When a group meets to discuss a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP), they are called a team, but they rarely understand the perspectives of the people with whom they are sitting at the table. This is especially true when cultural and linguistic diversity is part of the equation. This unique book explores the individual perspectives of IEP meeting participants who work with students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). Authors interviewed a principal, a general education teacher, a special education teacher, a teacher of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), an educational advocate, a disability rights attorney, a parent, a translator, a school psychologist, a specialist, a transition services specialist, and a guidance counselor. Their experiences provide critical insight for those seeking to realize the potential of these sometimes marginalized students. Interviews examined the dynamics of home-school communication, IEP meetings, and cross-cultural interactions. The perspectives shared in this book relate to known best practices and also provide practical suggestions for improving the experiences of teams serving the CLD population.
Beytien gives a balance of personal insight and effective strategies that seeks to inspire and inform all those who are connected to a person with autism. The author, both personally and professionally, understands the wide range of needs and challenges of those with autism spectrum order and explores in depth what helps, what hinders, and why.
This timely and innovative roadmap for parents, educators, and administrators highlights the importance of effective communication methodology, appropriate correspondence, and data collection recommendations. Effective communication is often missing from the IEP team’s conversation. Navigating Special Education provides a foundation for building proactive, positive partnerships that will lead to 21st century best practices for children. The 5-C Model of Communication—Conversation, Collaboration, Cooperation, Compromise, and Consensus—presented in Navigating Special Education helps to forge trusted alliances between school districts and families. Navigating Special Education draws upon the authors’ 60-plus years of combined experience by using: Anecdotal, evidence-based, real-life scenarios Templates for letter writing and extensive data collection A user-friendly appendix and glossary As stakeholders, wouldn’t you like to have successful meetings where everyone’s voice is heard, respected, and understood? After reading Navigating Special Education, families, educational professionals, college students, and special education organizations will be able to implement effective models of communication and build positive partnerships.
Understanding the relationship between law, advocacy, and Special Education is crucial for those who educate and advocate on behalf of students with disabilities. Special Education Law and Policy: From Foundation to Application provides a framework for understanding and implementing the law as it applies to students with disabilities and their families. Dr. Rodriguez and Dr. Murawski crafted a textbook that distills complex legal concepts into a digestible format to ensure readers understand their roles as teachers, counselors, administrators, and advocates. Their clear and accessible style of writing is intended for students and practitioners and offers case law and real-world examples to highlight the effective application of both law and policy. With contributions from experienced educators and legal professionals, readers will gather the foundational knowledge they need to support students, families, and schools. This is the text that every administrator, teacher, and advocate will want at their fingertips! Key Features: * Authentic case studies of challenging issues resolved from different perspectives * Chapter objectives and summaries to improve retention * Boxes throughout the text with key terms, concepts, and checks for understanding * Putting it in Practice and Application in Action boxes with real-world examples from case law * For Further Consideration sections at the end of each chapter with discussion questions, case law, and additional resources
Supporting Your Child with Special Needs offers practical activities and strategies to help you prepare your children for school success and best connect with school personnel to meet your child's unique needs. Each of the ten chapters includes key themes supported by research as well as activities for you to complete with your children to bond with and build them up. Rachel Jorgensen's guidance will help you both understand and tackle the real-world situations you'll encounter as a parent navigating the special education system. You will find yourself better equipped to support your child in the school setting and better able to prepare your child for a path to greater independence in adulthood.
"This book reveals how powerful learning could be if students and educators shared more of the teaching responsibilities! Involving students in the teaching experience helps them learn more academically and do more socially." —Peggy King-Sears, Professor George Mason University "In this easy-to-read resource, the authors help educators understand that inclusion isn′t something that we do to and for students, but rather, something we must do with students. The powerful anecdotes of educators and students planning, tutoring, and teaching side by side give us new hope and further direction for the creation of inclusive schools." —Cathy L. Taschner, Assistant Superintendent Oxford Area School District, PA Take advantage of a resource that′s right in your classroom—your students! How can you meet the needs of a diverse student population in mixed-ability classrooms and maintain a cooperative, caring, and active learning environment? Students are the perfect resource! Research shows that when students collaborate with teachers, they take responsibility for what happens in the classroom, care about their classmates, and become more engaged in learning. This comprehensive book offers practical strategies for empowering students as co-teachers, decision makers, and advocates in the classroom. Ideal for K–12 general and special education teachers, this guide describes how to Involve students in instruction through collaborative learning groups, co-teaching, and peer tutoring that foster self-discipline and responsible behavior Make students a part of decision making by utilizing personal learning plans, peer mediation, and other methods Put collaboration with students into practice using the assessment tools, user-friendly lesson plans, case studies, and checklists included Collaborating With Students in Instruction and Decision Making is packed with all the information, strategies, and tools teachers need to tap their students′ potential as a resource for making a difference in the classroom.
"Iep jāltok is a collection of poetry by a young Marshallese woman highlighting the traumas of her people through colonialism, racism, forced migration, the legacy of nuclear testing by America, and the impending threats of climate change"--Provided by publisher.
Both Sides of the Table is a set of evocative, heartfelt, personal, and revealing stories, told by educators about how their experiences with disability, personally and in the lives of family members, has affected their understanding of disability. It uses disability studies and critical theory lenses to understand the autoethnographies of teachers and their personal relationships with disability. The book takes a beginning look at the meaning of autoethnography as a method of inquiry, as well as how it has been (and will be) applied to exploring disability and the role of education in creating and sustaining it. The title refers to the context in which educators find themselves in Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings for students with disabilities in schools. There, educators often sit on the other side of the table from people with disabilities, their families, and their allies. In these chapters, the authors assume roles that place them, literally, on both sides of IEP tables. They inscribe new meanings - of relationships, of disability, of schools, of what it means to be an educator and a learner. It is a proposal (or perhaps a gentle manifesto) for what research, education, disability, and a utopian revolutionary politics of social transformation could and should look like.
Globally, and within the United States, we continue to progress toward a more diverse and inclusive culture. This fact is perhaps reflected nowhere better than in the public school system in the United States, where, by 2029 (NCES, 2020), non-white students will outnumber white students in classrooms. The challenges that the current system of education confronts in ensuring equitable access and equal achievement are also well-documented (Darling-Hammond, 2015). A key component in the re-shaping and development of a more equitable and inclusive system are the pre-service teachers enrolled in our college and university teacher preparation programs across the country. As we prepare for the diverse classrooms of the future, we need to prepare the teachers of the future to not only be able to teach all students but to also have the cultural competencies to ensure the same access and opportunities are provided to all students. It has been well documented (Cunningham, 2015; Lupi & Turner, 2013) that international education experiences, or international field experiences, have a positive effect on both the professional development and cultural competencies of pre-service teachers. Across a wide range of performance outcomes, pre-service teachers with international field experiences are better equipped to enter the field (DeVillar & Jiang, 2012) and may even persist longer in the profession (Egeland, 2016). However, not all international experiences provide the same positive outcomes. In this book, we will explore the importance of developing culturally competent educators in the United States education system, the research that supports the benefits of international education experiences, and how to develop effective international education experiences that will prepare pre-service teachers for the classrooms of the next decade and beyond.
Since it first appeared on bookshelves, The Bipolar Child has made an indelible mark on the field of psychiatry and has become the resource that families rely upon. Now, with more than 200,000 copies sold, the first book about early-onset bipolar disorder is completely revised and expanded. Bipolar disorder—manic depression—was once thought to be rare in children. Now researchers are discovering not only that bipolar disorder can begin early in life, but that it is much more common than ever imagined. Yet the illness is often misdiagnosed and mistreated with medications that can exacerbate the symptoms. Why? Bipolar disorder manifests itself differently in children than in adults, and in children there is an overlap of symptoms with other childhood psychiatric disorders. As a result, these kids may be labeled with any of a number of psychiatric conditions: “ADHD,” “depression,” “oppositional defiant disorder,” “obsessive-compulsive disorder,” or “generalized anxiety disorder.” Too often they are treated with stimulants or antidepressants—medications that can actually worsen the bipolar condition. Since the publication of its first edition, The Bipolar Child has helped many thousands of families get to the root cause of their children’s behaviors and symptoms and find what they need to know. The Papoloses comprehensively detail the diagnosis, explain how to find good treatment and medications, and advise parents about ways to advocate effectively for their children in school. In this edition, a greatly expanded education chapter describes all the changes in educational law due to the 2004 reauthorization of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and offers a multitude of ideas for parents and educators to help the children feel more comfortable in the academic environment. The book also contains crucial information about hospitalization, the importance of neuropsychological testing (with a recommended battery of tests), and the world of insurance. Included in these pages is information on promising new drugs, greater insight into the special concerns of teenagers, and additional sections on the impact of the illness on the family. In addition, an entirely new chapter focuses on major advances taking place in the field of molecular genetics and offers hope that researchers will better understand the illness and develop more targeted and easier-to-tolerate medicines. The Bipolar Child is rich with the voices of parents, siblings, and the children themselves, opening up the long-closed world of the families struggling with this condition. This book has already proved to be an invaluable resource for parents whose children suffer from mood disorders, as well as for the professionals who treat and educate them, and this new edition is sure to continue to light the way.
