Growing My Teacher Toolbox
DeAndra George
I spent an entire year trying behavior plan after behavior plan with a single student who seemed to be making almost no progress. After numerous meetings with a school behavior specialist (and his mom, who made it very clear that she would not allow him to have an IEP despite his numerous behavioral and academic needs), it struck me that I wanted to learn more about how we can best support these students. How can I support students who have not yet been identified for Special Education services, but who need the extra support in order to be successful? Especially in first grade, I often hear “they just need to have more time,” so I set out to make sure I had the best tools available to help these students while that time was given.
The Michigan State University Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program provided me the perfect opportunity to concentrate on Special Education from an inclusive classroom point of view. Special Education was the one area that I felt I knew the least about, and the knowledge that I knew I would gain from this program would allow me to better support the students with or without a formal IEP. By gaining a deeper understanding of the practices surrounding special education, and ways to support students in the general education setting, I will be able to better meet my goal of helping each child succeed no matter what their needs.
Throughout my coursework, I have developed many new strategies to use with my students. I have strengthened my classroom management system by centering it on reinforcing positive behaviors and adding a social-emotional component in the room, and have developed several behavior plans to support individual students. I have worked with students to develop a plan that will help increase their motivation, and incorporated new technology to support my students’ success by helping them overcome difficulties.
Although I entered this program from a Special Education perspective, I have been able to use the tools I have gained with all of my students. In this way, I feel that I have more than accomplished my goal. I set out to learn how to best support students who may not be getting what they need from the general education curriculum, and came out being able to adapt the general education curriculum to meet each of my students wherever they are. This has been very useful given the diverse population that I work with, and I am excited to continue using these strategies throughout my teaching career.
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