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Reflection
One of the reasons behind my taking this course was to learn how to better accommodate students in my class with exceptionalities and strategies to help learn all my students meaningfully. I personally feel that every teacher should be professionally qualified to deal with any issues concerning exceptional learners, as every classroom essentially has identified or unidentified exceptional learners.
During this course I not only learned from the course material and text but also from sharing at the discussion board. There were many experienced teachers in the class and everyone’s inputs were valuable. The focus of the course was mainly to discuss and learn about how to accommodate all students including the exceptional learners to create an inclusive classroom. Every child should feel valued and appreciated. The strategies that I learned through discussions and the course material were valuable and would help me in future as a classroom teacher or a Special Education resource teacher.
Designing an IEP was one of the most challenging tasks for me during this course as I had never done one before. It was an amazing experience working with the group and helping each other understanding the assignment and creating the IEP together. In this process I had the opportunity to read the IEP standards ministry document and understand it thoroughly which has the guidelines to create an IEP.
This course was different from any other AQ courses I have taken. I learned about many high incidence and low incidence disabilities, the various assessment tests in practice (I created a brochure on WIAT) etc. I read an amazing article on the Queens Library page Your Child with Autism: When is augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) an appropriate option? This was an article which gave me a totally different approach to deal with students with autism. It was also interesting to discuss and learn about how to program for a gifted child who is much advanced than his age in a classroom with his same age group students.
During this course I had the opportunity to interview a speech pathologist who explained to me the whole procedure of how she works and what strategies can help students in a classroom to learn meaningfully if they have a speech problem. I also had an opportunity to interview a parent who has a child with special needs. I learned from the interview that a parent should be listened to very patiently as they know their children the best and they have a lot to tell and share.
I could relate my self every time I read a case study in one of our course books (Teaching Exceptional Children and Adolescent). Case # 7 which is about a new teacher meeting a parent to discuss her child who may have ADHD, was so close to my own experience this year when I did not know what should be my next step when I could see there might be some issue with one of my students. Every case I read made me think and review my teaching practice. The culminating assignment was a good review of all that we learned during this course. Taking two exceptional students into consideration and creating an inclusive classroom where these exceptional learners could be accommodated was a good revision of the main ideas in the course. This course has not only helped me to grow professionally and understand exceptional students’ needs and apply various strategies to accommodate them but also to learn about various disabilities in children help me to understand any child better.
This course has been one of the most meaningful courses that I have taken so far. I plan to take Special Education-II in near future to extend my learning and grow professionally and personally.