I’m getting ready to teach my second year in an L.D. resource/self-contained class. I’ve had 11 years experience as a regular ed. teacher, and now I’m going back to school to get my master’s in Special Ed., because I love working with children who have special needs. I’m lucky to be working as a special ed. teacher while I’m in the process of working on my master’s degree, but need some suggestions on how to set up my classroom management. Last year I had 5 students who were self-contained and 10 students who were resource. So I had many students coming in and out of the classroom. A lot of times they didn’t come in on time so I found myself repeating directions and skills over many times during the and/or week. This led to frustration on my part as well as to my students, especially if they felt that they may have missed something. Does anyone have any great ideas or suggestions that I may be able to use in my classroom for this new school year, to cut down on alot of time wasted and to eliminated frustration on my students and me? Thanks. Elizabeth
Hello Elizabeth
For 6 years I worked in Special Ed classrooms. Teaching several subjects on different levels is very tough. Here are a few suggestions that we used.
Each student having there own file folder in which it states the days lesson plan for them, (this would mean planning ahead and having each student programed into your computer).
If you have more than one student working on the same lesson/project allow
group work. What one cannot figure out sometimes the other will.
See if your school allows student assistant. In our high school senior students may earn 1/2 credit by being an assistant in a Special Ed classroom. If you are in the lower grades perhaps a senior can work in your classroom through a work release program.
Have tape recorders with the days lesson recorded on each one. Arrange them around the room so that math, english, etc. looks in the same place every day.
We also have a program that students can receive service learning hours for reading/recording textbooks on to tapes.
Hope this is some help.