Anna Murack

Log 1: Analysis Paper

Throughout my time at this field placement, I feel like I have learned a lot and grown as a

future teacher. I was afforded the opportunity to work with students with disabilities ranging

from mild to severe and they provided me with many opportunities to address numerous

academic and social situations in the classroom. I was able to observe in this field a lot of what

I’ve read in this course and information I’ve gathered from class discussions. I believe some of

the biggest aspects of our in-class discussions and readings were seen through Intervention

Teams, Collaboration, and Grouping in my field.

Intervention Teams at this field placement consist of my Cooperating Teacher, the

General Education Teacher, Speech Teacher, the Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist,

Social Worker, Psychologist, and Para-professional. They meet annually for IEPs. This is

furthered by the special education teacher discussing the best ways for the kids to reach their

goals daily. They talk about what ways they need support and how and when to discuss the

matters with the parents. They send home Progress notes 3 times a year based on their IEP goals.

They discuss social, emotional/behavioral, academic, and physical aspects of the students. Those

are the different issues brought to the team to discuss and address.

Similarly, we’ve discussed the staff that generally make up intervention teams in a school

setting throughout this course. The people on the intervention team at this school seem to pretty

accurately make up the teams we’ve discussed in our class periods. Two examples of the work

these intervention teams do are the use of Behavioral Implementation Plans (BIP) and

Behavioral Implementation Teams (BIT). With BIP, the student is on a check in/check out
which means they send notes home every day on how the student’s day went. With BIT, there

are two teams that meet regarding behavior issues. One of the teams is based on the behavioral

aspect while the other is based on the educational aspect.

Regarding Collaboration, my Cooperating Teacher discusses designing and

implementation strategies as well as modifications and accommodations religiously with the

regular education teacher. She also discusses this with the members of the intervention team and

the paraprofessionals who work with the students daily and aid in implementing all the strategies

and accommodations/modifications. So, in this case, since my CT is the actual special education

teacher, she is consistently discussing these topics and ideas with the regular education teachers

of her students in order to assist them with support, ideas, feedback, strategies, etc. She herself, is

able to also receive those supports when meeting with the intervention teams because everyone is

offering ideas, suggestions, and the best strategies that would be most effective for individual

students.

We’ve discussed the importance of collaboration with colleagues in this course and how

vital it is to our own success as future educators in any setting, whether it’s general education or

special education. It’s always beneficial to educators and faculty members in schools as a whole

to be able to collaborate with colleagues and build off of one another to best meet the needs of

individual learners. This has been very emphasized through our classroom discussions and in our

readings from the class text.

Additionally, Grouping at this field placement is something I’ve noticed, has a similar

pattern as many of my other field placements I’ve had. At this field, they group based for the

most part, on their STAR scores, but sometimes they group higher level students with lower

level students. This enables students to build off of one another and learn at a more peer-to-peer
level. This can be incredibly beneficial to the success of students in both general and special

education classrooms. All students need to be met with challenges and need to be provided the

opportunity to socialize and grow from one another.

An area I think that could prove to be very beneficial in this school setting, is Co-

teaching. My CT explained that she looks at what the students are doing in the regular education

classroom and uses her classroom as a training for that classroom. So, this requires her to

continuously discuss routines, activities, progress, etc., with the general education teacher and

vice versa. This allows her to build on those skills in her own classroom that her students are

familiar with in the general education classroom. As for directly co-teaching in the same room

with another teacher, that is not used at this school. I do feel like it would be an excellent

opportunity for growth and development among the staff and students alike. I’d be very

interested to see how co-teaching would impact this school.

Overall, this field was an excellent learning opportunity in its entirety. After this field, the

classroom discussions, and the readings from our text, I feel I will be more prepared for

encountering a wide range of intellectual disabilities among my learners in the future. Children

can always be successful. It just takes patience, understanding, support, and guidance on our end

to help them bring out that success in themselves that we know they have.
 Reference

Hallahan, D. P., Kauffman, J. M., & Pullen, P. C. (2009). Exceptional learners: An

introduction to special education. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.