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Stories of Success in Special Ed |
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Written by Ken Gebhart
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Sunday, August 26 2007 |
 Deborah Baker works as a special education teacher in a
sixth-grade blended program at Wayland-Cohocton Middle School in
Wayland, New York. She shares teaching responsibilities for about
40 children with two regular education teammates, Ann Boss and John
Crossett. Nearly one-third of the youngsters the three teachers
work with have classified disabilities. One child is blind. Others
have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or
receptive-expressive speech impairments. "We don't run any
pull-out programs," explains Baker. "We try to provide student
services directly in the regular classroom." All students
participate in activities involving technology. The computer serves
as the perfect venue for challenging simulations and
problem-solving. For example, with the Tom Snyder Production
program, Decisions, Decisions: Environment, youngsters at all
ability levels work together to solve the problem of pond
pollution.
"The technology provides a visual stimulus and a storyline that
they can follow," says Baker, "and motivates the students to think
critically about the issues while providing opportunity for
decision-making." The simulation fits perfectly with the team's
science unit on pond life but it doesn't stop there. Baker says
that teachers also use it during English class because it gets the
students excited about "writing persuasive pieces to congressmen
and local agencies on the importance of preserving the
environment." The benefits of using technology to supplement and
extend the learning process are many and varied, suggests Baker.
This is evident in computer-based projects students have completed
using Roger Wagner's multimedia authoring package, HyperStudio.
The students work individually or in teams to create "cards," which
are then assembled into a larger project. In a recent example, each
student was given a common noun related to geography. He or she had
to come up with a definition, sentence, and picture to illustrate
the noun. The resulting pages were incorporated into a HyperStudio
"stack" on geography terms. It's not, explains Baker, that the
students all produce "absolutely wonderful pieces of work. That's
what I expected at first, but in all honesty, it's not always what
happens. The technology is most helpful as a stimulus. It motivates
them to solve problems and make decisions in ways that would not
have been possible in a regular classroom." At Wayland-Cohocton,
technology and inclusion afford an important opportunity for social
interaction. When working on a multimedia HyperStudio project,
disabled students sit side by side with regular students at the
computers. Baker notes that they sometimes figure out how the
software works or how to program a button before the regular
education students sitting next to them. These successes boost
their self-confidence, as does access to tools such as spelling
checkers, grammar checkers, and thesauruses that students are
typically reluctant to use in printed form. For students with
disabilities the best thing about technology, says Baker, is that
it equalizes the playing field. "It can help them so that they are
not constantly reminded of the disabilities. They can be like all
the other kids."
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Last Updated ( Sunday, August 26 2007 )
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