Teaching Special Needs Students in a Technology Education Classroom

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Teaching Special Needs Students in a Technology
Education Classroom
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Dr. Robert T. Howell

• Technology Studies
• Fort Hays State University
• Hays, Kansas
• 785-628-4306
• bhowell_at_fhsu.edu

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In The Beginning

• 1974 first teaching job in middle school
  (woodworking)
• In the back of the school next to the special
  education room.
• Took in students, not knowing how to teach them.
• Laws were requiring special education students be
  mainstreamed into regular classrooms.
• We still get them today, why?

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What has changed sense 1975

• I left teaching in 1979.
• Teaching special needs students was still new,
  not much help available .
• What changed in almost 20 years?
• Lets take a look to see all the changes in 20
  years.

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Some important Laws

• The Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965
• Higher Education Act of 1965
• The Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973
• The Education of the Handicapped Act of 1974
• PL 94-142
• Disabilities Education Act Amendments 1983
• Carl Perkins Vocational Act of 1990

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Who are Special Needs Students ?

• Individuals with Disabilities
• Economically disadvantaged-including foster
  children
• Displaced homemakers
• Limited English Speaking
• Deaf, deaf-blind, visually handicapped, hearing
  impaired, mentally retarded, orthopedically
  impaired.

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Special needs students cont

• Seriously emotionally disturbed, speech learning
  disabled, specific learning impaired,
  multi-handicapped, autistic and traumatic brain
  injured.
• Did I leave anyone out?
• I would say that all students have special needs.

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Now we know the students, lets see what teachers
have gained

• To answer this question I developed a study to
  find out how technology education teachers felt
  about including special needs students into their
  classrooms and what training they have or feel
  they need.

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Questions Asked

• 1. What are the attitudes technology teachers
  have towards including special needs students
  into their classrooms?
• 2. What training have they received?
• 3. What support do they receive or need?

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The results

• Question 1
• Teachers feel they do a good job, have the skills
  necessary to modify lesson plans, write IEPs.
• Question 2
• Received very little post-secondary training,
  in-service being the most widely used method.

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Questions cont

• Question 3
• Support in the future would need to come from
  community services, administrators, and parents.
• Conclusions
• Teachers feel that special needs students should
  be included in their class but they do not have
  enough training to properly do the job.

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Lets start with an IEP

• Should be based on assessment information.
• Intended to put focus on intervention of student
  needs

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IEP cont

• Participants in IEP meetings
• School representative who can provide services
• Teacher, (SpEd, GenED)
• One or both parents
• Student, when appropriate
• Others at the discretion of the parent or school

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Lets start with reading.How do you read?

• Everyone learns to read differently (how do you
  read)
• Labels, government has mandated labels, to
  protect us. We must learn how to interpret this
  information.
• Acronyms and Abbreviations, do not contain
  typical clues, writers assume reader knows this.
• Instructions, health and safety, directions, and
  short sentences.

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Reading

• Schedules guide us, what, when, where. Help us
  organize our lives.
• Business Documents rules, regulations,
  procedures, and formal agreements.
• Brochures/newsletters advertise products,
  services, places, and events.
• Catalogues/Order forms shopping from home is
  new.

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Reading

• Electronic Communication
• E-mail, instant message, discussion board,
  blogging, and chat room.
• Indexes and Directories, phone book, book index,
  information directory.
• World Wide Web, foundational reading skills.
• Junk Mail and Spam, persuasive tests, make good
  decisions.

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CWPTClasswide Peer Tutoring

• Weekly competing teams
• Highly structured teaching procedures
• Daily earning of points for work accurately
  completed and public posting of points
• Direct practice of functional academic skills.

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Constant Time DelayCTD

• Increments of time introduced between stimulus.
  Anticipate correct response before the prompt.
• Teach Skills, functional sight words.
• Abbreviations and pictures

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Classroom management tips

• Remove distractions
• Small office to work in
• Special tests
• Picking students to answer questions
• Positive feed back to all
• Gain attention.
• Do nothing Chair

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Teaching Tips

• Ice Breakers, get students to know each other
• Guided notes
• Repeat everything 3 times
• Flash cards
• Use what they give you
• Backward chaining

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Behavior Management

• Forward Focused
• This is the hardest thing to do.
• Look for what they are doing right.
• Do not talk about what was done wrong.
• How hard can this be?

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Behavior Management

• Why did you do that?
• The horse made me do it.
• The horse is strong and powerful, it always wins.
• The horse is mean and cruel.
• The rider doesnt have a chance.
• What can we do about the horse?

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Resistance

• You can not make someone do anything they do not
  want to do. You can do a lot of things to them
  but you can not make them do something they dont
  want to do.
• The best way to overcome resistance is to agree
  with it.
• Power is a teacher thing.

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Correcting Behavior

• Stranger Test
• Could anyone monitor the behavior, have someone
  else monitor the behavior attitude
• So What Test (choose your battles wisely)
• Is this really something that needs correcting?
• Is the behavior harmful to the student or others,
  their social, physical, emotional, or academic
  well-being.

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Correcting Behavior cont

• Fair Pair
• If you take something away give them back
  something that will strengthen a positive
  behavior.
• Dead mans Test
• Can a dead man do it? If so it isnt a fair pair.

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Whats needed in the Future

• 75 of the students with disabilities hardly ever
  see a computer.
• 47 never use them for word processing.
• 42 hardly ever use the internet.
• New computer software, we need some for
  Technology education.
• Computers with colored keys.
• Voice activated

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KISS Principle
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• Dont ask me what I cant do ask me what I can do.