Exam 2 Multiple Choice Questions

1. Progress monitoring, in accordance to the RTI model is used in which of the following tiers?

A. Tier 1
B. Tier 2
C. Tier 3
d. All of the above

2. The acronym EBD stands for which of the following

A. Emotional Behavioural Disease
B. Educational Behaviour Disability
C. Emotional Behavioural Disorder
D. Education By Design

3. Which of the following words is a family factor that is associated with students with EBD.

A. Substance Abuse
B. Being a twin
C. Bullied in school
D. Having an older sibling of the same sex

Field Placement, Site Visits, Documentary

Sadly I could not figure out how to get the wordle onto this blog post (ny print screen wasn't working for some reason), so I just posted the link here.

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This week I visited the Mulberry Street school in Lancaster and the Manheim Middle school. The Mulberry Street school is where I go every week so that was nothing out of the ordinary. The Manheim middle school was visit was awesome. The teacher was great and had a packet of information and a mini tour planned for us. She had a lot of cool programs in place in her classroom and made sure that her students were very much apart of the schools community. I could tell that she had been working there awhile due to the high quality programs and level of instruction. Once again, I saw a lot of what was talked about in chapter 6 at my field placement. To avoid repetition, I created a wordle this week including information from the chapter and experiences from both my field placement and the site visits (linked above). I also wanted to briefly mention my reaction to the documentary that we watched in class. I thought that the video did a great job pointing out the difficulties experienced by the advocates. They struggled a lot to get things to where they are today and I am sure that many of them are still struggling to improve things even farther. The most shocking part to me was the fact that many of these things happened within the last few decades. The little girl climbing up the steps of the White House almost brought me to tears.

Field Placement and Chapter 6.

Chapter 6 in the book is all about emotional and behavioral issues and disturbances. According to the book, studies show that anywhere from .5% to 30% of young children struggle from an Emotional Disturbance. The average of most studies leads us to believe that anywhere from 3-6% of children struggle with an Emotional Disturbance of some kind. To be defined as Emotionally Disturbed, a child must meet several criteria. The children at my placement all meet the criteria and have been evaluated as having an emotional or behavioral disorder. This chapter pertained a lot to what I see and the types of students that I have met in my field placement. This is because I am at a school that is specifically for children who have severe emotional and behavioral disorders, the Mulberry Street School. The book says that "students logically fall on a continuum of severity with respect to their emotional or behavioral disorder". The Mulberry Street School is on the severe end of the spectrum right before residential. Sometimes things can get pretty bad. I have seen students cry, flip out, get handcuffed and restrained. We have even had the cops called to come into our school. I have seen and heard of the students swearing, biting, scratching, and hitting the staff.

Although things can get pretty crazy at times, I still believe that most of these kids are in the right place. As far as I have seen, a lot of the students seem to be benefiting from the aid and instruction that they are receiving at this school. Our book also says that "the potential for stigma suggests that we need to be sure that the benefit to the learner from being classified as having an emotional or behavioral disorder outweighs the societal burden imposed by use of the category". I think that the Mulberry school does a great job in making sure that its students are benefiting more than they are losing from having their label. A few of them have done so well that they are soon being sent back to public school.

The book also mentions a lot about how the family and the parents impact the emotional and behavioral development of their children. I believe this to be very true based off of many of the things I have heard from my field placement teacher. One of the days that I was there, she spent a good 10 or 15 minutes going through each child’s home life with me explaining what their parents and background are like. This really helped me to understand and see why a lot of these students have many of the issues that they do.

Field Placement / Chapters 2 & 3

I am placed in an Emotional and behavioral support classroom at the Mulberry Street School in Lancaster. At my school there are two different classrooms, one for children aged 13-16, and one for children ages 9-12, which is the classroom that I am in. There are 9 children in my classroom, 7 boys and 2 girls, and the teacher informed me that they will be adding 3 more students within the next few weeks. My first day at placement all in all went very well. I was lucky enough to meet all of the students, teachers, aids, therapist, and staff (no one was absent). The staff was all very helpful in introducing me to the routines of the school and the classroom. There were 6 adults in the room total and several other adults stopped in for a bit throughout my time there. The setup of the room was very interesting. All of the students desks were spread throughout the room and all of them were out of arms reach from one another. Something that the head teacher said that I kind of took to be the motto of the school was "behavior first and academics second". The overall focus of the staff is to monitor and improve the behavior of the students. The teacher also told me that their school acts as a pre and post residential service, meaning that children are either placed there before they are placed back into the general education classroom, or before they are placed into a residential setting where they will receive round the clock support.

A concept mentioned in our book in chapter 2 is Functional Behavioral Assessment or FBA. FBA is a process of gathering information about a learner's behaviors in order to determine the purpose of a problem behavior in addition to its antecedents and consequences. This is a form of assessment that seems to be done often in this classroom. When I was asking the teacher about which child would be good to monitor for my BIP assignment, she mentioned a lot of the different behaviors of students in the classroom. She then went on to mention the antecedents of the behaviors, for example, she mentioned how the one student always starts to pull his hair before he has a behavioral outburst. She knew the signs of almost every student in the classroom which helps her to monitor and prevent negative behaviors. I believe that she has gained a lot of this knowledge about her students from FBA. She used her knowledge gained from the FBA to implement effective strategies to control and prevent target behaviors in the classroom. She has a bike (similar to the ones in a gym) that is stood at the front of the room. When a child starts to get heated or angry, she tells them to go and ride the bike to cool off, I saw this occur 2 or 3 times while I was there. She also has a "Think Tank" which is like a closed off time out zone where the kids are sent to cool down and think if they are heated or lashing out. While they are in this zone, they will fill out a "stop, Breathe & Think" sheet that makes them think about the behavior that they exhibited and how they could have better acted in that situation.

Both the Bike and the "think tank" are also examples of Positive Behavioral Supports mentioned in chapter 3 of our book. These are both strategies used to change and diminish the triggers of problem behaviors. Another example of a Positive Behavioral Support that I saw was the use of a quite work space in the hallway. One of the students into the class gets easily frustrated when working under loud/noisy conditions so the teacher has created a quite work zone in the hallway where that student may do his work. I can already see how these strategies are making a huge impact on the classroom and I am sure that I will see many other examples of FBA being and PBSs being used in the classroom.

The American Teacher

I recently viewed the documentary called "The American Teacher". and/or talked about throughout the film. I just wanted to start off with a side note. I wanted to say that I think this is a terrible movie to show college Education students. I think that it might make some students want to change their major and that it might frighten some of them away from the position. I don't see the positives of Education students viewing this film. Aside from that, I was very shocked and upset by much of the statistics, percentages, and stories that were shared

Some of the stats that disturbed me are as follows:
-over 90% of teachers spend their own money on teaching supplies (one teacher in the film spent over $3,0000 on her classroom her first full year of teaching)
-An average teacher works 65 hours per week
-"almost all teachers work at least one weekend day and some work 2"
-31% of teachers have a second job, and if you include tutoring/coaching/advising into the stat, 62% of teachers have a second job
-20% of teachers in urban school districts quit every year
-46% of teachers in America quit before their fifth year

There are also several stories that were shared throughout the film that upset me. One teacher worked two jobs and coached, then, due to never being home and working all of the time trying to support his family, he lost his marriage, then later he quit coaching (even though he loved it) so that he could spend more time with his children. He said "it seemed like the most logical decision" since he got paid more to work his second job than he did coaching. The movie ended with a quote from another male teacher. This teacher had to quit teaching due to the low salary and he moved into real estate. Although he had to leave teaching, the movie ends with him saying "teaching is the best job in the world, there is no comparison". there are countless other stories throughout this film that showed teachers who had to quit teaching due to the low salary even though they all loved teaching. I think that it is absolutely terrible that so many teachers have to quit and get new jobs, all because the schools and government won’t pay them more.

The quote that stuck out to me the most from the film was said by one of the teachers. She said "You’re not going into this to be a missionary. You’re not going into this to live a life of poverty. You are going into this because you feel like you really can do something to make the world a better place by giving kids the chance that they need and deserve in order to succeed, but combined with that, you have to be able to feed your own family". I think that this quote really nails what the author of the documentary is trying to get across. I think that teachers should get paid more for their work, especially those who are excellent at what they do. No one in the high paying jobs in America would get hired there if they didn't at least have a high school diploma. Therefore, without teachers, no one would be making more than teachers, so teachers should get paid a lot more since they are responsible for providing people with the knowledge to do these higher paying jobs.

IRIS Module on RTI

1.A. I believe that the S-Team and the Rosa parks elementary school are currently using the IQ discrepancy test to determine whether or not a student is eligible to receive services. I believe this because in the video, the narrator informs us that the special education teacher, Mrs. Jacobs is frustrated about their current system. She says that many students who are truly eligible for special education services, are usually not identified until 3rd or 4th grade "because their skills must fall significantly behind in order to qualify". This sounds exactly like the explanation of the IQ discrepancy test from the video that we watched in our last class. The main speaker in that video describes the IQ discrepancy test as a "wait to fail" model, and that sounds exactly like what is happening here.

1.A. School personnel are dissatisfied with this process because too many of their young students are falling behind in reading. The video tells us that the teachers have found that once these students develop a problem with reading, it often times sticks with them as they progress throughout school and it becomes harder and harder to fix. The teachers express their feelings and attitudes about the current system and they say that they have seen this happen too many times.

2.One system, used by many schools, is called the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy model. IN this system, the IQ of the student is compared to the students performance on different test. If the students performance on the test is at least 25% below what it should be, based of of the students IQ, then the student is eligible for services. If the student scores are equivalent or close to the students IQ, then the student is not eligible for services. This approach is widely used and has been around for a long time but it has many disadvantages, the main one being that it often results in waiting for students to start failing before they can start receiving services.

Another system used to identify struggling readers, and students who are eligible for special education services is the Response To Intervention (RTI) model. In this method, every student is monitored individually. this model is compiled of 3 tiers and each tier provides students with high quality instruction. This 3 tiered model is used to help students to learn, if students are not responding to the instruction, then teachers must make adjustments and modifications to their teaching to see if teaching the material a different way will help. If the student continues being non-responsive, then the teacher is able to recommend that the students move up a tier. each tier offers a bit more help/support than the one before it.

3. I think that the schools should find other schools who have switched to the RTI model and ask them why they chose to switch. I think that they will find that many of the other schools were experiencing the same problems as they were and they will be able to find out whether or not the RTI model is the solution. I also think that the S-Team should do some extensive research on both of the models to see the pros and cons of each.

4. The S-Team might propose to implement the RTI model into its school. Since they were complaining about how students get behind in 1st grade and stay behind throughout the rest of their school years, they might also make use of an Early intervention program to help to prevent this from happening. I think that the S-Team should also implement some type of resource room or reading room where they can send struggling readers to get extra help when needed. When I was in elementary school, I went to a reading room once a week from 4th-6th grade to get extra help in reading. this helped me to catch up with my peers and to improve my reading skills. The school could also implement some sort of after school reading program.

5.Response. The IQ-discrepancy model has several disadvantages. It takes an approach that often times makes students wait to fail before they can start receiving services. This often leads to students falling behind in one or more subjects and staying behind. often times their performance falls below their peers and stays behind it and they never truly catch up academically. The RTI model addresses those concerns by consistently monitoring students scores and making sure that they are on the same level as their peers. If a student is struggling, adjustments are made to instruction to try and help the student. If this doesn't help, the student then moves to a special tier designed to provide some more support. Often times these tiers help students to stay on track and students are able to receive extra help and support even without a diagnosis.

It may be difficult to implement the RTI model into the school. Some teachers are set in their ways and like teaching the same things the same way every single year. telling them that they have to change their instruction may be difficult and pose several problems. The school may also not have the proper staffing or the current staff may not have the appropriate training for the program and its different tiers. Some schools are also set in their ways and since this school has been using the IQ-Discrepancy test for several decades, it may be hard to get its officials to switch to an entirely new model.

Chapter 1 - Perspectives On Disability

The book starts off by discussing generalaties about what it means to be disabled/have a disability and how people with disabilities have been affected by their disabilties and the many negatives that come along with it.The book says that "children who fell outside the "typical mold found themselves identified with classifications indicating their dysfunction." I have met and worked with many people with disabilities throughout my lifetime and I have been around people with disabilities all of my life. My father, due to a accident at his old job, has been disabeled for as long as I can remember. I have seen the many classifications that the book talks about pressed upon my father thoughout the years. He has a broken back with 2 steel rods in it, 4 fused vertebrate, a leg that gives out frequently, and he is constantly in pain. He is unable to work and unable to do any heavy lifting. He pretty much isn't able to do anything that your average father wishes he could do. He has experienced a lot of harrassment, both physcial and verbal, and he has to put up with that along with his pain and sickness everyday. He has told me lots of stories of harrassment and things that really make you wonder what is wrong with some of the people in this world.

I also have been around many children with multiple disabilities. I had my SED 285 field placement in a multiple disability classroom in the Conestoga Valley School District, at Fritz Elementary. There was 6 different children at this placement, all who had multiple disabilities and multiple capabilities unique to themselves. Some of the children were deaf, most were blind, some experienced seizures, some had feeding tubes, one had autism, and they all needed a lot of extra help to perform many of the daily routines that most of us take for granted. They need assistance going to the bathroom, walking, eating, reading, and could not be left out of sight for more than a minute. They they required constant care. There was often more adults, teachers and aids, than students in our classroom. Although this may seem a bit extreme, I think that it was necessary due to the childrens IEPs. Even though most of these children had severe disabilities, It was still very nice to see that they were "included" in certain instances with the typical students. I went with some of the students to specials like music and art. The special education teacher often had reading buddies come into their classroom to help read stories to the students. I think that these students were included into the general classroom as much as their disabilities would allow, which I really liked to see because I feel as if some students in other schools are not as lucky.

Currently, I am still often around children with multiple disabilities. My girlfriend's sister, Katie, is 13 and has cerebral palsy. Although she is 13 in appearance, cognitively speaking, she functions on a similiar level to a 2 year old. She also requires around the clock aid. Although some people would see these many disabilities as a curse, I see them as a gift. people with disabilities can teach us alot about ourselves and can makes us grateful for the many things that we have. Everytime I look at Katie I can't help but smile. She brightens the world around her, as do many of these children with disabilities. I went to a christmas show that was put on at her school, a special education school, and all of the kids had so much fun performing and it was such a great experience.

After talking about disabilities in general, the authors then move on to talk about high prevalence disabilities, and how although a disability may be mild, mild does not mean "not serious". The authors talk about how although a student may be "close to normal", being close to normal or being "almost" like everyone else is still no fun. I have met many kids with mild conditions who were close to normal, but they still stuck out in a crowd. I worked with a kid named Robert last summer, and although there was nothing physically wrong with him, you could just tell that there was just something not right about him. Robert would often call out during training seminars and get overly excited about random things and the other employees would often stare and laugh, and would sometimes catch them making fun of him. Although Robert seeemed to have an above average IQ, he still didn't seem to fit in well with his peers due to his disability. Due to my time spent with him and the many things I noticed about Robert, I believe that he had Asbergers and that is why he was socially awkward. I hated seeing people make fun of him for being different. I believe that we are all a little bit odd in our own ways, Robert's oddness just stuck out more than most people's, but I do not think that it is fair that he be critisized for his.

The authors and our classmates also talked a lot about using people first language and how to properly label/identify people in a lawful and respectful way. I have tried to demonstrate what we in class and the book discussed throughout this blog post. The book also talks a lot about the history of Disabilities across time from the Middle Ages to current era. Our country has come a long way in serving children identified as having disabilities and many movements are still being made to improve the way of life for people with disabilities. In the section titled "disabilities in the United States from 1950 to the present" the authors talk a lot about the past and current legislation, their ideas and principals, and how they are function to aid students with disabilities. IDEA is discussed and IEPs are mentioned on various occasions. I have been able to look at several IEPs throughout the past few years. I have seen Katie's IEP, and I was also allowed to look at several of the students IEPs at Fritz Elementary. I have also seen many examples of LRE (least restrictive environment) being used in both of these cases.The chapter ends by talking about Trends in history and gives a timetable of court cases supporting equal access to educational services.