EDUC 614

Advanced Individual Education Assessment

Description of Artifact
This course was also a waived course from UW-Eau Claire. The name of the waived course was
Advanced Behavior Interventions for Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities. I am
including two artifacts with this submission. The first one is my personal philosophy on Special
Education students with Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities. The second artifact is a group
project that presented a social skills lesson on recognizing loss of self control EBD Severe middle
school aged students.
My philosophy explains my personal beliefs when working with students with Emotional and
Behavioral Disabilities in regards to behavioral interventions, required educational
programming, and potential future outcomes. All educators working with these children need
to be educated on how to effectively work with these students in a positive way. These
individuals need the educators in their lives to be advocates for them, because many of them
do not have safe environments to go home to each night after school. I cannot stress enough
the importance of regular education and special education teachers using the same methods
and behavioral interventions with these students. Clear expectations need to be in place in all
areas of the school that these students are present.
The second artifact is a group discussion in a special education classroom dealing with self
control. Sometimes it is important for our students to act out specific scenarios to better
understand them. The key objective of this assignment is for self- recognition for internal
changes before they lose self control. This activity will help to manage each students self talk
and self control.
Professional Growth
During this course, I learned a great deal about IEP writing. One of the assignments of this
course was to create an IEP based on assessment. Included in this assignment, we needed to
identify current issues, identify the specific strategies and materials to be used, and to identify a
behavior monitoring system. This assignment made the educators in my class think about what
they were including in each students IEP.
The social skills lesson was a unique way of presenting this subject matter to middle school
aged students. The objective of this assignment was that the students recognized what was
internally happening with them so that they could prevent loosing self control. Our lesson was
one of four different scenarios presented to our class. This overall assignment gave our class
four different ways to effectively handle behavioral issues in our classrooms.
Impact on Student Learning
If we as educators use the social skills scenarios in our classrooms, the students get hands on
experiences that are definitely teachable moments. This idea has a very direct impact on
student learning. It is important when working with students with Emotional and Behavioral
Disabilities to teach social skills. The resources available to teach social skills are numerous.
The following is a list of Social Skills curriculum that I have used in the classroom: Lets Talk
About Life Skills, Getting Along With People, and Real World Social Skills.
In closing, I would like to include The Five Habits of the Highly Effective Teacher of Students
with Emotional Disturbance:
1. Seek FIRST to understand the student, then to be understood yourself.
2. Be Proactive! Write dynamic lesson plans with the individual students objectives in
mind.
3. Begin with the end in mind. Make the student responsible for their success or failure,
not you.
4. Think WIN/WIN Help your students see their glass half full!
5. Synergize! Create exciting and meaningful classroom experiences.
Application and Understanding of the Standards
Collaboration with other school professionals, parents/caregivers, medical professionals, and
local agencies will be beneficial for all of our students. Special education teachers can continue
to advocate for our students through collaboration with other educators, parents, and anyone
else that has consistent contact with our students. We can teach our student how to self
advocate, as well as educate their parents on how to effectively advocate for their children.
Assessment is a critical part of our job. When we individualize our students instructional plans,
many times the results of assessments are used to identify specific learning needs. Special
Educators should be assessing their students formally and informally.
Professional and Ethical Practice should be a part of our daily lives as educators. When I
became a teacher, I reminded myself that it would be up to me to be a lifelong learner. Being
aware of the legal issues involved in special education is an important part of our careers. It is
also my goal as a special education teacher to stay informed with current best practices in
education by taking continuing education courses or attending conferences on specific areas
that will make me a better educator.