“Education for a Lifetime of Learning”

SED 542/642 Curriculum Modifications in the Content Areas of ELA, MST, and SS

Class Day and Time: 5:30 to 8:15 p.m. TBA

Semester: Spring 2008

Instructor: Sandra Klimas

Phone: Work: 631-5777 Ext. 322

Home: 743-9474

Cell: 435-5867

Email:

Department Mission

The mission of the Education Department at Daemen College is to ensure that our graduates, through participating in active discourse and practica opportunities, posses the following: pedagogical knowledge; understanding regarding equity, diversity and exceptionality; professional skills necessary for reflective practice, thereby enhancing professional growth. In doing so, we believe that we graduate life long learners/teachers who, like all Daemen graduates, are prepared for life and leadership in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.

Department Philosophy

The Philosophy of the Education Department at Daemen College is to promote faculty and teacher candidate commitment to an established paradigm for life long learning. The Education Department’s learning community is committed to master teacher educator, professional, new teacher, and national education technology standards.[1] We believe that an active discourse regarding pedagogy (inclusive of the New York State Learning Standards) can be utilized to instill knowledge and professionally prepare teacher candidates. This discourse also fosters community understanding regarding equity and the needs of diverse and exceptional students. We further believe that practical opportunities to apply the learning community’s knowledge and understanding must be provided to all community members. Reflection within the learning community upon the results of assessment, in turn, inspires personal and collective growth. Our learning community exists within the Daemen College learning community and its wider constituencies, where resources, technology, support services, information, and due process rights empower both faculty and candidate.[2]

Course Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1.  Select, Administer, and evaluate the use of accommodations and modifications for instruction and assessment of students with disabilities

2.  Apply the concepts of accommodations, adaptations, parallel and overlapping curriculum modifications as well as service delivery modes for students with disabilities

3.  Analyze the general education curriculum to determine the features that make it accessible for the learner with disabilities

4.  Use a curriculum model for the severely disabled student and apply those skills to the NYS standards

5.  Administer the NYS Alternative Assessment for students with that accommodation listed on their IEP

6.  Research resources that will provide support to teachers in the field on the subject of modifications

7.  Deliver a staff development program to Parents, regular education staff on the course topics.

Requirements: Attendance is mandatory. Written work must be typed with accurate and appropriate grammar. Presentations must be professional.

Students must participate in classroom discussions while demonstrating respect for their classmates and instructor.

The required textbook for the course will be:

How the Special Needs Brain Learns by David Sousa. Corwin Press, 2001

Additional publications required:

  1. Students must also have a copy of the NYS Standards –purchased or down-loaded from SED website http://www.emsc.nysed.gov
  1. Students must also have a copy of the NYS Standards and Alternate Performance Indicators for Students with Severe Disabilities in the areas of ELA, MST and Social Studies at website http://usny.nysed.gov/students/nyslearningstandards.html

Assignments:

  1. Each student will find 3 web sites on the topic of curriculum modifications/accommodations. A 2-3 paragraph written synopsis citing the highlights of the web sites and the value for other classmates will be completed. Copies will be made for classmates and an overview of findings will be reported orally.

This assignment is worth 10 points in total.

  1. Each student will review and critique 3 articles from various educational journals and websites dealing with curriculum modifications for students with special needs. Students will share their findings will classmates orally. A copy of the articles with no more than a one page critique for each article should be handed into the instructor.

This assignment will be worth a total of 10 points.

  1. Each student will prepare 3 lesson plans, one for each area of instruction listed below.

·  ELA

·  Math, Science Technology and

·  Social Studies.

The plans should be developed for a regular education lesson. Specifics of the lesson plan content will be outlined the first day of class. The lesson plans must be emailed to the instructor.

This assignment will be worth a total of 10 points.

  1. After the lesson plans above are developed and submitted, they will be emailed to a different student where modifications to the lesson plans should be developed for a special education child with the following disability.

·  ELA- Provide accommodations for a child having reading disabilities

·  MST- Modify the plan for a student with ADHD

·  Social Studies-an overlapping curriculum for a student with severe disabilities.

This assignment will be worth a total of 20 points

  1. Each group of students will work on a staff development presentation for faculty and staff. The presentation will be based on 8 chapters from the text and delivered to the class on a designated date. The presentation should include the following.

·  A written lesson plan for the staff development experience.

  1. The goal of the plan should be to equip faculty and staff to accommodate for students with a certain disability within their classroom. The lesson goal should be designed on helping to make staff members aware of the difficulties that students with a certain area of a disability will face and strategies to assist these students with their quality of instruction and educational outcome.
  2. The objectives should provide faculty with the language surrounding the disability through a “definition sheet handout”.

A slide show presentation or packet should be prepared. It should include the difficulties students face along with researched-based strategies to work with students with disabilities for future reference. An activity that provides an opportunity for the staff to experience the disability should also be part of the lesson.

This assignment is worth a total of 30 points

  1. Student participation in this class will be worth 20 points.

[1] The faculty has adopted the Standards for Teacher Educators and has committed to an adapted version of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and the National Education Technology Standards as guiding standards for the Education Department of Daemen College in an effort to prepare teacher candidates to teach to the NYS learning standards.

[2] The above philosophy is derived in part from Section 4-2.5 Standards for Regents Accreditation of teacher education programs/ Standards of quality