Improving Collaboration Between Special Education and General Education Teachers

Summary:

The article explains the importance of general education and special education teachers working together in the classroom to create an environment that provides the tools and resources each student needs for learning support. It emphasizes regular communication, shared planning, flexibility in lesson design, check-ins, real-time feedback, and flexible deadlines so students have enough time to complete their work. The article also provides a roadmap for normalizing accommodations to help students become self-reliant and better understand support as a natural part of instruction.

Reflection:

My reflection on this article is that being open-minded to methods that help you address the core focus of the classroom, which is improving and moving the learning environment in the right direction for the student, is important. Helping eliminate distractions, improving retention of information, and being able to enjoy the process are things that students face every single day, and teachers face that challenge as well. A very key sentence within the article was about encouraging ownership of the role that you are in. I think that taking that approach every single day will help you move things in the right direction and face less frustration, especially when a student is not comprehending something and you have to think differently to find a way to get them to connect with whatever it is you’re trying to help them learn. There are a lot of things in this article that are extremely helpful, and I feel that teachers will find certain parts of it informative, especially if they struggle in an area like self-advocacy for the student and getting them to do better overtime and feel confident in their work.