Roxygrrl

How does my garden grow?

rpena6 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:50:05 +0000

: Look at all the yummy veggies we grew!

ALL students with or without exceptional needs learn best when given the chance to experience hands-on what you are teaching and talking about in your lessons. For example in science every year we talk about plants, living things, what they need to grow and survive. Giving my students the chance to plant vegetable seed in our school garden and watching them grow over time until we can harvest and eat them ourselves make for a life long learning experience. The opportunity the students get to get down on their knees and into the mud is not one they often get a chance to do at home or anywhere else for that matter. They truly get so much more out of it then I could ever give them in our nice clean classroom with only pictures and worksheets to learn from.

And the IEP just keeps on getting longer and longer and longer…but something is still missing

rpena6 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:33:57 +0000

So once again the IEP has been revamped in our SELPA and not for the better. Making it now even longer and it includes tedious questions about medi-cal insurance, summer school services (as if they should be any different then they are throughout the school months), and requesting dates such as when did the student first get referred for special education services and when was the referral first signed (really?). What is the point? We need to know first and for most what category the student qualifies under, rationale for why they qualify, what service(s) they need, their strengths and areas of educational concerns, modifications and adaptations they need, current levels of performance, and goals for the next year. It also needs a checklist that gives information about whether or not in the previous year they recieved the services they were suppose to and what their progress was interms of they were doing this much and now they are doing even more. We need to somewhere on the IEP show actual on going growth. If their is none then we know that something isn’t working and something needs to be changed. Sometimes I feel like we just fill out the paper and sign them year after year without really proving that the services are making a difference. Perhaps I make no sense, but I feel like something important is missing and needs to be addressed.

How best to work with students with multiple-disabilities

rpena6 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:13:40 +0000

Students withmultiple disabilities learn best when a multi-sensory approach is used. This means that the teacher uses auditory, visual, tactual, and even taste to help students learn to the best od their individual ability. Using short simple directions that have as lettle verbal clutter as possibe, so the student is not overwhelmed and lost in too much information at once. Giving repeated directions with pauses in between to allow the student to process what they are told or what is requested of them. Routine and consistent daily schedule creates a sense of expectation for the student and allows them to knnow what is happening next. Verbal and tactile information about what they are about to do and what it is going to feel like or sound like to lessen anxiety about new experiences makes for successful learning to tae place.

The endless possibilites of a wiki

rpena6 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:03:29 +0000

Wikis give focus to the last draft, yet wikis provide a history. Each time the text is changed, a new version is saved. Anyone can go back later and see previous versions. This allows teachers and students to see the writing process in action. They can be used for science fair projects, collaborative textbooks, student portfolios, organizing and conducting research, and collaboration between teachers.

spreadsheets are for all educators to use!

rpena6 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:21:18 +0000

Spreadsheets allow you to make and keep ongoing records of stuents growth and progress over time. They help you keep individual student test scores on exams, quizes, and tests. They can be used to track assessments, grades, student attendance, student progress and other student information. They can be used to represent data in a graph. It gives a visual picture to numbers and quantities for the visual learner. Students may create spreadsheets of their own to record and analyze collected data.

Recording keeping made easy

rpena6 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:34:54 +0000

All teachers are need to and are asked to keep records of student personal information, test scores, overall growth scores, scores for their performance on tests such as for English Languagge learners. Data records through the excel program available on most all school computers can be used in a cvariety of manners. You can use data records to match records that match certain criteria, update records in bulk, cross reference records in different tables, and perform complex aggregate calcuations. No longer will you have to carry a tacher record notebook folder. Now you can keep it all easily organized and collected in a computer on a data record where you can update and add to it daily.

Organizational magic via powerpoint

rpena6 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:45:09 +0000

Powerpoint is an amazing program that can be used to keep you organized, focused, and on topic. Whether you are presenting on a specific topic among colleagues, speaking to parents at back to school night, or teaching a lesson to a group of young or older students on any topic from letter recognition to the life cycle of a frog a powerpoint can bring everything to life. It can provide visual information (words, pictures, and video) and auditory information (sounds or music) on the topic of discussion. In my personal expierence as a special education treacher I have used powerpount for the purpose of presenting to a group of colleagues on how to work with students with multiple disabilities and challenging behaviors. By using a powerpoint presentation it kept me organized, on topic, and moving in a sequential manner thropught the main points I wanted to cover. It also gave me an opportunity to include a video clip of how I actually work with a student in action verses only giving a list. It made a huge difference in my presentation, it made it clear, and I stayed on topic. Whether with colleagues, parents, or students presenting information to any group of individuals in an organized, clear, and sequential manner is imperative to good teaching stratgies.

The Magic of CLRN

rpena6 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:32:34 +0000

CLRN is the California Learning Resource Center. This website provides a plethora of amazing digital resources that include, but not limited to CD Roms, videos, software, and more. The digital resources are listed for grade specific levels with subject and standard(s) provided for the educator that wants to be certain that they are teaching the content they wish to teach. In today’s “No Child Left Behind” world we need to be certain that we are teaching to the correct and appropriate grade standard and CLRN makes it extremely easy to do this. In no time at all you can have a number of different digital resources lined up and ready to include into your current curriciulum that will benefit students by motivating, engaging and enhancing the way you teach to the appropriate grade standard.

www.clrn.org

Room one 2008 Thanksgiving Celebration

rpena6 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:49:29 +0000

2008

I believe that a blog page like this could be useful as a communication tool between the teacher (myself) and the parents or guardians of my students. My students are very young (4-6) so it would best be used by the parents to share photos of our classroom activities and special moments that occur daily in the classroom. Also to post announcements and reminders for the weeks lessons and school wide activities. It would also be useful to invite other service providers to post classroom wide information or suggestions to parents and guardians. I could also upload student work samples and ideas for activities that parents could complete at home with their students to encourage and reinforce concepts that are being taught in the classroom. Also giving me a chance to share strategies that parents can use at home to support their students needs.

Roxanna Pena

Halloween 2008

rpena6 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:58:18 +0000

This is a picture of my God son and I last Halloween. He is a total sweetheart. We are looking forward to this coming Halloween!

Nina and Noah