What I learned . . .

I just hate shelling out money ($1,480 to be exact) to take a class to keep my teacher certification up to date (I must complete 2 every five years). Most ask me why I bother and I dutifully reply, “In case hubby kicks the bucket and I have to go back to work.” It is an honest reply, but I still don’t relish driving to class and sitting in a room full of people that I’m old enough to be their mother. Nope, not fun.

Anyhooooo, I took a graduate level course at Notre Dame. The class was called Methods of Teaching Students with Special Needs. The course description said:

Provides the student with methods to facilitate the teaching of students with significant learning and behavioral differences. The course content addresses cognitive processing, classroom management and behavioral support strategies. Models of instructional delivery, adaptation of instructional materials, strategy instruction and means of assessing students' progress are explored. Current trends, issues, and legislation updates are included as well.

As I look back at what we did, I concur that we did the above and I also learned how to do a FBA/BIP, fancy Notre Dame lesson plan, and wrote up some Classroom Behavior Expectations (for each expectation we had to identify management strategies to address the expectation while facilitating a positive environment) to use in our classroom. I did mine for my Sunday School class and I plan on using it next August. All in all it was a good class, but I can’t help to think about a little tid-bid that our professor told us (she was the Supervisor of Special Education in our county) that 150 teachers (not including the ones that are retiring) will be fired because of RIF (reduction in force). The Provisional certificate holders will go first, followed by the teachers with tenure (last one hired). Unfortunately that means all the new special education teachers that were just hired will get the ax. What is going to happen to all the special ed kids?

Instead of me posting of what I think was pivotal and interesting that we did in class, just comment below and ask me something specific and hopefully I can answer it (keep your fingers crossed).