Learning Resource Teacher
Prince Philip Public School, DSBN
Dual Track - English and French Immersion
Grades 3-8
Discuss Your Approach To Teaching and Supporting Students in Your Role as LRT?
Having worked with a variety of special needs children prior to becoming an educator, the importance of DI(differentiated instruction) and UDL(universal design for learning) are a big part of my planning. While I realize these approaches support all students, having experienced environments where these were not principles of practice, I am aware of how important a role they play for my students.
What Role Does Technology Play in Supporting Your Students?
It has been my experience that there are many ways in which technology benefits identified students. My students, like their classmates are drawn to technology and it motivates them to engage in their learning. With the aid of technology, it allows our teachers to work with more students at one time, it provides an equal playing field in education for special needs students and perhaps most importantly it helps build confidence and helps these kids find success.
How Does Tech Support Specific Needs of The Students You Support?
My students with mild cognitive disabilities in Reading, use reading skill support software, text-to-speech programs, interactive storybooks, etc. For those with mild impairments in Writing, use voice recognition and word prediction software. For students with physical disabilities provide alternate methods of access and train the students so they are able to work independently. For students with sensory disabilities such as hearing impaired students, use assistive listening devices like FM amplification systems.
For students at-risk of learning, I've used software and websites that provide motivating opportunities to engage in learning activities and electronic quizzes that provide immediate feedback on performance. Games with badges, points and tasks seem to really get these kids to buy in. Some days, our goal is to simply participate other days we set the bar higher. Self-efficacy plays a big role in the success of this group.
Outside of their additional programming off-site, for my students who are identified gifted, I try to find real world problems in areas of interest to launch them into content with appropriate challenges online. I also provide tools for engaging in self-directed research and tools such as multimedia presentations, web page design, and electronic portfolios to document learning experiences using Desire2Learn. This is a large group in our school, which I believe is fairly unique. It is an area of special education that isn't as often considered, but the demands of our population make this a significant part of my role.
What Is In Your Teaching Toolbox?
What Role Does Technology Play in Supporting Your Teachers?
This is an area that I feel I have really integrated technology effectively. To begin, all our teachers have a shared schedule of mine in which they have scheduled times for support, but can also schedule me to come in for a specific class as well. This has really given our time together purpose as they are planning with me in mind. I then created shared profiles and learning documents on each student that I share with their teacher using GAFE. It allows the teachers and I to collaborate, share information and update on how things are going in class or what I am working on with the student. It has enabled me to really get a good perspective of the student and the teachers and I work in tandem to support them.
The first four are pretty standard in the toolbox of most learning resource teachers. They work and with a little training are student friendly as well. The last two are my most recent areas of growth over the last year. Using Educreations, I have been designing lessons and sharing the videos with the students via D2L. This enables them to review the learning and reinforces the strategies they developed. It also provides home with the specific focus of the day, so to further their child using the same techniques used at school. The read&write extension is also becoming a real interest of mine as well. It is not only integrated directly into the programs and browser we have the students using at school, but it is available for access anywhere and it is free. This has the potential to be a game changer for supporting students who aren't identified, but benefit from the support provide by this tool.
That is the thing about many of the supports we develop for our identified students, they benefit all students and that is good programming for success. -Cassandra Ahmed
Wow. Not only is this a great post for the wider education community, but also a huge shout out to Cassandra, who sounds like an incredible special education teacher with a wide range of knowledge to share. The quote at the bottom resonates. -Zoe
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