General Info On The Student: Mrs. Hollinger's Classroom

General Info on the student

The general information of the students varies. Mrs. Hollinger’s classroom ranges with different students that has different needs. Since it is a special needs classroom (not a general classroom), different factors come into play in her classroom: learning disabilities, physical disabilities, speech, etc. What I have seen the most is learning disabilities.

Class setting (where, teacher, type of classroom, etc.)

The class setting goes as follows: Ustach Middle School in Modesto; the teacher is Jennaca Hollinger; the classroom is a Special Needs classroom; and depending on the class period, she might be teaching a different subject (i.e.-Math, English, history, etc.)

Arrangement of the classroom/physical structure

She does not have traditional desks, but instead she has larger tables put together that fits 4-6 students per table. She sets up the room in stations with while forcing students to face in to each other at their tables. Each table has a separate draw on the end. The draw has pencils, markers, highlighters, paper, etc. I am assuming this is to make sure students always have what they need, regardless if they forget materials. She also does work with ipads with the students. The first thing I observed was her doing a warm-up with the students via ipads/google docs.

Number of special education students

This depends on the class, but normally 9-15 students for any given class. Some students are being mainstreamed, so she only has certain students for part of the day. Other students will be with her all day.

The overall feeling of how the class includes students with special needs

Her class seems to have a good environment/feeling of the classroom for the students. The students have good attitudes, and behavior seems to be pretty good. I partially attribute this to the fact that they she has three additional aids. Overall, the students seem to engaged in their learning and are very acceptable to

I feel that alone is an accommodation for specific students that may need one-on-one time. Also, she is able to break up the class in stations. For example, she will take a small handful of students (around 3 or 4), while another aid takes another group and the third aid work with a student individually. Breaking up the class in itself is an accommodation to make sure that the students get the attention they need—educationally speaking. Physically, the classroom is set up to accommodate certain students. For example, the set-up of the tables makes it very roomy. This is to make for wheel chairs easy accessible. On that note, the tables are tall enough to provide the same kind of accommodation.

Behavioral management techniques used

The classroom does not encounter many behavior problems. Again, I feel this has to do with having aids. Furthermore, her classes period is not very large. As a result, the ratio of student to adult is really forgiving. Between the three adults in the room, it is easy to monitor all the students in a productive way. Every once in a while, Mrs. Hollinger, or an aid, will make sure that the students are being polite to each other when discourse is taking place.

Short summary of your thoughts on what you