Students with Special Needs

Students with special needs - They do exist... Don’t they?

8th October, 2015

 Nick provides an outline of the different types of special needs that a teacher may encounter within their learning space.

I was sitting in a lecture last week listening to the lecturer discussing all these BRILLIANT lesson ideas that we could use with our future students. However, I thought to myself “how are the students with special needs catered for and included in these lessons?” The lecturer seemed to be presenting the ideas based on the assumption that every student fits into a perfect box, when in reality we know that this is not the case.

It is inevitable that in our learning space we will have the opportunity and in my opinion the absolute pleasure of working with one or more students with a special need. In my three years of studying primary school teaching this important area of education seems to be neglected and there is a sense it is ignored, as if students with special needs do not exist. This leaves placement as the only time in which a preservice teacher may gain some knowledge and experience in the area of special needs education. Catering to students with special needs can be a challenge and requires careful and explicit planning in order to set these students up for success in their learning. As the teacher if you are able to effectively modify and adapt your lessons to be inclusive to the needs of these students the results can be amazing.

What is a special need?
A Special need is an umbrella term and can be summarised as a specific educational requirement that a particular student may need in order to benefit their learning outcomes. It is often viewed as what a student can’t do, when in reality students with special needs can achieve outstanding educational results. As I mentioned, special needs is an umbrella term for many different forms of diagnosis and can often be associated with a negative as students with special needs require individual planning. In my experience students with special needs can significantly enrich the learning of other students within the learning space as well as create many advantages and unique learning opportunities for all students.

In your classroom you may have a diverse range of special needs for example:
             •    Students who have higher ability
             •    English as an Additional language learners
             •    Students with learning disabilities
             •    Students with hearing or visual impairments
             •    Students with muscular mobility and muscular disorders
             •    Students with emotional difficulties
             •    Students with social communication disorders
             •    Developmental disorders
             •    Neurological disorders
             •    Students with particular food allergies
             •    Students with behavioural difficulties

This is just a short overview of some of the special needs you may encounter when teaching. Within some of the above dot points there are many specific special needs which as an effective teacher you will need to accommodate for to ensure inclusion of all students. My aim in my next few posts is to examine some of the dot points above and provide some information on prevalent special needs you may encounter in your future learning space.

- Nick

Bridging the Information Gap

Bridging the Information Gap

6th October, 2015

Alex delves into the lack of connection in knowledge between pre-service teachers and recent graduates. He discusses his own fears about beginning teaching and makes the call to start bridging the information gap.

One of the issues concerning pre-service teachers today is making the transition from their current undergraduate state to being a full-time teacher. I believe that the underlying issue behind this concern is the mysterious knowledge gap that exists between PSTs and teachers who have just finished their first few years. I have had the opportunity to observe a few classrooms with teachers that have been two to five years out of university. As I watched them and marvelled at the casual way they went about teaching, several questions formed in my mind; how did they get from where I am, to where they are now? What do they know that I don’t? What will happen in my first year teaching? Will I struggle and fail? All I knew was that there was a stark difference in ability between myself and the teachers I was observing – I wanted to know why.

When I raised the idea with my 2nd year Associate Teacher*, she firmly remarked that she learnt everything about teaching in her first two years on the job. Whether or not this is the case for other teachers, it hints at the idea of the mysterious information gap and suggests there is much to be learned in the initial stage of being a graduate teacher – perhaps more than we can imagine. However, given the limited amount of time you have with your associate teacher, and the fact that they often find it difficult to pinpoint the complex nature of graduate teaching, there seems to be a lack of knowledge or effort around the idea of bridging this gap.

And, I don’t know about you, but that makes me nervous.

All PSTs know how challenging, and rewarding, placement can be. It’s an exhausting time. But after nearly three years of studying primary school teaching, I was hoping to be ready to face the challenges of being a graduate teacher. Yet there still remains this dark and mysterious gap. What skills, strategies, experiences and knowledge am I missing? I don’t want the first few years of my teaching career to be filled with struggle and turmoil as I work through the challenges every new teacher faces – surely we could find out what knowledge we need to survive and excel!

So I started reaching out. I talked to as many graduate and senior teachers as I could and I asked them about their first few years of teaching. In the coming weeks I will be posting interviews to this blog from several different teachers about their initial teaching experiences, with the hope of sharing what they believe to be the crucial elements that lead to success in graduate teaching.

If there is anything to take away from this blog post it’s this; it’s ok to be nervous or anxious about becoming a teacher, but we need to do something. While the current system of teacher training needs to acknowledge the disconnected nature between university and the teaching practice, we need to be proactive. We should find solidarity in each other as PSTs and work together so we ARE prepared for our first years of teaching. We need to bridge the information gap, but we should do it together.

- Alex

*An Associate Teacher is the person who supervises a PST when they on their placement. The PST will do their placement within their Associate Teachers classroom and will be marked and mentored by them.