My Classroom Observation Of A Special Day Class

For my first reflection, I chose to do it on Shannon VanWormer’s observation of a Special Day Class Moderate to Severe in the 3rd-5th grade levels. This observation was done on students who had Autism and Intellectual Disabilities. There was a total of 3 students in this class with one English learner. Right away in reading Shannon’s observation, I was very pleased that she was very respectful in the classroom and was welcomed by the teacher, his assistant, and the students. I found that it was very professional for her to introduce herself to the students and let them know why she was there and what her purpose was. Giving the students this insight was very kind of her and I’m sure it helped them in being more comfortable. As I continued reading,

This classroom included nine general education students, five students with exceptionalities, and one English learner. The types of exceptionalities that students had in this classroom ranged from; specific learning disabilities, visual processing, auditory processing, reading comprehension, conceptualization, attention processing, and ELL. I enjoyed reading Brittany’s observation and liked that the teacher gave very thorough instructions to his students, in regards to them writing their five paragraph essays. I’m sure it was helpful to the students to be able to either view the instructions on a computer or have a printed hand out of them. Sometimes, I prefer a hard copy of information like this, so that I can add any further details that I feel would be necessary to my success on the assignment. I enjoyed reading that the teacher checked for clarification of the assignment from all the students and took the time to go around the classroom and ask each student, what piece of literary work they would be choosing to write on. I wish there had been further information on what the special needs students responses were or how the teacher would perhaps, interact with them differently to help them understand the assignment better. Perhaps, there should have been more assistance with these students and or help, rather than leaving them to understand all the information as well as their general peers. Also, it was unfortunate to read that the English learners had no tools or other type of guidance in helping them understand the assignment or complete it to their best ability. It was good to read that the teacher allowed for some version of group work and discussion on the assignment, which I’m sure helped most the students to relax and do better on the assignment. Despite the teacher being new and not maybe having or