Ramirez,+Stacey+Health

=__Introduction__=



I am Stacey Ramirez and this picture is of me and my son, Troy, picking pumkins for halloween last year! I graduated with my bachelors degree in 2008, from Western Oregon University. I then started at SOU for my MAT degree, but some family things happened so I put my schooling on hold for a few years. I am now back and finsihing my degree. I am excited to be finishing school and starting my career. My ultimate goal for my career would be to teach middle school health/P.E., in Klamath Falls. I love being with my family. Family brings most of the joy in my life. My baby is getting close to being a year old already and my husband and I have been married for almost 2 years. I spend a lot of my time with my immediate and extended family. I also love being outside. I am a huge sports person and I would play volleyball everyday if I could. What I fear most about becoming a teacher is if I will be an effective teacher. I want my students to learn in my class and take that knowledge and apply it to other things. I still remember to this day how hard it was for me to learn in math converting from standard to the metric system. It made me feel so stupid when all the other students were getting it and I still was not understanding. I still have difficulty with it. I will be able to take this struggle that I have and encourage my students to work hard at learning this concept. I will do this by first figuring out an effective way to teach this concept to my student and devising some sort of tactic so my students can remeber how to convert. This will also allow me to have patience with my students. I would love to gain from this coarse an understanding of how to include all students in my classroom. I want to learn effect strategies to engage students with learning difficulties and how to best accomidate them in my class.

=__Topic Introduction__=

I chose inclusion strategies for health. This topic is important because everyone especially our children with exceptionalities need to learn how to be healthy people. Children benefit so much from having an inclusive health classroom so everyone can learn about each others differences and how they can work together and become tolerant of one another. Health class can teach students who have disabilities how to communicate better, learn acceptable social skills, what nutrition is best for their needs, how to deal with emotional needs such as anger or frustration, and how to be physically active. Having an inclusive health classroom is so important because all students need to learn these skills. This is why I selected this topic. I want to help students to become their best physically, socially, and emotionally and the only way to do this is to have an inclusive health classroom.

=__Top 5 Things I Learned__= 1. There is so much information out on there on how to make your classroom inclusive no matter what subject you are teaching.

2. Inclusion is not only thinking about the students who have disabilities it is also your students who are in programs such as TAG.

3. It was very hard to find specific inclusion stragties tied to health education classes.

4. Creating a truly inclusive classroom takes time, patiences, an dedication and once you have a routine it will become easier and take less focus, it will become natural.

5. There needs to be more research on inclusion in health classrooms specifically.

=__My Best Resource__= Inclusive Child-Friendly Classroom

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This is an awesome video that informs teachers and principals what they need to be doing to make sure they are creating an inclusive student-centered school. I think so many of these ideas can not only be used in Kenya but also in the U.S. I think these are all best practice and should be incorperated into our classrooms. I hope you enjoy! I would rate this video a 5 out of 5.

=__Other Resources__= 1. Inclusion Stratigies- Addressing the Needs of Special Students: How Can I Help All My Students Learn about Health?

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This is a great informational pdf that gives specific ways of reaching all students who have disabilities or talents. I think it is a great resource for a first time teacher who wants to have the most inclusive classroom environment. I would rate this site as a 4 out of 5.

2. Practical Classroom Strategies ofr making Inclusion more Successful, grades 6-12

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This is a good video that describes the importance of inclusive classrooms. Teachers need to think about how they deliver instruction and change that to meet the needs of their students not how the students need to change to meet the teachers needs. I would rate this video a 4 out of 5.

3. What Works To Close the Education Gap media type="custom" key="13280466"

This is a good podcast on closing the achievement gap. This including bettering the health of all students so they are ready to learn on the very first day of school. Students who have learning disabilities are not always ready to learn so it is important to better their health so they are ready to learn when school starts. I would rate this podcast a 3 out of 5 becuase it does talk a lot about race and education I know that is not what my topic is about but it does have good information about health and education.

4. It's Easier Than You Think

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This youtube video discusses how to create an inclusive classroom environment. It is in a science classroom but I think that it applies to any classroom especially in a health classroom. I would rate this video a 4 out of 5.

5. Inclusion Power Point

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I found this power point on slideshare. The power point gives a lot of information on classroom strategies and how to adapt lessons and how IDEA is involved in inclusive classrooms.

6. NDCO

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This website give specific strategies to help students who have disabilities. These are also more severe disabilities so I felt this website could be very useful. I would rate this a 3 out of 5.

7. Creating an inclusive classroom media type="youtube" key="a5EuSNs9fT8" height="315" width="420"

This Youtube video gives great ideas about how to start the year of with an inclusive classroom environment. It really emphasized the importance of educating yourself. I would rate this as a 4 out of 5.

8. CDC: Coordinated School Health

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This is a great website from the CDC that provided educators with information that helps their school develop a health program. The schools work with the publc and state to provide the best possible health program to meet the needs of all students. I would rate this site a 3 out of 5. It is not directly related to inclusion but I feel that it is a good program that would help all students.

= = =__CBL Project__= IEP Meeting I attended a Speech IEP meeting for K.D. This is a young child in the class that I am student teaching in. When walking into the IEP meeting there was five members of the team including myself. There was an Occupational Therapist, who had been working with the child on sensory needs, fine motor skills, and writing skills. This woman did not seem to have spent much time with the student besides when she was testing the child on fine motor skills and sensory sensitivities. It seems that they decided on some interventions that could be done with this child to serve her needs and once those were set the child was back in the class with these interventions. She discussed finding substitute tools that would provide the child with a level of comfort that were also socially acceptable for a 7th grader. This woman decided, based on the latest testing and ability of the child, that her services where no longer needed, but she added she was available to help the child transition into the 7th grade. The 6th grade teacher of the child was present during the meeting as well. She was very concerned and wanted to make sure this child was going to be prepared to enter 7th grade with all of her sensory sensitivities and wanted to make sure the tools that have been given to the child to help comfort her would be available next year. The general education teacher also added that this child likes to work on their own and likes to take their time on tests. The speech teacher had the most to say during this IEP meeting. She talked a lot to the parent about the services she provided for his child, why they are relevant, and how they will help with her auditory memory. Much was discussed about the child being slow with information retrieval. The child is smart and capable, but has difficulty with auditory definitions and recall. She discussed that next year would be the child’s three year evaluation and at that point they would decide if her services would still be needed. The speech teacher discussed that next year she will pull the student out during the morning guide room to eliminate missing instruction time and being served and still having full-inclusion within the classroom. The child’s father was very quite throughout this process. He did not say much but I could tell he is very involved with his child. He discussed some of the skills he practices at home with his child to better their skills in comprehension. He also asked if there was anything else he could be doing at home to help with what the speech teacher wanted to see from K.D. at school. They come up with different games that could be played to help with comprehension. Reflecting on this IEP experience I was pleased to see the involvement of the parent. He seemed very interested in his child’s progress and his willingness to help in anyway possible. The IEP process still seems very foreign to me and this was a relatively smooth and quick meeting. I thought the Occupational Therapist did a great job explaining to the parent what she tested his child on and what implications it had for future problems and successes. The O.T. was encouraging about the use of computers and that it would help with the child’s fine motor skills. I also believed that the speech therapist explained what the child was still struggling with and what interventions she was using to help the child. I also really like how many suggestions she gave the parent about things that could be done at home to help the child. I was slightly surprised by how little the general education teacher had to say. I thought most of the talking was done by the therapists. Leaving this process I was still left questioning all the paper work that was being signed. I understand it is part of the process and a requirement, but I thought it should have been explained in more detail. The speech therapist handed the parent the Oregon Procedural Safeguard Notice and I wondered if he had ever read through it and if he understood all of it. I also wondered if the Speech Therapist had ever gone through the handbook with the parent to talk about their rights. I am interested in going to a different IEP meeting to see if my observations are common or if at other meetings there are more issues to discuss. I thought this process was easy to get through and all involved were very encouraging and supportive to help K.D. in anyway possible.