Teaching Exceptional Children With Mobile Technologies in a General Education Classroom

Author(s):  
Jason Trumble ◽  
Yara N. Farah ◽  
David A. Slykhuis

Meeting the needs of all students is of crucial concern for all teachers. As technology continues to change our culture and the ways students learn, it is important for teachers to embrace new pedagogies that meet the needs of both gifted students and students with special needs. This chapter proposes a framework that supports the integration of differentiation, inquiry learning processes, and mobile technologies. The goal of presenting this framework is to provide a research foundation for a conceptual ideal geared toward practical implementation that benefits these two marginalized populations of students.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1058-1076
Author(s):  
Jason Trumble ◽  
Yara N. Farah ◽  
David A. Slykhuis

Meeting the needs of all students is of crucial concern for all teachers. As technology continues to change our culture and the ways students learn, it is important for teachers to embrace new pedagogies that meet the needs of both gifted students and students with special needs. This chapter proposes a framework that supports the integration of differentiation, inquiry learning processes, and mobile technologies. The goal of presenting this framework is to provide a research foundation for a conceptual ideal geared toward practical implementation that benefits these two marginalized populations of students.


Author(s):  
April Camping ◽  
Steve Graham

Writing is especially challenging for students with disabilities, as 19 out of every 20 of these students experience difficulty learning to write. In order to maximize writing growth, effective instructional practices need to be applied in the general education classroom where many students with special needs are educated. This should minimize special education referrals and maximize the progress of these students as writers. Evidence-based writing practices for the general education classroom include ensuring that students write frequently for varying purposes; creating a pleasant and motivating writing environment; supporting students as they compose; teaching critical skills, processes, and knowledge; and using 21st-century writing tools. It is also important to be sure that practices specifically effective for enhancing the writing growth of students with special needs are applied in both general and special education settings (where some students with disabilities may receive part or all of their writing instruction). This includes methods for preventing writing disabilities, tailoring instruction to meet individual student needs, addressing roadblocks that can impede writing growth, and using specialized writing technology that allows these students to circumvent one or more of their writing challenges.


2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin H. Lock

The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act in 1997 places greater emphasis on the inclusion of students with special needs in the general education classroom. For many rural schools, inclusion has been seen as a positive method for providing special education to students with special needs. However, many general educators including those in rural communities report a lack of preparation as a hindrance to their ability to effectively teach these included students. Difficulties in hiring certified special education teachers and a lack of viable methods increasing knowledge about students with special needs have interfered with many general education teachers' ability to serve these students adequately in the general education classroom. For rural schools districts and their teachers, access to information about students with special needs is not easily obtained. This article examines an electronic method for providing information to facilitate inclusion to rural educators in their home communities.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Woodcock ◽  
Wilma Vialle

Over recent years, moves toward the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms has brought about increasing attention to the way general education teachers perceive these students. Commensurate with this has been a growing interest in what may constitute educational success for children with special needs in mainstream classrooms, plus the ability of general education teachers to provide effective and appropriate instruction for them. It is known that teachers form beliefs about the process of teaching during their pre-service training and also that once a belief has been held for a long time, it becomes extremely difficult to change (Bandura, 1977, and Liljedahl, 2005). With learning disabilities being one of the most common disabilities in the classroom (Clark, 1997, and Clark & Artiles, 2000), it was considered that the need to further explore pre-service teachers’ perceived use of instructional strategies in relation to students who have what is termed learning disabilities, is indeed critical. This study looked at the instructional strategies Australian pre-service teachers reported they would use for students with a learning disability compared to students without a learning disability. The findings show that pre-service teachers favour more direct teacher-centred instructional strategies for students with a learning disability and more learner-centred instructional strategies for students without a learning disability. The greatest discrepancy in strategy use between the two groups of students was the higher cognitive level instructional strategies within a learner-centred environment. Pre-service teachers would use these strategies more frequently with students who do not have a learning disability. Implications for future practice and recommendations for future research are presented.


Author(s):  
Terence Cavanaugh

An estimated three billion people, representing approximately half of the planet’s population, are in some way affected by disabilities, which includes an estimated 150 million from the United States of America (Half the Planet, 2001). According to the Twenty-Third Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2002a), concerning students with special needs between the ages of three and 21, the U.S. and its outlying areas are currently serving educationally more than 6,272,000 students classified as having a disability. The inclusion model, in which a special needs student participates in the “regular” classroom, has become the current classroom education standard. Today’s special needs students have increasing impacts on the general education teacher as, during the past 10 years, the percentage of students with disabilities served in schools and classes with their non-disabled peers has gradually grown to over 90% in 1998 (U.S. Department of Education, 2000b). Because of the large and increasing number of special needs students, assistive educational technology is growing in importance. The population of postsecondary students with disabilities has increased over the past two decades, and currently there are approximately one million persons in postsecondary institutions who are classified as having some form of disability (U.S. Department of Education, 2000b). In 1994, approximately 45% of the adult population who reported having a disability had either attended some college or had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, as compared to only 29% in 1986 (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999a).


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 273-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
North Cooc

Debates about the inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms often overlook its impact on teachers. In this study, I analyze the concern that teachers may spend less time teaching in classrooms with children with special needs using survey data on 121,173 teachers from 38 participating countries and partners of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013. I further examine teacher, classroom, and school factors that may explain disparities in time spent teaching in classrooms with and without students with special needs. The findings indicate teachers, on average, spend marginally less class time on teaching in classrooms that include more students with special needs. The disparity in teaching time is mostly removed when accounting for students with behavioral problems in classrooms.


1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 226-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeria T. Chow ◽  
Connie Kasari

Teacher-child interactions with exceptional, at-risk, and typical learners were observed in three inclusive classrooms. The purpose of this study was to examine both the frequency and type of teacher and student initiations and responses. Observations were conducted at the beginning, middle, and end of one entire school year and based on naturally occurring teacher-child interaction. Behaviors included teacher initiations, student initiations, and teacher responses to student initiations. Although the number of interactions between teachers and children did not change over the year, the type of interactions did change during the year in relation to child group membership. Teachers initiated more task-related interactions with exceptional children and gave them more negative feedback compared to at-risk and typical learners, but only at the beginning of the year. In the middle of the year, teachers gave significantly more negative responses to the task-related and off-task initiations of students at risk than to children with disabilities or typical learners. By the end of the year, there were no significant differences in the number or type of initiations to any of the children. Implications are discussed for the practice of including children with special needs in the general education classroom.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (30) ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
Mohammad S. Soliman

The inclusion of students with special needs in general education classes has become a goal that all educational systems worldwide strive to achieve it. The inclusion of special needs has many benefits, whether for special needs students or regular students. The current study aims to reveal the differences in the self-efficacy among general education teachers in both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Republic of Egypt. It aims also to reveal the sources of this self-efficacy in both countries. The core study sample consisted of (96) Saudi teachers and (88) Egyptian teachers. The researcher used the teachers 'self-efficacy scale and the teachers' self-efficacy sources scale. The results of the study indicated that there is a significant difference between the average scores of the total self-efficacy and its sub-dimensions between the Saudi and Egyptian sample for the outperform of The Egyptian teachers. It indicated that the source of the mastery experience was a significant predictive of the self-efficacy of the Saudi teachers, and it explained 53% of the variation in self-efficacy. It also indicated that the mastery experience was a significant predictive of the self-efficacy of the Egyptian teachers, and it explained 13% of the variance in self-efficacy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Leifler

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore effects of an intervention designed for teachers' learning. This study investigates the effectiveness of a three-session professional development (PD) program based on the lesson study methodology. Lesson study was chosen as an intervention, attempting to strengthen teachers' awareness of and readiness to teach for student diversity.Design/methodology/approachThis study included 26 participants. The teachers took part in lesson study cycles during a period of four months. Effectiveness was measured using a pre-test/post-test within-subject design. The broad concept of inclusion and the characteristics of the research questions in this study demanded a mix of methods, a design in which qualitative and quantitative data are collected in parallel, analyzed separately and then merged.FindingsResults show an increase of teachers' readiness from baseline to post measurement to adjust the learning environment for increased inclusivity. The largest increase (88%) was seen in the themes in teachers' responses regarding accommodations for a student with special needs. Regarding self-perceived ability, the average increase was 50%. Results show significant changes in teachers' adjustment awareness ability.Originality/valueThis study contributes to educational research, as the focus is PD for general teachers. PD opportunities with teaching strategies related to special needs (e.g. neurodevelopmental conditions, NDCs) are seldom offered to general education teachers. Support from teachers is a key strategy for accommodating students with special needs in mainstream classrooms. Furthermore, there is a lack of literature of interventions aiming to improve teachers' readiness and preparedness for students with NDCs in mainstream settings.


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