Welcome to Wheelock! Session 1

1. Welcome to Wheelock!Session 1 Impact of Special Needs on Learning and Development: The Early Years Mini-lesson

2. Agenda • Introduction • Purpose of the courses EDU 240 and 393 • Explanation of my vision and Pedagogy • End products for SPE 240 • 3 reflectionpapers, • 1 paper about a category of disability, • 1 poster (or video) about inclusion • A symposium: Special Education in Singapore • Overview of special education (the promise, as well as inherent problems) – mini lesson • Reviewof syllabus and Assignment 1 – the history of special education

3. Setting the tone… • “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle

4. Expectations My Belief: Everyone is capable of learning and doing great things! What I Expect: The very best from you in terms of attention, effort, attitude, and products! What you can expect from me: 100 percent attention to your learning and progress Framework: Critical Thinking Key Performance Assessment: A dynamic forum during which you will demonstrate critical thinking skills as you engage an audience of parents, educators, policymakers, individuals with disabilities, pre-service leaders, friends and family on matters of disability in the U.S.

5. My Orientation to Teaching Source: Darling-Hammond, and Bransford, 2005, p.11 Learners and Learning in social contexts -human development -learning -language Curriculum and Subject Matter: Educational goals and purposes for subject matter content and skills Vision/ Professional Practice (framework) Instruction: -Teaching subject matter -Teaching diverse skills -Assessment - Classroom Management

6. How did I Derive my Expectations and Approach to Teaching?Dimensions of Learning An interactive processes that includes five types of learning: • Positive attitudes and perceptions about learning • Thinking involved in acquiring and integrating knowledge • Thinking involved in extending and refining knowledge • Thinking involved in using knowledge meaningfully • Productive habits of mind (Marzano, 1992 pp. vii) •  Video on wikispace: The Science of Learning

7. How did I Derive my Expectations and Approach to Teaching? TheBrain… • Is not static - it churns things around • Recombines invariant representations. • leads to entirely novel concepts, and these concepts can lead to action.  • Imagination, therefore, is a reinvention of that which we have experienced in new ways.

8. How did I Derive my Expectations and Approach to Teaching? Neocortex: A Preliminary Explanation • Our experiences are converted to Memories • Our memory pays attention to the unexpected

9. Neuroplasticity • The process by which neurons create new connections among themselves. • We can change the way the brain works by making a brain area more active through remedial training • New connections among neurons preserve memories and make learning possible, but they also fortify brain functions.

10. Critical Thinking Framework

11. Requires that we … • Examine how schools maintain status quo (in our case – separate education programs for children with and without disabilities. • Analyze and acting against reproducing the same skewed outcomes • Are committed to self-actualization • Reflect and take collective action • Work collectively with colleagues, students, and community to develop effective pedagogy that serves students’ academic needs • Illuminate students’ power, social potential and spirit of hope

12. Must Reckon with… The Politics of Difference - It creates a divide and conquer mentality that creates only temporary victories • Requires your daily engagement in the struggle for justice

13. How Knowledge is Traditionally Constructed in one of two ways… • Technical: • Empirical, analytical methods that can only be measured and quantified (usually in tests) • Practical • That which shapes daily actions in the world • Describe and analyze social conditions with the hope of helping students to develop practical skills that transfer into their roles in society

14. Critical thinkers construct knowledge in a manner that… Is Emancipatory • Creates the conditions for… • Social justice • Equality • Empowerment

15. How Might You Develop an Emancipatory Orientation to Learning? • Characteristics of Critical Thinkers • Key Source: Brookfield, S.D. (1987). Developing critical thinkers: Challenging adults to explore alternative ways of thinking and acting

16. Behavioral Characteristics of Critical Thinkers… • Demonstrate an awareness of the assumptions under which they (and others) think and act • Pay attention to the context in which they (and others) generate actions and ideas • Are skeptical of quick fix solutions, of single answers to problems, and to claims of universal truth • Are open to alternative ways of looking at, and behaving in, the world.

17. Critical Thinking Requires… • The suspension of belief • Jettisoning ideas that you accepted previously without question

18. Critical Thinkers Look for… • Concrete indicators that are directly observable • Behaviors • Actions • Situations • Evidence in outcomes

19. Critical Thinking Involves • Political Education – Understanding… • How power works • How things get done • Who controls the process by which things get done

20. Critical Thinking also involves… Affect • Feelings • Emotional responses • Intuitions Imagining alternatives

21. Cornerstone of the Critical Thinker’s Identity Critical thinkers take the reality of democracy seriously. They tend to: • Question the appropriateness of a certain technique, mode of production, or organizational reform • Ask questions regarding the activities of local, state and national government offices • Call for political leaders to account for their actions • Are ready to challenge the legitimacy of existing policies and political structures

22. Dispositions of Critical Thinkers • Are aware of the potential for distortion and bias in media depictions of their private and public worlds • Come to their own judgments, choices, and decisions for themselves instead of letting others do this on their behalf • Refuse to relinquish responsibility for making the choices that determine their individual and collective futures • Are actively engaged in creating their personal and social worlds

23. Central to the Notion of Critical Literacy… Need to develop a collective vision of what it might be like to live in the best of all societies and how such a vision might be practical (Kretovics, 1985, p.51).

24. Skills of Critical Thinking

25. Critical Thinking in Education • Emancipatory learning (Habermas, 1979). • Learners are aware of the forces that brought them to their current situation • Learners take action to change some aspect of these situations • Frees people from personal, institutional, or environmental forces that prevent them from seeing new directions and from gaining control of their own lives, their society, and their world

26. Critical Pedagogy requires an… • “Understanding the relationships between economic structures, culture formations, and social practices in the wider society and how they relate to the curriculum pedagogies in school and in the classroom” McLaren & Giroux, 1990, p.155)

27. I Expect that you would… • Ask and respond to critical questions • Engage in collaborative problem solving • Use your experiences as part of the formal course content • Constantly reflect, verbally and in writing, on a problem or theme • Consider and apply new perspectives to interpreting or reinterpreting familiar situations, problems or habitual behaviors • Test new ideas, solutionsand strategies • Take some observable actions

28. The purpose of this course…

29. Overview of Special Education Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCdR2vA1g20

30. What stories do you hear about people with disabilities?

31. The Learning Context for Children with Disabilities A few modern philosophers…assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism…With practice, training and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before. –Alfred Binet (1973) . Modern Ideas about Children.

32. Key questions we will examine: Why does educating children with disabilities matter?What does it look like to have a disability? How does each impact learning and development? What can we do to minimize the barriers that youth with disabilities face in social and academic settings?

33. Wrap up: A thought-provoking question… If you were to use this tree as a metaphor for describing the intent of special education what would you say?