Alexa Knoderer 10/30/18 ED 243, Dr. Meyer Shadow Study Demographic Information: On October 30th, 2018, | visited Indian Creek Elementary in Lawrence Township. This township is located on the northeast side of Indianapolis. Indian Creek is one of 11 elementary schools in the district. This school hosts ‘st through 6th grade students and is considered an urban school. The general education class sizes range from around 26-34 students. Many of these students come from middle or lower socioeconomic status. The overall socioeconomic status of the community is a wide variety. Lawrence township covers parts of the Geist Reservoir, but then also includes impoverished neighborhoods. | observed Mrs. Harker, a fifth and sixth grade resource teacher. Ms. Harker's room was not much of a room. It was about the size of a bedroom with several tables for small group work. There was also a portable wall within the classroom. This allowed other special education professionals to be working in small groups or with individual students “without disturbing" the rest of the students. However, any other group working in this confined space would provide distractions. One of the students | observed in her room was very social but was very easily distracted by wanting to converse with others. At this point in time, there were three groups working in this small space, and one of the groups was visible to her. This caused her to attempt to talk to other students in different groups.Activities Done During the Day: Mrs. Harker does not have her own classroom students, but rather she assists other teachers in the education of students with disabilities. Mrs. Harker begins and ends her day with bus duty. She also assists in transitioning some students from special area classes back to their general education room. Throughout the day, Mrs. Harker usually has a few meetings. On the day | observed, | was lucky enough to get to see an IEP case conference. This was a really interesting experience, and | got to see first hand how the IEP process works. The members present were a special education teacher, the student's math teacher, the assistant principal, and a speech therapist. This case conference was a unique situation because not only was the student's homeroom teacher Mrs. Harker took notes and then promised to send an updated version home with the student. During her day Mrs. Harker pulls small groups of students out to work on language arts or mathematics. She has about 5 groups of this a day. On top of her daily tasks, Mrs. Harker also sponsors Indian Creek's Academic Team. They compete against the 10 other elementary schools in Lawrence Township, and they practice once aweek. Mrs. Harker does not have the traditional classroom teacher load of grading papers and writing lesson plans. Most of her plans are provided for her by the classroom teacher, and she makes adaptations and modifications as needed to support the individual students she is working with. Normally, she reviews a provided lesson plan and then tailors it to fit the unique needs of the individuals in the small group with whom she is working. Additionally, she spends most of her time outside of the school day working on IEPs. Itis always time for someone's case conference, and it may takeseveral revisions or adjustments to get itjust right. She often has to collaborate with several different professionals along the way to ensure that they plan properly advocates for the student. This is a very time consuming process that does not have scheduled time within the school day Classroom Management: Because Mrs. Harker is housed in a shared space and sees students only for about 50 minutes at a time, she did not have any obvious form of classroom management such as a class reward system or other reinforcement process. Additionally, she did not have any classroom rules posted on her walls. But the Indian Creek school expectations were posted throughout the room. When asked about classroom management, she says that because she only sees students for a short period of time, her behavior management is more about redirecting and refocusing students to the task. When students would get off task, Mrs. Harker would ask them a question to re engage them with the group. She also seemed to have a personal connection with each child, and when she requested something of them, they complied wilingly. | think the relationship piece was her biggest classroom management technique. She was able to tell if these students were having an on or off day and pushed them based upon this. Students who were having trouble paying attention were simply redirected The day prior to my visit, one student had a difficult day and said unkind things to Mrs. Harker. Upon reuniting with her on the day of my visit, he hugged her and apologized for his behavior. The student then proceeded to have a great day during his group time! He was really engaged and answered almost every question correctly.Reflection: This teacher utilize materials provided by the classroom teacher, and there wasn't much differentiation of materials throughout the group. | didn't see any students using assistive technology or accomodations during their time with Mrs. Harker. This is not to say that the students didn't utilize in the general education setting, but they were not utilized for the instruction that | observed. | am spectulating that this because she is helping prepare students for ISTEP as all of the worksheets given to students were multiple choice, and she only focused on language arts and mathematics throughout her day. However, she used a unique line of questioning for each child depending on what they were working on. For example, if one student was getting the answers correct, she would have him explain why his answer was right or why he chose the answer he did. Other students were just working on classroom behavior and general academic strategies. With these students, she would ask them to focus on a certain question and just deal with one question at a time. She taught them to cross off answers and define the word choices before picking the best one. While she was helping them learn the content of the worksheet, she was also helping them develop test taking strategies that will improve their learning in the long run, not just with grade level content. Lastly, Mrs. Harker and | discussed professional development in special education. She said that there had previously not been many opportunities provided by the district. The professional development she generally engaged in had been found and paid for by her, but that has been changing recently. Currently, Lawrence Township is sending more and more special education teachers to professional development.However, this development has been more testing and assessment based not always introducing new methods or technologies to use with students with disabilities. In her opinion, much of the professional development comes in the literature she reads and how she keeps herself in the know. As special education is a big interest, she recommends researching new developments in that realm. My time with Mrs, Harker was really informative, and shows me how an upper elementary resource teacher functions in Lawrence Township. Mrs. Harker has worked her way up and now has the opportunity to coach inclusion teachers on how to best include students with disabilities in their lessons. While her time with students isn't always exactly innovative and thrilling, her impact can be best seen in the general education room where students with disabilities are given the best environment to help them success. Mrs. Harker plays a HUGE behind the scenes role in this. | think | would eventually enjoy this role, but as a young teacher | really want to have more of a direct role with students and less about coaching adults. However, | don't think being a resource teacher in this capacity would be all bad. | know that assessment preparation will always be a component, and | think | could find new and inventive ways to increase engagement in students. | am also really passionate about advocacy work, so | enjoyed getting to see a case conference. | think | would really enjoy advocating for students in this way, and writing an IEP was one of my favorite activities from the semester! | look forward to taking this experience as | move through the rest of my time here at Butler. Overall, | am excited to enter the profession in special education!