The presentation from Michele Cahoon was very interesting. I know that I will be interacting and teaching students with Autism, so to get a deeper look at what that means was very helpful in preparing me for what is to come in my teaching career. After listening to Michele talk about the different types of Autism, the different ways that each student with Autism learns, IEP's, 504's, and how students with Autism need to be told what to do and what not to do in the classroom I felt overwhelmed. At first I thought, wow this is going to be hard. But then I realized that there are going to be so many of my students on IEP's and some will have behavior problems, some will have emotional problems and so on. I need to stop looking at these students as challenging and start looking at all of my students as challenging. Every child learns in a different way and I am not only going to have to try to accommodate students with Autism and behavior issues, I will be working with students who will all need some kind of accommodation with their learning.
I am going to volunteer this summer at Rotary Camp because I feel that the experience I will gain from interacting with children with Autism will help me to better understand what is helpful and what is detrimental when teaching students with Autism.
I think the presentation was awesome too Jackie. We haven't had much experience with students with Autism, and I feel like I learned more from Michelle than any intro to exceptionalities. I think it's awesome that you are volunteering at the Rotary Camp! I am so proud of you. That will be an awesome experience, and you will learn so much!
ReplyDeleteI was reading some more about teaching students with autism and I found this link. I think it goes with what Michele said.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.child-autism-parent-cafe.com/autism-students-in-inclusive-classrooms.html