Julia Larson Integrated Reflection Phase II *The highlighted sections are where the links to other assignments will

be on my webpage. This semester I was placed in a middle school working with students with intellectual disabilities in a resource setting. I worked with 6th and 7th grade students on English and Language Arts and Math. I have learned a lot this past semester, both from my students, and my co-operating teacher. My co-operating teacher taught me a lot about how to manage behavior in order to create the best possible learning environment for students. My experience with service-learning taught me about the effect that disability has on the development of an individual. My classes and my experience in IEP meetings have taught me about the importance of collaborative partnerships with the individuals I work with, including parents and other professionals. This semester I worked with a couple students who had significant behaviors that could greatly affect their learning if not addressed. One of the floating assignments I did this semester addressed these behaviors in the classroom. I did the group management assignment, and I focused on displaying expected behaviors rather than unexpected behaviors, and I used positive reinforcements to do this. I noticed a big change in my students after this was implemented. Activities started taking up much less time, because I didnt have to spend time addressing behaviors that distracted the students from their learning. Once we set up this system they knew what was expected of them and they were able to get focused and complete their work much faster than usual.

Since I am a part of the Access Grant, I took a class in high school servicelearning this semester. In our classes we have learned a lot about how to provide students with disabilities opportunities for intellectual, social, and personal development. I think that service-learning is really great outlet for this. When planning a service learning experience, its important to look at the goals of all of the students so that you can be sure to address those in the project. When planned right, all students can be involved in service-learning, but they will each have different roles that reflect the goals they are working on. When students with disabilities are working with their peers without disabilities there are many opportunities to work on social development. Service learning also contributes to students personal development because it allows them to be someone who is giving help, rather than just always receiving it. It was awesome to see some of the students with disabilities who were outsiders at the beginning of the service-learning project, become accepted by their peers without disabilities. This semester I also learned a lot about different strategies to use to collaborate with both other professionals and parents. I learned a lot from my collaborating with families class, my experiences at practicum, and my experiences with my mentor family. A lot of teachers struggle to form partnerships with the families they work with but this is something that is very important for a student to be successful. It is important to really look at each parent as the expert on their child, and also to view them as a partner. I think that the key to a good collaboration is communication. There are many different ways to communicate with parents so you need to ask the parent

which method they are most comfortable with. I think that some teachers may choose a method without asking a parent which they prefer and then this can lead to a lot of frustration. For example, if you only email and the parent doesnt have easy access to a computer this will be a big problem for them. The family that I mentored with this semester had really great communication with their sons teacher. They chose to use texting as their primary mode of communication and it allowed them to form a really great relationship. Another major key to successful partnerships is trust. One way to build trust with a family is to really listen to their needs and wants and actually following through on them, as much as possible. Parents are also more willing to trust professionals when they can tell that you truly care about their child and that you are there to support them. I have created a prezi along with some of my classmates that contains a several resources in the community that we gathered that we thought parents might be interested in. This prezi could be easily adapted depending on the family and the student. Depending on what type of disability the student has, only information on that type of disability would be included. Also, the prezi can be printed out in hand out form if the family does not have access to a computer. As a professional it is important to reach out to parents and other professionals and to actively try to improve partnerships. Overall, I have had many unique experiences this semester that have helped me identify things that I want to incorporate in my teaching. My service-learning class was a really great opportunity to learn other ways to include students with disabilities in a meaningful way with their peers without disabilities. The

collaborating with families class also taught me a lot about an aspect of teaching that I think often gets overlooked.