from beginning to end. If lab work required labeling, preprinted labels could be provided for Lori, or her lab partner could label lab work. If any pre lab or lab work required responses, these could be recorded or transcribed using a speech to text feature or recorded by Lori’s lab partner. Since a post-lab assignment or lab report would need to be individual, Lori’s responses would need to be verbal, recorded, transcribed using speech to text, or transcribed by a teacher or other adult.

Overall, there are many adaptations that can be applied to my class to fit Lori’s learning needs. With help from other professionals, teachers who have successfully taught Lori, and Lori herself, I would be able to help Lori learn in my classroom to the best of my ability.  With the availability of technology and resources today, many adaptations are relatively easy to apply compared to what a similar situation would be like years ago. A bigger challenge would be how to apply these adaptations in a way that makes Lori feel comfortable and not secluded or singled out from her classmates. In the book, Lori is in 1^st grade and has already encountered very negative situations where she is singled out because of her disability. In addition to any accommodations outlined in this essay, I think that it would be beneficial for Lori if I checked in with her on a regular basis to ensure that she feels that she is getting the most out of my class. This could happen as often as it needs to and I would use these meetings to adjust accommodations for future lessons.

References

Hayden, T.L. (1981). Somebody Else's Kids. New York: Putnam.

Who Are Exceptional Learners. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2016, from http://www.cec.sped.org/Special-Ed-Topics/Who-Are-Exceptional-Learners?sclang=en.

504 vs. IEP

Both the 504 plan and the IEP serve a similar purpose. They are both created to help a student with a disability succeed in a general education classroom. The biggest difference that I found between these two plans were how students qualify for them. The 504 plan seems to have a much broader definition of "disability" than an IEP. Other than that, both plans are created with a team of people including the child's parents, general education teacher, administrator, and other professionals and experts. In addition, they are both detailed plans for accommodations and modifications to assist the child in their classes.

History of Special Education

Here is the timeline that I created about the history of Special Education:

History of Special Education

In my schooling, I have not had much instruction on the education of children with disabilities. What little education I have gotten on the subject has been almost solely related to inclusion and, very briefly, how I am able to assist children with disabilities in my class. When reading the material for this first module and comparing it with my own experiences, I can see that there are many challenges involved with Special Education. It is clear from reading Skiba, et al. (2008) and "A Short History of Special Education Law" that the shape of Special Education has changed a lot throughout the years. Both of these sources outline a history that shows the struggle that disadvantaged students and students with disabilities have encountered. From the days of "separate but equal" to today it is clear that we have made great strides in assuring equal education to all students. However, from what I have learned, it is also clear that we can still improve our education.

One thing that I noticed when reading "Special Education Law..." was that many of the policies in place right now are not specific as to what schools and teachers should be doing to meet goals and expectations regarding students with disabilities. This allows for a lot of interpretations and wiggle room in these policies that can ultimately be detrimental to the students. Another challenge in Special Education right now is identification of students with learning disabilities or students receiving Special Education. Skiba, et al. (2008) discusses the disproportionate appearance of minority students in Special Education. This disproportionality can be a result of many different factors, but none of the factors that this article discusses are an actual difference in the number of students with disabilities in these minority groups.

References

A Short History of Special Education Law (n.d.). History of Special Education Law. http://www.wrightslaw.com/bks/lawbk/ch3.history.pdf.

Skiba, et al. (2008). Achieving Equity in Special Education: History, Status, and Current Challenges. Council for Exceptional Children. 74(3).

Special Education Law: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (n.d.). Understanding Special Education. http://www.understandingspecialeducation.com/special-education-law.html.

Literacy Web Tool Modeling

The web tool that I chose to explore more in depth is Tagxedo. This website allows you to create a word cloud about a topic using a website, blog, news article, or search. You simply paste a URL or a word to search in the correct section on the home page and a word cloud is generated. To test this out, I created an "evolution" word cloud using the Wikipedia article on evolution.

With this tool, words that are used most commonly are very big, while less common words are smaller. This is because you would expect more commonly used words to be more important while less common words are not as important.

This tool could help students visually pick out what concepts are most important to a current topic. The ability to pick out the "big picture" concepts is something that many students in my experience struggle with, so this visual could be extremely helpful in supporting this skill.

I would most likely use this tool to help my students explore the big topics in each unit. Students would choose a topic, like evolution, and create a word cloud using Tagxedo. They would then choose several of the larger words in their word cloud to explore more in detail. They would discuss why these words are so important to the topic, what they mean, and how they relate to the topic and the other words in the cloud.

This tool is very simplistic, so there is not a lot of differentiation that can be done with the actual tool. However, in a project like the one I describe above, there are several ways that it can be modified for different students. For instance, an ELL student could create a word cloud in their home language, or choose several of the more prominent words to translate into their home language. A teacher could also modify the number of words that are required to explore to make the assignment more or less challenging for students at different levels of achievement. In addition, there would be a lot of freedom for students to choose topics that interest them and display their exploration using a mode of representation that fits their personality.

The positive aspects of this tool include its simplicity and ease of use. It is very straightforward and would not require much instruction for students to understand how to use it. It also gives you a lot of freedom as to what you want to create a word cloud about. However, it does not have a wide variety of uses, and it doesn't allow for much customization of the words in the cloud.

Overall, I thought this tool was interesting and could pique the interest of my students, but I probably wouldn't use it more than once per school year.

Maryland Teacher Technology Standards

Technology is becoming more and more important to the classroom and the working world, so it is important to help students become competent users of technology. To do this, I need to be able to use technology competently as well. Following are the Maryland Teacher Technology Standards and various ways that I will work to meet these standards in my classroom.

SEVEN STANDARDS AND OUTCOMES	INDICATORS and Examples
I. Information Access, Evaluation,    Processing and Application Access, evaluate, process and apply information efficiently and effectively.	1.      Identify, locate, retrieve and differentiate among a variety of electronic sources of information using technology. 2.      Evaluate information critically and competently for a specific purpose. 3.      Organize, categorize and store information for efficient retrieval. 4.      Apply information accurately in order to solve a problem or answer a question. To meet this standard, I can use search engines such as Google Scholar to find materials appropriate for my students. The resources that I find can be organized using a tool similar to Blendspace or Symbaloo by category or unit so they can be easily retrieved to solve problems and answer questions.
II. Communication  A.      Use technology effectively and appropriately to interact electronically. B.    Use technology to communicate information        in a variety of formats.	1.      Use telecommunications to collaborate with peers, parents, colleagues, administrators and/or experts in the field. This can be achieved using sites like Edmodo, Blogger, or Blackboard. Google Hangouts is a great tool that could be introduced to students for use in group projects or to communicate with real scientists in the classroom. 1.     Select appropriate technologies for a particular communication goal. 2.      Use productivity tools to publish information. 3.      Use multiple digital sources to communicate information online. This standard could be met with the students through an internet project. By using communication technology to work with students in different classes, it expands students' frame of reference and allows me as a teacher to determine the best technology tools to use.
III. Legal, Social and Ethical Issues         Demonstrate an understanding of the legal, social and ethical issues related to technology use.	1.      Identify ethical and legal issues using technology. 2.      Analyze issues related to the uses of technology in educational settings. 3.      Establish classroom policies and procedures that ensure compliance with copyright law, Fair Use guidelines, security, privacy and student online protection. 4.      Use classroom procedures to manage an equitable, safe and healthy environment for students. Ethical and legal issues can easily be found through a search engine like Google. Here, there will not only be potential ethical and legal issues found in classrooms, but also ways to overcome and prevent ethical and legal dilemmas.
IV. Assessment for Administration and Instruction Use technology to analyze problems and  Develop data-driven solutions for instructional and school improvement.	1.      Research and analyze data related to student and school performance. 2.      Apply findings and solutions to establish instructional and school improvement goals. 3.      Use appropriate technology to share results and solutions with others, such as parents and the larger community.
V. Integrating Technology into the Curriculum      and Instruction     Design, implement and assess learning    experiences that incorporate use of technology    in a curriculum-related instructional activity to    support understanding, inquiry, problem solving,    communication and/or collaboration.	1.      Assess students’ learning/ instructional needs to identify the appropriate technology for instruction. 2.      Evaluate technology materials and media to determine their most appropriate instructional use. 3.      Select and apply research-based practices for integrating technology into instruction. 4.      Use appropriate instructional strategies for integrating technology into instruction. 5.      Select and use appropriate technology to support content-specific student learning outcomes. 6.      Develop an appropriate assessment for measuring student outcomes through the use of technology. 7.      Manage a technology-enhanced environment to maximize student learning. Technology today allows teachers to share resources, problems, and solutions quickly and easily. Because of this, there are countless resources for assessment, instructional support, and lessons using technology online. I will be able to see what technology worked well for other teachers for certain lessons and determine if it would fit in my lessons for my students. It is becoming easier every day to research these new technologies to integrate into the classroom and gauge how effective it will be.
VI. Assistive Technology Understand human, equity and developmental issues surrounding the use of assistive technology to enhance student learning performance and apply that understanding to practice.	1.    Identify and analyze assistive technology resources that accommodate individual student learning needs. 2.     Apply assistive technology to the instructional process and evaluate its impact on learners with diverse backgrounds, characteristics and abilities.
VII. Professional Growth Develop professional practices that support continual learning and professional growth in technology.	1.      Create a professional development plan that includes resources to support the use of technology in life long learning 2.      Use resources of professional organizations and groups that support the integration of technology into instruction. 3.      Continually evaluate and reflect on professional practices and emerging technologies to support student learning. 4.      Identify local, state and national standards and use them to improve teaching and learning.
Accepted by the Maryland State Board of Education, March 22, 2002

When using new forms of technology, students will need to be able to comprehend new information that is generally in text format. I think that the most important literacy skill for students to complete technology assignments and find information online is self-regulated reading (Coiro & Dobler, 2007). Students need to be conscious of what they are reading and the strategies they need to use to read it. This self-awareness will help students pick out the information they need and improve their comprehension of online materials.

Framing Our Reading Part 4: Vocabulary

For this assignment, my partner, Abi, and I chose three words from the articles that we read for the other parts of this project to complete graphic organizers with. We chose the words cone, stem cell, and gene. To see her part of this assignment, go here.

For my assignment, I used the vocabulary bookmark technique (McLaughlin, 2015). My bookmarks are below.

Vocabulary Bookmark A concept I think is important is: Cone I think it means: A light sensitive cell cell in your eye that helps you see colors Link Paragraph 8

Vocabulary Bookmark A concept I think is important is: Stem Cell I think it means: A cell that can grow into multiple different types of cells/tissue Link Paragraph 7

Vocabulary Bookmark A concept I think is important is: Gene I think it means: DNA instructions that code for a certain physical attribute Link Paragraph 1

For this strategy, the students choose a word or concept that they think is important, come up with a definition, and cite where they found it. They then write this on a small piece of paper or "bookmark." I think that there are several great things about this strategy. I like that it pushes the students to find words that are important rather than providing a vocabulary list to students. In addition, it has students come up with their own definition which must be concise to fit on the bookmark. It also provides a great starter for discussion. After the students write their bookmarks, I would have them discuss in small groups why they felt this word/concept was important and work with their classmates to add to or improve their definition. 

On the other hand, I think that there are a few things that this strategy lacks. I would want students to think about practical uses of these concepts and where they might see them in the real world. I would also want students to expand more on the definition and examples of their concepts. However, I think that these items can be included in the lesson with discussions or other supplemental materials. The nice thing about this strategy is that, even though it is missing some of these details, it would be a quick and easy assignment to give students to get them thinking before an in-class discussion. It does not take a whole lot of time, so it would not add a ton to their workload, but it is still a valuable activity. I would want to prepare them the class before if this was given as homework and let them know that they will need to explain why they chose their concept and expand on their definition in these ways. 

Overall, I would definitely use this strategy in my own class with some other activities to supplement the ideas that this strategy is missing.