Chapter 10 Reflection

This chapter kind of served as a review. Throughout my coursework, I have studied numerous ways to change around lesson plans and activities to modify for students with special needs. This chapter helped bring up valuable information on modifications. IEP’s were discussed briefly, and I really liked how Bass stated that IEP’s should be viewed as: “a dynamic, working document intended to improve student learning, rather than a set of legalities to be filled” (Bass 255). This is a great way to think about IEP’s. Many teachers view an IEP as a obstacle that they have to work with, and they should not be viewed as that.

I liked that Bass discussed many different types of disabilities, and offered information for each. The first one discussed in the chapter was about students with learning disabilities. Because learning disabilities are so vast, it is very difficult to classify each of them. Bass offers up some advice for addressing LD students, and the most valuable information that I received from him was to use many different activities and also to provide various levels of scaffolding. I think that each of these will help LD students with the manipulation that they need, and also some one on one time.

I really benefited from the section on visual impairments. For some reason I tend to not always include those modifications in my lesson plans, but I need to. Visual impairments are a major part of classrooms, and learning how to adapt to them will greatly benefit me in the future.

I found it interesting when Bass discussed ELL students and inquiry science. He pretty much stated that inquiry science allows ELL students to develop their language skills because of the activities involved in the inquiry science process. Although the 5-E model may be difficult to completely understand at first, I do think that it will greatly benefit the students in the future. Anything that we can do as teachers to help the students to fully comprehend the material is definitely worth incorporating into the classroom.