The Art of Teaching

          Prior to this week, I was fairly uncertain of what a 504 plan was and what kind of accommodations would be readily available to students who qualify for receiving services under this Special Education plan. When it comes to an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), I felt knowledgeable in the functioning of this plan due to my own experiences while being on an IEP. Below is my Venn Diagram to illustrate the differences between a section 504 plan and an IEP. Figure 1. Venn Diagram of 504 vs. an IEP What is an IEP and What Accommodations are Available for Students and Their Families?           Students whom are placed on and Individual Education Plan (IEP), have to go through a strenuous process in the form of an evaluation to determine the services that will best serve them in the classroom (University of Washington, 2019). Due to this long drawn out process, once a student is...

          As it pertains to Special Education, we have come a very long way from when students of all ethnicities were not given equal opportunities to receive an education. However, we as educators still have a little more homework to do in order to provide equal and quality education for all students regardless of if they have a disability or not (Link to timeline: https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2050599 ).                     Figure 1. History of Special Education Timeline           From segregation upheld in Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson that created the ‘separate but equal doctrine’ to those ideals being challenged by the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education when Brown’s daughter would have to walk a long distance to her school to receive an education that was of lesser...

For this week, our task was to look through the articles we have completed blog posts on for the last few weeks and choose three words to focus on for its vocabulary. When Perel and I were discussing the three terms we wanted to focus on this week, we wanted to make sure we selected vocabulary terms that students would encounter while learning about the different food chains that have been observed across the globe. In our discussion we were able to narrow down our top three words to food web/chain, ecology, and ecosystems. We chose the word food chains from our first article called “Disappearing sea Ice could Disrupt Arctic’s food web” because the overall topic we have been focusing on over the past three weeks was on aquatic or marine food chains/ food webs. For one to identify new food chains, researchers must be able to look within the habitat and community where organisms dwell their end. The term use to describe this community is referred to as an ecosystem which was found...

The article discussed this week can be found below: Researchers show that smaller area means not only fewer species, but also, shorter food chains. (2013, November 25).   News Medical Life Science. Retrieved from: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20131125/Researchers-show-that-smaller-area-means-not-only-fewer-species-but-also-shorter-food-chains.aspx             To continue our knowledge on determining which text is appropriate to introduce our students to, Pearl and I have chosen to continue with the topic of food chains due to its versatility. For the past two weeks, the overall message of the articles we have used have had a heavy focus on how our actions have influenced the world around us. Specifically, these articles presented the problem that animal habitats are not how we have once known them to be. Where our actions such as littering, and emission of greenhouse gases have nearly devastated the primary produc...

The article discussed this week can be found below: National Geographic Society. (2019). The Earth’s vast food chain under the seas. Retrieved from Newsela website: https://newsela.com/read/natgeo-marine-food-chain/id/49887/# In continuing our journey on finding the best literature for our students, I am taking all of my observations and thoughts from last week and I am keeping those concepts and ideas in mind as I continue. This week, Pearl and I decided to select an article that continues to support our topic of ecosystems and food chains. We decided to continue with this topic because there are multiple factors that contribute to the appearance of a food web or chain. For instance, I mentioned that high school students learn about the environmental factors that give rise to food chains and this week our article focuses on one of the ecosystems for living organisms and that is marine or aquatic habitats. When conducting on our search for articles that pertain to foo...

           In furthering our knowledge about finding texts that best suits our students, subject matter is one of the most crucial things to consider when determining which text is best for our students to use. When Pearl and I were talking about which topic to work on we concluded that we should pick a topic where wanted to focus on ecosystems and food webs. This topic is one that is first introduced to in middle school and is further elaborated on in high school. For instance, in middle school, we are first introduced to the food web as the primary producer serves as the food source for the primary consumer. The primary consumer then feeds the secondary consumer and it keeps going in this cycle until the top predator has been accounted for. When our students are in the high school biology class, they are then introduced to the different environmental factors that give rise to the different food webs we see in the world. The hope of...

When I think about my take on assessments, a lot of things come to mind. I feel that assessments are extremely important to determine the success and achievement of students both throughout the lessons and units that are being taught in the classroom. Furthermore, the way we go about assessing students’ knowledge is equally important. While summative assessments in the form of standardized testing is not going away anytime soon, students need as many hands-on experiences to be made in the classroom in order to connect the classroom concepts to the world outside of the four walls of the classroom. The students that fill the chairs in our classrooms are unaware of the difference between formative and summative assessments. Due to students not knowing the difference between the two, it can lead to one not being able to see the relevance of all the forms of evaluation students become exposed to in the classroom. In traditional teaching techniques, educators lecture to students for mos...