Special Education
| Date:14/o6/2010 | Grade :8th grade |
| Unit: mutualism, parasitism and comensalism | |
| Description of the child. The lesson plan is aimed at teaching an eight grade student with hearing disability. The child is 13 years old. | |
| Subject: Eighth grade science | Strengths and weaknesses of the child. The disability affects the performance of the child and this makes it dificuity to perform better like other students. The student is able to perform well if offered with right interventions. The student has difficulties in hearing and reading. |
| Learning modalities. The learning modalities for a child with hearing disability include visual modalities and touch. The student will be able to understand what is being taught using the visual modalities. Touch will help students know when the teacher is communication and it will also help them when discussing the content of the topic with other children. | Learning objective. The lesson plan is aimed at helping the student perform better in eight grade science. The student should be able to perform well in the subject. This is through the integration of the various modalities to help the student. |
| Activity: Understanding the difference between mutualism, parasitism and comensalism. The Student is required to use pictures to explain the difference between the terms. Also, the student will participate in group discussions to evaluate the concept and later do any examination on the topic. | Assessment: The student will do a test on the eighth grade science. Then the teacher will evaluate the student to determine the performance of the student. Both summative and formative assessment will be used. The child will do a test at the middle of the course and at the end.
Computer technologies will be used to help the student understand what is being taught. Computer technologies can be used to translate what is being taught in class. In addition, one can use audiotapes, video tapes, and other materials to improve learning skills and make the student perform better. |
Exceptionalities are common in young children (Alber, 2000). The exceptionalities hinder children from performing well like other students. Students with various types of exceptionalities perform poorly as they have learning difficulties and communication difficulties (Alber, 2000). There are various types of exceptionalities that hinder students from performing well like normal students (Alber, 2000). The exceptionalities include intellectual exceptionalities, physical, behavioral etc. The exceptionalities have different effects on student performance (Alber, 2000). For example, the exceptionalities make it difficulty for students to communicate well. Most schools have children with a learning disability like behavioral disabilities and hearing disabilities (Alber, 2000). Teachers should use various strategies to help students perform well. The lesson plan above showed an accommodation for an eighth grade student with hearing disability (Alber, 2000). The lesson plan was good as it helped the student perform well. Several modifications and accommodation were made in the lesson plan, and they proved successful (Alber, 2000).
First, the lesson plan was developed to include learning modalities for a child with hearing disabilities (Alber, 2000). The modalities used included visual modality and touch. The modalities helped the student understand what is being taught (Alber, 2000). The modalities served a different purpose (Alber, 2000). The visual modality helped the student learn things through seeing. The student was able to view pictures provided by the teacher. This made it easy for the student to remember what the teacher taught (Alber, 2000). Moreover, the teacher used the touch modality to teach the student. The student was able to perform well in the text. This is because he understood what the teacher taught. Touch modality allowed the student to learn through hands on experiments and activities. Also, the student was able to do a demonstration while reading (Alber, 2000). This made it easy for the student to understand the concept and participate in group discussions. The teacher used the two modalities to teach the exception student. The modalities proved successful (Alber, 2000).
Another accommodation that proved successful was the use of technology, and other teaching materials (Alber, 2000). Teachers are able to use various types of technology to help students with hearing difficulties understand what is being taught. Many technologies have become important accommodations for students with hearing disability (Alber, 2000). Most schools have adopted technologies to help improve education programs to accommodate students with hearing disabilities. An assistive listening system was used to help the student understand what was being taught (Alber, 2000). The technologies helped the teacher communicate directly to the student. This reduced interruptions from other students and the classroom environment (Alber, 2000). A speech –to-text systems was also used to help the student. The device was used to convert the content being taught into written language. This made it easy for the student to understand the content written (Alber, 2000).
Also, other teaching materials like videos proved successful as they made it easy for the student to understand the content (Alber, 2000). The teacher used video material to enhance student understanding. If I were to teach the lesson again I would teach it the same way. This is because the lesson plan proved effective in helping the student perform well like normal students (Alber, 2000). The accommodations in the lesson plan were enough to help the student perform better. The lesson plan included technological assistance, reading materials and assessment to determine whether the student was progressing well or not (Alber, 2000). The lesson plan can be used to teach again as it has everything that can be used to accommodate children disability in the classroom (Alber, 2000).
Another modification that proved useful was the use of teaching materials and hands on activities to improve student performance (Alber, 2000). The student was allowed to cut pictures so as to understand what was being taught (Alber, 2000). This made it easy for the student to remember what was being taught. The student was allowed to group different pictures into the three categories. The student understood the topic well (Alber, 2000).
General education teachers can make several accommodations that help a child with hearing impairment perform well (Alber, 2000). Regular education teachers can make modifications on the teaching method (Alber, 2000). The teacher should not teach faster. He should improve his teaching speed to cater for children with hearing impairment. The teacher should teach slowly so as to help the student understand what is being taught (Alber, 2000). The teacher should use visual examples more than words to help the student understand the concept (Alber, 2000). This is because students with hearing impairment rely mostly on visual modalities and touch. Visual modalities help the student analyze the content critically, and understand it (Alber, 2000). Thus, the teacher should use visual examples more than language. In addition, the teacher should be able to use gestures while teaching (Alber, 2000). He should always look at the student and use touch to make the student understand concepts. Gestures make it easy for the student to comprehend what is being taught (Alber, 2000). The teacher should be able to build background of the content well so as to make the student connect what is being taught and what he learned lastly(Alber, 2000). The teacher should make use of hearing equipment to help the disabled student hear what is being taught (Alber, 2000). The teacher should alternate the language and hands on experiments.
Another modification that needs to be made is sentences used to teach (Alber, 2000). The teacher should decompose long sentences into short sentences so as to make it easy for the student to understand the content (Alber, 2000). Also, the teacher should reduce the vocabulary used and the strength of the content being taught. This is to make sure the disabled child understands what is being taught.
Several modifications need to be made in group discussions. The teacher should identify who is speaking in the group by pointing at him and encouraging students to sit in a circular manner so as to enhance inclusion of the student with a hearing disability (Mangal, 2007). The regular education teacher should develop a method to ensure the hearing impaired student expresses his views to other students in the group (Mangal, 2007). This will help improve the performance of the student and make the student happy. He should encourage repetition of content being taught and students should make summary of the topic as it is important in helping a disabled child (Mangal, 2007).
Students with hearing impairments should be included in a regular classroom (Mangal, 2007). Parents and special education teachers can help general education teachers by providing different types of modifications and accommodations to handle disabled children (Mangal, 2007).
Special education teachers can make several accommodations help a hearing impaired student learns in general education classroom (Mangal, 2007). The special education teacher can provide peer support. This means the student should be put in a small group to help him in learning activities (Mangal, 2007). The members of the support group are required to support the disabled child and make him feel part and parcel of the student population (Heward, 2008). The regular teachers and special teachers should assign the student with hearing disability to students who can help him with learning directions used by teachers to teach and group discussions (Mangal, 2007). The accommodation will make it easy to include disabled children in the general education classroom and provide instructions (Heward, 2008).
Specialists can make accommodations like restructuring the school curriculum to include instructions offered to children with hearing disability (Heward, 2008). The instructions should be changed so as to help teachers provide instructions to general students and special students. This will help improve the performance of disabled children (Heward, 2008). The assessment methods should be improved to incorporate children with hearing disabilities. The time when the evaluation is offered should be change (Heward, 2008). Other aspects related to assessment should be changed like the location of assessment, how to evaluate the students, and the student response of the student towards the assessment. Children with disabilities like hearing disabilities are required to participate in education assessment at all levels (Heward, 2008). Thus, the specialists should modify all the assessments to help disabled children fit. Hence, the regular education teachers, special teachers and specialists should work together to find the right accommodations or modifications to help disabled children fit in the general curriculum. This will help enhance inclusion in most schools (Heward, 2008).
Reference
Alber,M.(2000).Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education.Prentice Hall
Mangal.(2007).Educating exceptional children: an introduction to special education.PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.,
Heward, W.L. (2008).Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education, Ninth Edition, Merill. Chapters 14 & 15
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