Hello,
I’m student teaching—just about through with week ten of sixteen in my placement. I’m working with a 10th grade biology class that has been designed to accommodate special needs kids and help them get science credit.
Fourteen of the twenty three have been diagnosed and have IEP’s, all of which I’ve read. I’m dealing with EBD, LD, ADHD, Autism, lots of language issues, and some undiagnosed kids. There is a full time special education teacher in the class with us every day, and she is responsible for grading the students on their participation each week. This comes down to behavior for a lot of these students, and they know it.
This isn’t my classroom, so I can’t change the curriculum like I’d like to, but I’m looking for suggestions on making science a tangible, fun thing for them to be involved in. I’ve used technology quite a bit (powerpoint, extensive use of the computer lab), we’ve gone on a field trip and before it got cold spent several class periods outside…I’ve used word searches with vocabulary words, shown videos, asked them to make posters relating to the current topic, they’ve done a few labs but have a very hard time getting through them.
Biology people out there—do you have some suggestions?
Thanks!
jenny