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
Re: Student teaching
Biology should be easier than some things. Let them build models with common objects. All kinds of goodies can be glued to poster board to create the contents of a cell. Plant or animal. Use photocopies of the anatomy or biology coloring books and colored pencils to simulate disection. These are great. For plants, use yarn or string to represent the zyloem and phloem of sap circulation. get leaves (a little more difficult this time of year), and have them make rubbings of the back side of the leaves to show veins. Also, and do rubbings of several different leaves for sorting and classifying. There are some great materials available free from National Wildlife, Audobon, Arbor Day Foundation, etc with lesson plans, hand-outs, ideas for tactile materials. Look for cheap and free stuff. don’t be afraid to use materials that seem to go back in time to younger kids. Most of these folks missed that stuff anyway for the very reasons they are in your class.
Hi Jenny!
I am a Junior working toward my B.S. in Special Education. I was searching Ld Online today and noticed your topic. I searched the web for a few possible solutions in getting your students more interested in participating in the lab exercises. I found some sites I think might help; I pasted the address inside this reply:
http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/jtindell/sample.html
http://www2.edfac.usyd.edu.au/Methods/Science/WWWFrameB.html#bio
( a site outside the United States)
I will need to know what to do myself in my student teaching even in Biology! It is an interesting area to me. I will try to make it interesting to my students and FUN! Kepp searching for items of interest to them. I would take a survey of projects they would like to do. Individual surveys designed by you which lists some sample projects. Maybe even let the students who are interested in the same projects group together and complete a project. Maybe there won’t be too many to divide up. Just a thought. Of course, you would get to participate in all the groups because they will need some type of direction from you and your advice.