I am a special education teacher in a small school district. At the start of this new school year, I had 7 students on my caseload… five of which I was serving directly. Recently, we’ve had several new families move in and my caseload has nearly doubled. Although I do have access to a full-time aide in my classroom, together, we are barely keeping up. I have since lost any planning time I might’ve had before, and I’m having to use my lunch period to prepare for my afternoon students. I feel like I’m doing a disservice to the students who need so much individual attention. Even though I’m doing my best, it seems like I’m having to give out lots of “busy work” to the majority of them while I try to work individually with one or two of them. Are there any ideas out there about how I can more effectively teach 7-8 different things at one time with only one more adult in the classroom? HELP!
Re: busy work
Welcome to the real world! 14 students are totally doable, I had a case load of 20 at one time K-6th grade no aide. Realize no you aren’t able to address all of the goals but do the best you can to address a few and make sure the parents know that you are only human. Really with an aide you should be able to do just fine. Secondly realize that you are only able to do what is humanly possible, I know that this isn’t easy, if you want an easy job don’t go into Sped, it will break your heart and wear you out.
Re: busy work
You need to organize yourself and then organize the kids. The best thing you can do is set up a schedule and routine so the kids know exactly what to do and when. Post it clearly on a large chart. Set up clear goals and objectives for the group for each activity and write them down for yourself, you may even want to write down times for yourself (it keeps me on schedule).
Set the kids up with activities they can do independently or use peer tutors and cooperative learning to keep everyone working while you and the aide circulate. When you use peer tutors and groups, make sure that you complement students’ strengths and weaknesses, so you have one with good grapho-motor, one with good ideas, one who is focused, etc. You can use older regular ed students to do tutoring, maybe from the high school.
If you want to check out my website: www.gwhizresources.com I have a classroom time-management program that I designed and a spelling series that students can use almost independently that really works.
But NEVER GIVE OUT BUSY WORK!!! Our kids have enough trouble learning and retaining what is important. They shouldn’t waste any time in class.
Re: busy work
Well, you can try to find materials that are well-designed and that can be worked on semi-independently. Workbooks get bad press (and I’ve seen some terrible ones myself) but a *good* well-designed workbook program can be a wonderful thing — saves you planning time re-inventing the wheel every day and night and noonhour. And the kids get a real sense of achievement form doing more and more pages every day and finishing a couple of books in the year. I had a class of Grades 1 and 2 together, every possible ability level and a number of emotional and family and health problems added in. I taught whole-group and half-group lessons on phonics and math concepts, and then had the kids work on their books as I went around and corrected and discussed individually. Still frantic, but all the kids were on task and learning. And they were all literally on their own page.
Welcome to the frustrating realities of the sped system :(
Sounds like more staff needs to be hired — at least let the admins know gently but persistently that you’re not meeting the IEP goals. You can also advise parents about this because sometimes they have more of an impact (the school can’t fire them, after all).
What ages are you working with?