Mapping the Special Programs

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Mapping the Special Programs

• Pam Armstrong-Vogel

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What do we mean by Special Program Maps?

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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Special Education Title I Talented and
Gifted English Language Learning

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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My Backgroundand First Teacher

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Special Programs maps enable educators to
demonstrate individualization of curriculum, for
which these programs were designed.

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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Why map the Special Programs?

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Teachers can view an overall plan of each
students curricular program at-a-glance
Communication opens doors for increased
interdisciplinary curriculum possibilities

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Mapping gives us the opportunity to demonstrate
how the special program curriculum aligns with
the district curriculum

Teachers can add curriculum units, activities,
etc., on an ongoing basis to keep curriculum up
to date and in real time
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What are the similarities of special program
maps?

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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Maps can also include activities and an
alignment to standards and benchmarks
Essential questions, content, skills, resources,
and assessments

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What are the differences?

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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In general education programs, content and skills
are delivered to the students at a specified
point in time.
This time frame is communicated in the map
through a unit or month format.
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When and how instruction is delivered depends
entirely upon the readiness of the individual
student and his/her interest and capacity for
learning at that point in time.
In the Special Program maps, time is a dependent
variable.

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Students in Special Education programs

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The percentage of students with IEPs in urban
member districts increased-from 10.8 in 1995 to
13.0 in 2003. The national average stayed
relatively stable at 12.7 in 1995 and 13.3 in
2003 Sausner, R. Children First, District
Administration, December 2004. p. 54-58

A significant percentage of our students are in
special education programs.
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Nearly 6 million students ages 6-21 are receiving
special education services.
67 percent have specific learning disabilities or
speech or language impairments.

Fewer than 12 percent have disabilities
associated with significant cognitive
impairments, such as mental retardation or
traumatic brain injury.
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One-fifth of special education students spend the
majority of their time outside regular
classrooms.Students in special education can be
found across the full range of academic
performance.

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For students with moderate, severe or profound
mental disabilities, proficiency looks different.

However, students still must have measurable
goals with increased emphasis on transitioning to
as independent a lifestyle as possible for post
graduation.
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NCLB and IDEABoth focus on the need to
demonstrate increased achievement for students.

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Students in Title I programs

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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Students who need additional support and
instructional interventions to meet grade level
proficiency as that of their peers in reading and
mathematics

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Students served in Title I reading and/or
mathematics are lacking skills that are
prohibiting them from being proficient in these
areas.

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Title I programs are to be structured so students
gain the skills and no longer require these
supplemental services.

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Students often have varying skill needs that
should be addressed

• In order to address the needs of individual
  students, we map the program for the students
  point of entry into the curriculum

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Special program maps enable the teacher to define
and communicate where each student is in the
curriculum at any given point in time.

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Students will learn concepts and skills at
different times of the school year and at
different rates.

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Take 5Examine the Special Education and Title I
mapsWhat do you see?

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We must have a commitment to individuality and
celebrate the special children and the array of
talents they can offer.

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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The curriculum-We consider the students first-
determining the content, processes and products
before we deliver instruction.

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Students who are English Language Learners

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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In the 2003-2004 school year, 5.5 million school
age children were English language learners, up
nearly 100 from a decade earlier

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Compared with native English speakers, ELL
students have higher dropout rates and
demonstrate significant achievement gaps on state
and national assessments (Snow and Biancarosa,
2003, White House Initiative on Educational
Excellence for Hispanic Americans, 1999.)

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We do ELL students a disservice if we think of
them as one-dimensional, based upon their limited
English proficiency.

Some read and write above grade level in their
own language, others have had limited schooling.
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Like native English speakers, English language
learners have differing levels of cognitive
ability
Some enter school highly motivated to learn,
others have had negative school experiences.

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Improving ELLs academic performance requires
implementing high quality, consistent, sheltered
instruction steered by research.

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A Coherent Framework-A well articulated
curriculum and assessment framework builds
coherently from one grade level to the next, from
basic elementary concepts, to more intermediate
concepts, to those more advanced. It is also
standards based and proficiency oriented.
What is needed?

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Judy Abrams and Julia Ferguson, teachers at
the United Nations International School in NYC,
Language Learners need direct secondary
language instruction. They need a program and an
advocate. Teaching Students from Many
Nations, Educational Leadership, Volume 62 No.
4 December 2004,

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Essential Questions to guide ELL
instructionWhat language lesson or practice do
my language learners need at their current stages
of skill development?

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How can I help learners adapt to the teaching
and testing styles of the dominant cultures
system?
How can I honor and understand my students
academic and linguistic backgrounds?

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What words are likely to be new to them?
What do my language learners already know?

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How can my students learn to participate without
feeling singled out or different?
What activities allow for visual, hands-on, or
sensory experiences of the content?

How can I allow the time required for each
student to develop academic proficiency?
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Students in Talented and Gifted Programs

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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According to National Excellence A Case for
Developing Americas Talent-In the regular
classroom, 84 of assignments are the same for
gifted and general education students

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GT students have mastered 35-50 of the
curriculum in five basic subjects before they
begin the school year.

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They get top grades without working hard.
The message society sends to students is to aim
for academic adequacy, not academic excellence.

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The need for a strong TAG program is
definitiveand the map is a means to showcase
the variety of curriculum that can be provided
and the content and skills that students are
working on.

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Take 5Examine the TAG and ELL mapsWhat do you
see?

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By looking at the BIG PICTURE, the entire scope
of the curriculum, and through appropriate
assessment of the student to determine what
he/she has already mastered-it is evident in the
map which content and skills the student is
working on and those that should follow, based
upon sequence of skills.

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The framework of time is essential to all
mapping. However, with special program maps, the
variable of time is just that - a factor that
varies.

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Teachers and those in the school will find it
helpful to keep a kind of running record
through a recording of student initials and dates
on the map each year to remind which students
worked on various content and skills and/or
activities.

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As a special programs teacher adds banks of
units, the curriculum offerings are increased.

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As a teacher increases the number of unit banks,
some banks may be stored in another file or map
for use some other year when a different student,
or group of students, is ready for that
curriculum.

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Continue to update the maps with additional or
revised-

• - Unit Banks- Activities - Resources -
  Assessments

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The mapping category that must be continuously
reviewed and updated is the Student category,
with student's initials and the dates the student
is working on the specific content and skills.

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The whole premise of good teaching is to not
teach kids what they already know.
In a classroom of students in special programs,
they are in special programs because they need an
individualized program.

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Differentiation
Individualized Curriculum

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Enables teachers to open up learning
opportunities for all students by offering varied
learning experiences.

Pam Armstrong-Vogel
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Helps teachers to understand and use assessment
as a critical tool to drive instruction.

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Adds new instructional strategies to teachers'
"toolboxes" introducing or reinforcing
techniques to help teachers focus on essentials
of curriculum.

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Meets curriculum requirements in a meaningful way
for achieving students' success.

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Principles for Fostering Equity and Excellence
in Academically Diverse Learners
Good curriculum comes first.

The teachers first job is to ensure a coherent,
important, inviting, and thoughtful curriculum.
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All tasks should respect each learner.Every
student deserves work that is focused on the
essential knowledge, understanding, and skills
targeted for the lesson. Every student should be
required to think at a high level and should find
his or her work interesting and powerful.

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When in doubt, teach up!Good instruction
stretches learners. The best tasks are those that
students find a little too difficult to complete
comfortably. Be sure theres a support system in
place to facilitate the students success at a
level that he or she doubted was attainable.

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Use flexible grouping.Find ways and time for
the class to work as a whole, for students to
demonstrate competence alone, and for students to
work with varied groups of peers. Using only one
or two groups causes students to see themselves
and one another in more limited ways, keeps the
teacher from auditioning students in varied
contexts, and limits potentially rich exchanges
in the classroom.

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Become an assessment junkie.Everything that a
student says and does is a potential source of
assessment data. Assessment should be an ongoing
process, conducted in flexible but distinct
stages, and it should maximize opportunities for
each student to open the widest possible window
on his or her learning.

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Grade to reflect growth.The most we can ask
of any person- and the least we ought to ask- is
to be and become their best. The teachers job
is to guide and support the learner in this
endeavor. Grading should, in part, reflect a
learners growth.Adapted from Differentiation
in Practice A Resource Guide for Differentiating
Curriculum. Grades 5-9 by Carol Ann Tomlinson
and Caroline Cunningham Edison (ASCD, 2003.

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TO TEACH EACH STUDENT from the point of entry
into our program and the curriculum should be our
goal for all students. It is essential that we
do this in the Special Programs.

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We should not ask What label do I give a
child?, but rather-What are their interests
and needs? What are their strengths?How can we
maximize access to the richest possible
curriculum and instruction? What would it take
to tap the motivation already within this
learner?What circumstances maximize the
students full possibilities?-Carol Ann
Tomlinson

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Our goal as educatorsTo help children discover
who they are and what they have to contribute to
our world. It is not for us to determine what
their destiny is to be.

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Our job is to open the world to them so they can
have access to what they need.Our task is to
help accomplish equity and the highest possible
achievement for all students.

Pam Armstrong-Vogel