Sarah Weston's Special Education Showcase
I chose special education as an area of concentration in the Master of Arts Education program at Michigan State University. My coursework in special education has helped me meet the needs of all students by creating a safe and effective learning environment, creating lessons that can be modified for a wide variety of learners, and using supports and technology to help students. By becoming a more effective teacher, I am able to meet the needs of my students, especially those who special needs. This page showcases my professional skills, knowledge, and qualifications to teach special education students in an inclusive classroom. My showcase devoted to literacy can be found on the Literacy Showcase page.
Conflict Resolution
I researched the best way to handle a classroom concern, conflict resolution. As I researched many different ways of handling conflict, I found the Second Step program to be the most appropriate for young children as it focused on feelings and empathy. I was excited to discover I got to use this program when I was hired at a preschool that owned this curriculum. This link takes you to the power-point presentation I created about conflict resolution. Conflict Resolution Power-point |
|
ADD/ADHD Website
ADD/ADHD can have a tremendous impact on the classroom environment since it effects the ability to concentrate and can also effect behavior. Here you will find a link to the wiki I made. This was a group project that I collaborated on with several individuals. The two pages I did were Tips For Helping Your Child With ADHD At Home and IEPs and 504 Plans for Children with ADHD. Researching ADD/ADHD helped me understand students with ADD/ADHD better and gave me the background knowledge I needed to set my classroom routines up so students with ADD/ADHD could be successful. I gave this link out to several families who told me they found the information helpful. Help for ADD and ADHD website Tips For Helping Your Child With ADHD At Home 504 Plans for Children with ADHD |
Social Skill Development
I chose to research social skills as I felt a good portion of the behavior issues that came up in my classroom were because students lacked social skills or didn’t know how to handle their emotions. Through my research I came across Becky Bailey’s Conscious Discipline program. I created this power-point for my project. I presented it at a professional development to my co-workers and I also utilized in my classroom. By incorporating this program into my classroom I have focused on building community, given my students strategies to unwind and manage stress, and helped students develop social skills as well as learn how to express themselves. Conscious Discipline Power-point |
Technology Based Literacy Solutions
I am very proud of the website I created. I researched different technological solutions that would be appropriate for elementary students. My focus was on finding free resources that would help students and be available for schools and families to use via the internet. This link will take you to the website I created: Technology Based Literacy Solutions. As I created my website, I researched and considered the best ways to help students with different literacy struggles and evaluated technology for quality solutions that would meet those needs. Technology Based Literacy Solutions website |
Using Technology To Teach
As I learned about technology that would be helpful for students with reading disabilities, I had the opportunity to explore several new technologies. I created a "digital book" in the form of a Prezi, about an upcoming trip to Florida. I chose to gear my Prezi toward my own family as I was currently job searching and wanted it to be useful. As I created it I realized it would be a great resource for teaching social skills! I also created a digital movie about myself. I had never done this before and thought it was fun! I'm excited to be able to incorporate technology into my classroom in order to help students with disabilities! My Prezi, Our Trip to Florida, is available to the right. My video, available through Popcorn Maker, is displayed below. |
|