So, here I are, a week into Special Education Junior Block, and I find myself wondering how I am going to do this semester. I will not lie, I am stressed, and it's not the best kind of stress. The beginning of semesters are always stressful because you have the syllabuses giving you all of the assignments that are due this semester. And you only get one semester to do them (or you can you take the class over, but that is a lot of money), so that is a huge stressor for me right now.
I realize that I should take it one week at a time, but I've never been good at that. So, I won't, I have to look ahead this semester to a while before the assignment is actually due. So, this next week or maybe this weekend, I plan on looking for a 20-30 page lesson plan and narrow it down to five different lesson plans. The assignment is to modify a science, social studies, or mathematics week long lesson plan to better fit a student with special needs. I am worried, but I am quite excited for it as well.
I have to think about my assistive technology class because technically, I am supposed to find a student to test like a guinea pig who is in elementary school and get 3 baseline readings in something they struggle with. Then give them a technology that will help them with this thing that they struggle with. I need to figure out if I want to wait until February 14, which if it doesn't work for that field experience, then I am in trouble. Professor Cichy did allow me to have until the week of February 14 to pick a student, but I need to figure that out for now. I am thinking about, just like that last class, coming up with five different things that I could test for a student. Granted, I should wait until I know what the student has problems with, but I kind of need to start thinking about that now because I want to do this and I want to do this in a way that I can learn as much as possible from it.
Literacy in General Education for Special Educator is going to be very fun and stressful at the same time. Fun because we get to do a lot of writing (I like writing a lot, just in case you haven't figured out with the 82 posts that I have posted on my blog). But, it is going to be stressful because we have to do a lot of reading, which is the point of college, as I know. But I don't really want this much reading: two chapters in a big book and then 48 pages in the Minnesota Academic Standards: English Language Arts Grades K-5 (It goes until 12, but for the purposes of the class, we will only be reading until 5th grade). So, I hope, just like all of the previous things that I can get the most out of these readings. I already read a chapter and a quarter, so that is pretty cool. The book is interesting, but it is heavy loaded.
Not much to report on the Behavior Theories and Practices in Special Education, we have a big project that involves a student that is due. I am not going to worry about that until I start my field experience because that is, I believe, when we are supposed to start that.
The professors this semester are all awesome and very passionate about their fields, which is very admirable and I respect it a lot. I am honored and humbled to be in the presence of some amazing thinkers in Special Education. Granted, I don't know many other Special Education teachers, but these teachers are going to make the classes fly by because they have interesting stories and are just fun to be in the same room with.
So, I am stressed, terrified, and excited for the challenges of this semester, that is the true meaning of teacher insanity.
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