Jami Shlensky Phase 2 Integrated Reflection Phase two has been a time of professional growth as my practicum experience, my coursework,

and my classes have pushed me to expand my horizons culturally and educationally. At my student teaching, as well as in my core classes I have acquired more information and strategies that will assist me in managing my own classroom in the near future. This semester I have gained continued exposure to and further knowledge about classroom management, co-teaching, and school culture, among the information that I was able to acquire in my studies. At practicum I taught in three different settings; a co-taught Algebra two class, a co-taught sophomore English class, and a self-contained resource classroom. Prior to my time in student teaching this semester I had never seen a co-taught classroom and I had never spent much time working with high school students who have high incidence disabilities. In my first few weeks in this practicum experience my eyes were opened to diversity, cultural differences, different types of learners, as well as a new take on formal education. Growing up, for me, education was something that I respected. School was somewhere I wanted to be every daycompleting assignments and learning to the best of my abilities was an expectation. This is not the case for everyone. I have learned, that educational motivation is not innate. As an educator it is my responsibility to make school a positive space for students, especially for those who may have experienced less than satisfactory educational interactions in the past. This has allowed me to reflect on the standards of characteristics of learners, human development and learning, reflection and professional growth, as well as student diversity.

Within my practicum experiences, I was able to apply my coursework to my work with students. This semester I was able to co-teach, along with another student teacher in an Algebra II class. Together we planned a week of instruction. Her knowledge was extremely content based while I brought to the table various strategies for implementation and learning. After we collaborated and created lesson plans, we carried out an Algebra II unit with a mixture of the parallel teaching and differentiated and supplemental teaching co-teaching models. Our lesson plans, as well as my reflection on the process can be seen here. In both phase one and phase two we have spent time learning about the various coteaching models. Specifically last semester in SPED 446, we spent time learning about the different methods of co-teaching, what works, and what doesnt. I was not fully able to understand the benefits of co-teaching until this semester when I was able to not only partake in a two drastically different co-teaching relationships but also plan and implement a unit using the co-teaching method. The co-teaching experience also allowed me to learn about communication between colleagues. In order to successfully navigate student outcomes there must be constant and open communication between colleagues. This process allowed me to reflect on the standards for collaborative relationships between colleagues, communication, as well as planning for instruction. These experiences with coteaching as well as my instruction upon the methodology has allowed me to see the benefits of what can be created when two educators with different specialties put their heads together to deliver instruction to all types of learners. This semester in SPED 441 and 447 I was able to acquire a knowledge base of teaching strategies for a more academic oriented curriculum. This aligned perfectly with my placement and the instructional programs that I wrote and implemented with my

students over the course of the semester. One program I wrote and created for an entire resource class of students on how to use the strategy of a number line to assist with finding the solution to adding and subtracting with positive and negative integers. The program can be seen here. In SPED 441 we learned many different learning strategies that helped me frame the program of how to teach a learning strategy to struggling learners. This connection between my coursework and practicum experience helped me further develop my teaching methods and instructional strategies. In SPED 447 we learned about the strategies of instructing students on writing skills. I was able to use this knowledge to create an instructional program on how to write a paragraph for a student whose IEP goals targeted this skill. My program can be seen here. This program was only moderately successful due to the instructional time that was lost from student absences and other environmental factors. My reflection and results can be seen here. This semester I also acquired many skills in-group management. The school culture in my practicum placement can be extremely chaotic. Students struggle to follow rules, respect educators, and stay focused during instruction. I learned how to manage behavior through my interaction with students, by observing the various ways in which my cooperating teachers handled discipline, and by carrying out course assignments that allowed me to implement strategies and reflect upon them. At the beginning of the year I implemented a warm-up routine in my Algebra II class in order to attempt to manage the learning environment to get class started on time. My plans are laid out here. Due to the social nature of the students in 5th period, my cooperating teacher, her co-teacher, his student teacher, and I struggled to implement my program or find a solution that could

harness a calm, respectful learning environment. Although my program was a bit of a flop (my results and reflection can be seen here) I learned that sometimes controlled chaos is the best thing a teacher can hope for. After cycling through numerous different strategies and mostly failing, I was able to learn about different types of management and learn that with each day a new challenge can arise. I was able to reflect on the professional teaching standard of the learning environment and how to shape it. I was also able to carry out an entire lesson on my own in my sophomore English class in which I planned and later reflected upon my group management strategies as a teacher. My lesson can be seen here, my plans can be seen here, and my reflection can be seen here. This assignment allowed me to apply what I have learned in SPED 440 about positive reinforcements, consequences, and other behavior management techniques. Over the course of the semester I learned to recognize students for the simplest positive behaviors, which worked rather successfully when I implemented my Group Management Assignment with an engaging lesson over Animal Farm. My supervisors comments and observation notes can be seen here. This lesson allowed practice on the standard of instructional delivery. Due to my placement, in practicum, in an academic setting, I have learned a lot about content standards and standards based grading, which was covered in SPED 446. My practicum placement uses Standards Based Grading so I was able to see that in practice and how accommodations were made for students receiving special education services. My students were able to attain more success when the high school switched to an SBG system versus when they used letter grades. Standards based grading also allows for the planning of instruction to focus solely on the objectives for the students learning. This is an effective

way to plan instruction in order for your students to achieve success when assessment is delivered. This has allowed me to reflect on the general education standards for special education teachers. Overall, my content based knowledge that I have acquired in phase one and two has allowed me to carry out successful educational interactions in my practicum experiences this semester. I have learned how to work with different types of students, how to manage classrooms, and how to work with other professionals. I have gained even further experience with data-based decision making, progress monitoring (through my implementation of CBM strategies, like AIMS Web, which can be seen here), assessment, and RTI frameworks, all which I learned about in SPED 441 and hit on the assessment standard of teaching. Phase two has been an enriching experience in which I have acquired knowledge and strategies I will carry forward with me into my future as a Special Educator.