Lesson 12 Reflection

• A reflection of your process to learn it, and what you would change to learn more/better,

This week I made sure to be thorough in my readings and because of it I was able to participate. I would change by trying to make sure that when I did comment that it was more effective, I really like to participate in class but I need to make sure that others are able to as well.

• What experience or resource helped you learn the most,

I had a really good experience this week helping at the center to help those with special needs. I noticed that one of the guys was asked to do a list of 4 different things and then was expected to remember what they were 10 minutes later. Personally I don't think that was the most effective way to help him, and I realized I didn't even remember all the 4 things he was asked to do. Therefore it taught me to make sure to repeat instructions and ask directly afterwards to help them remember.

• How well prepared are you for applying what you learned in the future,

I feel like I am prepared to be able to implement what we learned especially about being compassionate and understanding people's needs but also to make sure to help them be independent.

• How well did your peers learn and what did you do to help them learn more.

My peers did really well to discuss and participate in order to learn the material. I helped by being included in discussions while still letting everyone take a turn so I didn't take over.

Service Experience helping those with Special Needs

Recently I was able to spend time with individuals with special needs at a center that works with adults. When I was first preparing to visit for the first time I was a little nervous, I knew that there were ways in which I could do my best to interact with them but I was still cautious since I hadn't had many actual experiences with those that had severe needs. When I arrived I was first very pleasantly surprised that the place seemed nice and welcoming. The ladies in charge were friendly and sweet and more than that is that they spoke with the individuals (who had special needs) as if they were best friends. She would joke with them, see how they were doing and scold them in a teasing manner. If I hadn't known who she was talking to I almost would have thought that she was talking with a co-worker. I loved this. I thought it was amazing. I also noticed how remarkably high functioning most of them were, some had more difficulties but many of them really were quite high functioning. I first went with a group that was going out to the "community" to teach them useful skills. We then proceeded to go to the dollar tree, it was really cool to be involved in talking to them about how much everything cost, to see the amount they would get for each item and to have them compare items to see their content. I was truthfully blown away. The girl I talked to asked me about my life, was excited for me that I was married, and wanted to know about my major. It was really enjoyable and I was extremely impressed. I thought it was wonderful to simply spend time with them. We then were helping the guy to pick up an item that he wanted. What I loved is that the helper didn't make the decision for him. She would tell him options and help him remember what he had bought before but she made him make the decision himself. This inspired me. I thought it was wonderful that they really were learning skills necessary to do well in society. She even told me to not try to sway him and not to pick for him. I greatly admired this. After that we were driving back and he would mainly repeat what we said but he responded appropriately which was impressive. He then said he had a job!! The helper then explained to me that most of them have jobs and they would earn a little bit of money that they could use at the store to learn about money management but also to enjoy things such as plays. We later used puzzles at the center. It really stood out to me how even this man confined to a wheelchair who couldn't communicate and had difficulty moving was excelling at a puzzle. I also was with 2 people using a puzzle and they found more pieces than I could. I loved this experience. I returned multiple times and it kept surprising me how they really were being taught to be independent. I thought this was a good lesson and was remarkable to me because they showed that they believed in the person and their abilities and they didn't let a disability define them. I also experienced being near them as they participated in a play (quite effectively) and in church (including commenting and being reflective).
Ultimately what I learned from these powerful experiences was that we should always make sure to encourage people to achieve new goals, and to believe that they can. Many times people judge those with disabilities and don't believe they can achieve great things but they can. We simply need to give them the opportunity. This will affect my expectations in the future and also will help me to always give people a chance.

Lesson 11 Reflection

• A reflection of your process to learn it, and what you would change to learn more/better,
• What I did to learn the material was I took notes on the textbook then I went back and read the chapter in detail. This way I knew what points to look for. I would have highlighted my favorite parts to focus on the most crucial aspects of the chapter.
• What experience or resource helped you learn the most,
• This was a really good week as far as learning goes. I thought the case study where were worked together as a MultiDisciplinary team was not only effective in teaching me the steps but I felt it was really effective in also helping me know (a small part of) how I would feel as a part of a child with disabilities.
• How well prepared are you for applying what you learned in the future,
• I definitely feel that I am now better prepared at understanding how I would act in certain cases dealing with a MDT and this helped me to be prepared to apply knowledge in the future. We were taught from the textbook a few weeks back that on a MDT you need to make sure you know what your united purpose is which is to help the student. I liked putting that to practice this week.
• How well did your peers learn and what did you do to help them learn more.
• My peers really got into their parts on the MDT as well as in the activities of Visual impairments. I helped by making sure to really do my part to make it seem more realistic.

Lesson 9 reflection

• A reflection of your process to learn it, and what you would change to learn more/better,
• This week it was really interesting to be learning the different ways to teach materials either with co-teaching or simply teaching people a new skill. I think I would have tried a variety of different teaching methods to learn what was most effective.
• What experience or resource helped you learn the most,
• I appreciated the experiences were we had to try to figure out the different co-teaching methods.
• How well prepared are you for applying what you learned in the future,
• I definitely feel that I am more understanding of not only how important it is to differentiate instruction but also to realize that different students prefer different methods of learning.
• How well did your peers learn and what did you do to help them learn more.
  My peers did really well to understand the material. I helped them through suggesting ideas and contributing in group discussions.

Reflection: Lesson 10

• A reflection of your process to learn it, and what you would change to learn more/better,
• This week I truly enjoyed using the power points (jeopardy games to learn the material) It was incredibly useful because then I felt that I was really learning the material and understanding it rather than just memorizing it. I would have spaced out my studying over a series of days instead of on only a couple days because that way each day my knowledge could've been built upon my previous knowledge.
• What experience or resource helped you learn the most,
• Truly the Jeopardy games by far helped me to learn the most. I went through them over and over until I understood and knew each answer. This was very useful and helped me to learn.
• How well prepared are you for applying what you learned in the future,
• I feel like I am a lot more prepared to apply what I learned especially in terms of recognizing abuse and notifying officials.
• How well did your peers learn and what did you do to help them learn more.
• I know there were other people who were studying for the test, and I encouraged them to use the jeopardy game because I was enjoying using it as a study guide.

Abuse, Poverty and other conditions Lesson 8 reflection

Write a blog entry .... An overview of what you learned,

• A reflection of your process to learn it, and what you would change to learn more/better,
• I definitely really thought that this week had a lot of good learning opportunities. I did my best to really understand the chapter. I would have done better at taking good notes.
• What experience or resource helped you learn the most,
• I liked the simulation of being in poverty. I feel that it really helped us to recognize that even if families try their best to support their families that sometimes they can fall short. Something else it taught me is that parents will naturally still want to help their children have the simple pleasures of life.
• How well prepared are you for applying what you learned in the future,
• I really liked the video shown of the school district, I feel that it helped me recognize what I could do to make a difference in the future.
• How well did your peers learn and what did you do to help them learn more.
• I felt like my peers did really well to prepare for the class as well as be involved. I did the simulation with a partner and we discussed it as a group. I helped by sharing my thought and opinions, as well as the information I knew on the subject.

Teaching experience: Other Health Impairments

• How do you feel about your lesson delivery and why? Was it effective, why or why not? 

I feel really good about our lesson. I feel that we both really understood the topic and that we did our best to help the class learn it. We also included activities, case studies and had everyone involved. Something that we also did really well was to use real life circumstances to help the class know how they would react as teachers, and what they could do to help their students

• What evidence do you have (while delivering your lesson) of effective student engagement? 
• Part of the evidence we had was that we had many different learning opportunities that required each group to discuss, some of which required that the group members alternate in reading case studies, overall causing everyone to participate. Each group also had to share with the class what their group discussed and decided on. 

• If you were to teach this lesson by yourself, not in a group, what would you change and why? 

If I were to do this by myself I actually don't think I would change very much, there was only two of us so it allowed us both to share all our ideas and to work together. This meant that everything I wanted to do and would have done by myself was done in our group presentation.  

• What could have been an area of improvement in your teaching? 

Something that I realized could have been better about our teaching was to give more background information about the topics before doing the activities. We had decided that the case studies would have been solved too easily without effort if we had explained each category first but because we did the activities first people may have felt more confused.  

• Based on the criteria for the “Teaching Experience” in the above instructions, would you give your group a 0, 5 or a 10?  Why?  AND would you give yourself a 0, 5 or a 10?  Why? 
• I would absolutely give our group a 10 and I would give myself a 10 because the teaching we did was very thorough, interesting, informative and involving. We spent a lot of time making sure that we "taught" the class instead of just "presented". We really did use teaching everyone and kept it interesting. Through the use of our case studies and different activities we had people really thinking and working as a group. I think this was a good method because it made people really get involved to try to learn the material. Also as a side note; our slides were very engaging with pictures and information.