Student Teacher Support
We are excited to announce a new fall cohort for student teachers that are teaching in the spring semester of 2024. Please go here to learn more and join the cohort today!
Welcome
Welcome From Dr. Ruby Owiny Chair of Student Teacher Support Work Group
September Sip and Chat
View this webinar to hear from educators (and recent graduates) from around the United States who will share their advice to you on how to thrive during your student teaching experience.
Facilitators: Dr. Adam Moore & Dr. Jane Strong
Weekly Resources
For the first resource read the article linked below. Once you have read the article print out the handout. Sort the handout in the order of what you think is important. This is a great exercise to do with a partner/ with your cooperating teacher and discuss your rankings.
As you are getting started on your student teaching journey, these 10 tips will help you have a great semester! Work Group member Adam Moore reached out to colleagues to get these great trips that you don't want to miss!
This week will support you as you learn more about Executive Functioning Skills. Executive function (EF) skills are the attention-regulation skills that make it possible to sustain attention, keep goals and information in mind, refrain from responding immediately, resist distraction, tolerate frustration, consider the consequences of different behaviors, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future.
You will want to first read the Q&A Document below to get some ideas about what Executive Functioning is and how it impacts the classroom. Next you will want to read Chapter 6 (page 58) in the Executive Functioning Report linked below.
A very important part of your teaching journey is learning how to manage your caseload. This infographic is a great tool that shows you the top five tips of how to stay on top of everything!
Review the infographic below and think about ways that you can incorporate at least one (if not more) of these tips into your week this week. Evaluate your progress next week to see if it helped you manage your caseload.
IEP Writing is a challenge for many special educators and takes lots of practice to become proficient. It is vital that everyone in the field knows and understands how to create high quality, standards-based, legally defensible IEPs. That is why we chose to create this list of our top 10 resources and top 10 things to remember when developing an IEP. These are books and resources we use in our classrooms and share with others that have been helpful to others in learning to write quality IEPs. We hope you find them just as helpful!
Note for Student Teachers: We recommend discussing the “things to remember” with your cooperating teacher to ensure you are following all state/district guidelines. Also, ask them what other key tips they have to help making writing IEPs more enjoyable, yet attainable!
Note for Cooperating Teachers: We recommend that you review the “things to remember” with the student teacher and discuss how you write and develop high quality IEPs in your school and district.
This self pace module takes 30 minutes
This course is part of a series covering the legal foundations of laws supporting students with disabilities. Those who enroll in this interactive course will be able to do the following:
- Explain the difference between civil rights laws and funding laws.
- Identify where the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, fits within the continuum of federal laws.
- Identify other federal laws that have direct implications for students with disabilities.
- Understand how state laws may expand federal laws impacting students with disabilities.
Take advantage of your CEC membership with this complimentary webinar!
Per the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), families of children with disabilities are equal stakeholders in IEP meetings. With the number of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds increasing each year, working effectively with diverse families in the IEP process is especially important. Learn how to involve your students and families from diverse backgrounds in the IEP process, and ensure that all your students receive the educational support they need.
After this webinar, you will be able to:
- Identify family characteristics to be aware of when working with diverse students.
- Understand cultural and linguistic challenges to address when working with diverse families at IEP meetings.
- Identify ways to facilitate involvement from diverse families.
- Share strategies to help families of all backgrounds feel welcome and respected at IEP meetings.
Click the two short presentations for the “Top Ten Tips for Successful IEP Meeting Facilitation.” Dr. Jane Strong has been a special education teacher, building administrator and large division director and attended and led many IEP meetings! See and hear some tried and true ways you can use to be a successful special education case manager!
Collecting data on student learning and behavior, as well as their progress towards IEP goals, is a vital part of being an effective special educator. However, it can be challenging to find time to collect effective data. With this in mind, we recommend the following five tips for making your classroom data collection more effective and efficient.
1. Make a plan for data collection. Schedule a day and time for each type of data you must collect. Put this on your calendar and plan your lessons for the day based on the data you need to collect. Then, follow your plan!
2.Use efficient data collection tools. Select or create data collection tools that are designed to track the exact information you need, nothing more and nothing less.
3.Ask for help from colleagues. You are not the only person who can or should collect data on your students’ learning and behavior. Solicit the help of paraprofessionals, general education teachers, instructional coaches, and school volunteers. Just be sure to train them to collect data in the same manner you do so that it is consistent.
4.Use technology as appropriate. Technology tools can simply your classroom data collection. Consider using smartphone applications, Google Forms, and QR codes.
5.Teach students to assist. Your students can assist you in collecting data on their own learning progress and behavior. Teach students to self monitor and graph data. Even the youngest students can learn to do some of their own data collection!
Classroom Management can be a challenging part of your job, but one of the most important aspects. This short PPT provides you with some quick tips and resources to help you prioritize some of the most important aspects of classroom management. In time classroom management will become second nature and you can begin to focus more on the academic part of your job. Never be afraid to ask for help and/or ideas, no matter how long you teach and remember – it is okay to make changes to your classroom management plan as you learn and grow as a teacher!
Note for Student Teachers: We recommend discussing theses ideas with your cooperating teacher to see how they incorporate these ideas into their classroom management system. Also, ask them for additional tips that you might want to incorporate into your own classroom one day! Note for Cooperating Teachers: We recommend that you review this PPT with the student teacher and discuss how you incorporate these and other classroom management tips into your classroom
Constant time delay (CTD) is an evidence-based response prompting strategy that can be effectively implemented with any student who is learning discrete concepts, such as math facts, spelling words, or anything students need to memorize or know with automaticity. This makes it a versatile intervention requiring minimal materials – index cards or paper slips and a data collection sheet. As you become more efficient in your implementation, you can use it with a small group with each student having their own cards. To help you learn how to implement CTD, if you do not already know how, several resources are provided by clicking on the button below.
Transition planning is required under IDEA (2004) for students at least by age 16 and often earlier in many states. Unfortunately, many teacher preparation programs do not include a required course specific to transition in their course of study for future special educators! This practitioner article explores how to support students from a variety of backgrounds through the lens of being a culturally responsive special educator. Most important to note is the work to use culturally responsive/sustaining transition practices must fall on our shoulders as educators. This article includes suggestions to personally reflect and explore your own cultural competence framework as it relates to students you support in the classroom and on your caseload. Thinking about setting goals for ourselves as future educators, what is one post-teacher-preparation-program goal you can write for yourself to incorporate culturally responsive/sustaining transition practices into your future teaching? P.S. Transition doesn’t just begin at the “age” of transition, but these skills and supports can be implemented as early as preschool!
It is important to stay current in best practices to know what up-to-date research says is effective instructions for students with disabilities. The Council for Exceptional Children has a wide array of learning opportunities – webinars, books, journals, and even the CECommunity for members to ask questions and share ideas. Hopefully you have availed yourself of these resources this semester and you will remain a member of CEC even when your complimentary membership expires. Members are knowledgeable, kind, caring, and dedicated to helping one another so we can all advocate for and educate students with disabilities, those who are gifted, and those who are twice exceptional – have a disability and are gifted.
In addition to the plentiful resources available through CEC, another resource for which you can sign up to receive in your inbox, is the T-Care Newsletter. This is a newsletter of the California State University-Northridge Center for Teaching and Learning of which Dr. Wendy Murawski, CEC member and well-known for her research and training in co-teaching, is the director and editor of the newsletter. You will find short, easy-to-read, practitioner-friendly articles to help you hone your skills and gain new ideas for implementation in your classroom. Enjoy the current issue here!
As special educators, we are tasked with ensuring that all students have their needs met in the classroom. We can do this through pairing the use of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for all learners with specially designed instruction (SDI) for students with unique learning needs. UDL is based on brain research and offers students multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression. For students who need further support as outlined in the IEP, we can use SDI. To better understand how these strategies work together, we recommend looking at the Venn diagram and reviewing the following resources about UDL from the Council for Exceptional Children.
CEC webinar "Lesson Planning for All Learners Using Universal Design for Learning"
CEC Webinar "Harnessing the Power of Inclusion Through Universal Design for Learning"
Teaching Exceptional Children Article "Approaching Explicit Instruction Within a Universal Design for Learning Framework"
Teachers are frequently asked to embed technology into what we are doing in the classroom. This week you will learn about some technology tools you can use to enhance your instruction as well as some AI that can help you in planning your lessons.