I teach in a public school in a setting IV, which means my students are in a school that is only for special education students. These settings are designed to provide low staff to student ratios and direct access to specialists including a behavior analyst, social workers, autism specialist, etc. Students are referred here by their home district because the home district cannot fully support their learning. Our main goal is to teach our students social skills and calming and coping strategies alongside academics so they can transition back to their home district.
My classroom is made up of seven amazing 5th-7th grade students with developmental/cognitive disabilities and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders.
They are all significantly behind their actual grade level for academics and have various needs in areas of speech/language, occupational therapy etc. My students are best supported in the classroom with a lot of visuals and hands-on projects. They may need certain things to be broken down in very basic steps and they need a lot of practice in order to gain, retain, and generalize the skills they are working on.
My Project
I am attending the Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics Spring Conference to learn new ideas and ways of teaching math. I teach special education and my students are behind grade level in math. While we have a good curriculum in my district I still find that I need additional and more creative ways to teach math to my struggling students. They work best when things are visual and hands-on. I am planning on gaining some new insights and ideas on how to teach math to my students.
I also want my new skills and activities to give my students confidence in their math skills.
My students frequently state that they don't like math or they don't want to do it each day. When math comes up on our schedule I want my students to feel confident in their skills and I want them to look forward to the activities we are doing as much as they look forward to reading a new story or doing a new science project.
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