What Special Education Means
Special Education is an art and a science. Let me explain. As a 19-year Special Education teacher, it means so many things to me. On the business side, it means having amazing days and hard days, really hard days. It means IEP goal writing and data sheets. It means progress monitoring with progress monitoring graphs. It means working on the couch at night because there wasn’t a planning period or because that IEP must reflect everything my students can do for the upcoming meeting. It means advocating for student’s rights to fixed mindset professionals and believe it or not, some parents.
On the emotional side, Special Education means collaborating daily with a team of parents and other professionals and meeting the child where they are emotionally, behaviorally, academically, etc. Special Education means making lifelong friendships with those families and receiving check-ins from many students years later. Special Education means closing those academic gaps, providing effective strategies to support emotional and behavioral needs. It even includes saying “see you later” for some friends who exit the services because of mastery or pass away because of severe medical episodes/concerns.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, Special education means specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, including— (i) Instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings; and. (ii) Instruction in physical education.
Special Education is a Service Not a Place
Thankfully, special education has evolved over the decades. If you’re not familiar, students with disabilities were denied an education or sent to a separate school/place until 1975. In 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed to support states in protecting the rights of, meeting the individual needs of, and improving the results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and their families.
In 2022-23, more than 66% of children with disabilities were in general education classrooms 80% or more of their school day (IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments Collection), and early intervention services were provided to more than 441,000 infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families. This is huge! And if you love someone with a disability like I do, you are probably smiling right now.
As a professional, I have supported students in many districts with disabilities in the general education classroom, the resource classroom and in a separate special education classroom within the same school building. I have experience supporting students on the standard course of study and on the extended/modified content standards. I agree, that special education is a service and not a place, but there is a small percentage of circumstances a student needs to access that service all day in their least restrictive environment (LRE). The LRE is the principle that guides the education program. This looks different for each child and their unique characteristics. The good thing, ALL of these students are still accessing and receiving a Free and Appropriate Public Education.
What Teaching Methods are Most Effective
As I prepared this blog, the search engine showed many are searching for special education for Autism. I have many years of experience with supporting students with Autism with social skills, behavior, and academic skills. Some of this knowledge also comes with outsourcing to other well-versed professionals who have taught me so many more evidence-based practices (privately). This population is truly remarkable to me. I have seen some amazing talents from students that I could never replicate. Some examples are the detailed artwork, the photographic memory, the computation skills, etc. Wow! What I found and still find the most effective methods are using additional visuals when making connections, talking and listening are difficult, direct and errorless teaching, and reinforcements when the “smallest” moment is achieved.
For any population of students, I have found that student-teacher relationships are critical. Not the ones you find on the 5:00 news, but that irreplaceable rapport. I used to joke that I was the Dr Phil of the hall, but my students tell me all the “tea” and come to me for help with problem-solving. I hold high expectations for my students, give love when it is time, and give appropriate consequences when it is time. But above all, I listen. I know who has three sisters and who was up late at basketball practice. I knew who had the baseball game last week because I was able to go.
In all I do, structure and consistency are key. Of course, when aligned with evidence-based resources this is the winning effective method. As a special education teacher, I will preach that multi-sensory, explicit, and systematic methods are the best! In our daily lives, the data drives instruction. How do you know when to write an IEP goal? When there is data to support the student’s needs specially designed instruction on that skill. Something is impacting their educational progress at this time. Special Education is a science because when we teach our hearts out effectively we change brain pathways and make new connections inside our student’s brains. Hello!? IEP goal writing is also a science because there are methods for the required components. I love writing so writing the present level of performance on the IEPs is like an art to me. Teaching is an art because we support students during their learning discoveries and unlock potential. Wow!
Where Teaching and Learning Come Together
For us special education teachers, teaching and learning come together when those progress monitoring data points move in the direction the instruction intends for it to move. We create IEP goals for writing, IEP goals for behavior, IEP goals for toileting, IEP goals for decoding/encoding, etc. If there is a need, we can write a goal for that and measure it! But what is the goal without the data? The answer is just meaningless words on a legally binding document. Big no no.
Over the years I evolved from a paper-pencil data collection teacher to a digital data collector. Programs and resources that have progress monitoring opportunities built in are lifesavers. It’s not “one more thing”, it is part of the process. Whether it is built in the framework and structure or not, one has to collect the data. So how?
I created google forms that were translated into Excel sheets. These can be accessed on my school ipad as well as my phone since I am always on the move. The cool part? These transfer the information into graphs for the parents and QR codes for each of my students. Each one shows the “scores” or “success trials” I put in each day. For the QR purpose, I make it kid-friendly language (elementary) goal. The students check their rate of growth on goals during the designated time once per week. They take ownership and enjoy seeing how they do on different goals they know they are working on. As far as the parents, the feedback has been nothing but positive for the additional graphs and charts for this data lingo that is uncommon for many.
I could talk all day about Special Education, IEP goal writing, data, research and evidenced-based learning, students with disabilities, etc. But I will save more for upcoming blogs.
If you follow these tips, you should soon start seeing wonderful results in supporting students in special education. Maybe you have a tip I didn’t include? Leave a comment and let me know. Until then check out my freebie below. If you want more check out this digital tracker and hot off the press decal sticker and sticker.