Task 3 Instruction: Instruction

Think about your assumptions about learning.

I believe every human is born with the ability to learn. With that being said, I'm also a strong believer it takes a community to raise a child. This is not only the community the child lives in but all the adults who has an influence in the child's life. If a child is born with a disability, it's up to the parents, school, doctors, church etc. to provide the necessary tools to adapt to society.

Do all students have a capacity to learn?

Yes, all students possess the ability to learn. I completely agree with Vygotsky's idea of "social intelligence". The amount of information that can be learned or understood by watching and/or interacting with others is endless. I believe all our students learn from other students for what is socially acceptable within our society. I currently have 2 highly functional students which is dating in my class. As I do not like the relationship, they understand the behaviors which are acceptable within the school and in my classroom.

What shapes this capacity?

I feel every adult who is involve with the students life is obligated to shape and mode the students knowledge base. If at a young age, parents instill in the child that education is important and provide by example of why education is important, I feel the child would grow to value an education. Now this may not mean the child will be intelligent but the child will have an understanding of why the educational process is important.

How much influence do you have upon this capacity?

As teachers, we DO influence our students’ capacities for learning. I think about this on a continuing basis because how could I not influence my students learning process. Within the school year, my students are with me almost as much as they are with their parents. Regardless if my students like me or not, I influence in some capacity of their learning abilities. As discussed by Danielson, Domain 2 is what I strive for each and every school year. As a teacher I try to focus on the social and emotional aspects of learning. My number one goal is for my studetns to have fun while at school. If my students are having fun and learning within the process they will be more open to learn different things. Not only open to learning different things but things which they do not like, they may give it a try. I do my best to promote a foundation of trust and build from there.

I feel I'm more in domain two but as I read I thought of different situation where i fell in other domains. My classroom is a blended of different techniques but the most important is fun and trust.

How do these assumptions about learning shape our instruction?

The biggest issues I have as a special education teacher is self determination by my students. By the time they get to the high school level, they are use to adults doing everything for them. They just say "I don't know" and the answer is given to them. As I try to make education fun through games, I attempt to force my students to figure things out on the own. As they progress through high school and the goal is to receive a job, they have to know that they have to do it themselves and if they can't, how to ask for help. My goal as an educator, I want all my students to be able to work out in the community. If I have this goal for myself and students, I have to set high standards within my classroom. I have to plan accordingly, revisit offer, and/or adjust lessons when needed to get where I want all my students to be.

Task 2: Enacting Curriculum

What is the purpose of curriculum and what role do we have as teachers in this purpose?

Curriculum is a blueprint to what you want your students to know but more and importnantly what teachers need to know, present, and understanding so all students can become learners beyond high school. With this blueprint, it is up to all teachers to break down the learning process into a blend learning strategies to meet all students needs.

The most imporant aspect to teaching is keep your teaching strageties fresh and relevent to our students. Also as teachers get older continue to learn new strageties to add to your teaching tool box. As a teacher of students with disabilities, this is exetremely important for me. I have students with a lot of different disabilities and learning styles. I have to have a blended teaching style to each all my students.

How much control do we have in the designing of curriculum? How much should we have?

Within our school, our priniple and curriculum commitee determine classes which make up our curriculum. What is interesting and I complete agree with is how we go about the lay out of the curriculum and the plan of implementation. After the curriculum is developed, we meet as departments to decide what and how the classes are going to be taught, for example, Alegbra 1 teaches develop their sylabi which should look exactly the same. The materials should be taught at the same pace and examines look similar, according to KY teaching standards. Tests are developed in the same format of our CATS tests, so our students are use to seeing this type of testing materials. All departments go though the same process. The control we have over the implementation is extremely important to our school. I believe this holds all teachers and students accountable for our learning environment.

What does the curriculum that you have look like in your classroom in a day to day environment?

This particular question is exetremly hard for me to answer because within my classroom I wear a lot of different hats. As a teacher of students with multi-disablilites, my job is to develop life skills so they can go out and be production citizens within our society. All of my students are on a non-diploma track, lack of better wording, their classes and grades don't matter. With that being said, all my students are main streamed into the regular classes but my ultimate goal is for them to receive the knowledge and skills from every possible source. My class is structure in 3 phrases; the reteaching of regular classes, fuctional courses (math/reading at a basic level), and community base instructional (practical living skills, job coaching, social skills training). At any giving day, my students can be in regular classes, working on basuc living skills, or out in the community learning social and job skills. It's my job to figure out the basic instructions, so my students can learn, retain, and apply inforamtion. Hopefully this will allow them to be production life-long workers within our communities.

Curriculum design: Task 1

After reading the articles, Applebee's curriculum map is ideal and allows studetns to voice what they already know through conversation within the classroom. Ideally providng real-world experiences and connecting it to the core curriculum would be awesome but not always possible in the general eduaction setting. In my multi-handicap room, I have to prepare my students with real-world experiences in hope of providing them the skills to get a job after high school. Obviously, not all my students will be able to possess a job but I need provide any and all opportunities for my students to be successful outside of the educational process.

Wiggins discussed making students responsible and question everything which is seen, heard, and/or read. I love thought process of this type of curriculum design but I am not completely sure this could be intergrated as the norm. Within our school, our curriculum is design within our department. All teacher within the department are teaching the same thing at the same time. Im not saying all teachers, but most teachers do not like to be question regarding their teachings. I believe this particular curriculum would teach our students to think for themsleves and not believe everything they see and here on the television and/or what theor friends may tell them. When evidence is need to prove your statement, thats not all bad.

As I discussed above, within our school our departments map out the curriculum. If teachers are teaching the same subject, they should teach the same thing and cover the material at the same pace. The use of flashbacks and other review techniques should also be similar. Wraga discussed having common goals for each subject across core curriculum areas, this has been a huge undertaking for our school. While common goals was created as teachers we also have to attach the knowledge to relateable material which the students can connect too. This has been a work in progress but the only way to get our studetns to learn, retain, and apply learned knowledge is to make it conectable to they lives. This is not easy and difficult to do but is needed.

After reading these articles, I'm really in a special situation where I have several individuals and if i get them to be a bagger at krogers, thats a success story. There is a blended learning of these articles currently going on. I understand the importance of connecting real-world experiences to our general education students and honestly I believe thats the best way to teach and nuture the minds of the future.