Melissa Blazejak

How has the professional development received through the graduate program empowered you to support the diverse needs of all students, advocate safe and ethical uses of technology, and develop cultural and global awareness?

I also like how Talking Books are becoming even more popular with the invention of the Kindle and other eReaders. These types of technologies are becoming even more inexpensive and this is very important for people who have vision impairment.   This research also taught me that blindness is a generalized term; there are numerous types of visual impairments and these technologies are very beneficial for people with this disability. “The term ‘blindness’ does not necessarily mean that a child cannot see anything at all. A child who is considered legally blind may very well be able to see light, shapes, colors, and objects (albeit indistinctly). Having such residual vision can be a valuable asset for the child in learning, movement, and life” (Center for Parent Information, 2014).

Another aspect of this program, in which I learned a great deal from, was how to differentiate a lesson plan for students with disabilities.  For EDU 582, we had to do observations (Appendix O) of co-teaching classrooms and see how both teachers handle the students differently. Then we had to write a lesson plan in which we had accommodations for our students based on what we observed.  Since Norwich doesn’t offer co-teaching classrooms, I observed a special education classroom and a regular classroom.  I than wrote my lesson plan (Appendix N) based on what I saw in the regular education classroom.  Since I did not have my own classroom at the time of this assignment, I used my previous students from the ELL as a reference. I based all of my accommodations on their needs as students.  

In retrospect, I wish I had taken this class sooner because some of these accommodations would have been extremely beneficial to my students, had I known about them before hand. 

In some instances, I was able to use some of the accommodations I had already been using in that class, while others were ones I wish I could have used.  Both of these assignments opened my eyes in terms of helping students with diverse needs.  

Finally, my research project does the best job at showing how I address the needs of my students and model a cultural understanding.  For addressing the needs of ELL learners, I have created a list of specific strategies (Appendix Y) used to help these students learn how to speak the language and excel in the classroom.  ELL students need to have “academic language and cognitively demanding skills required for classroom success” (Ferlazzo & Hull Sypnieski, 2014).  I based all my strategies around developing the academic language. One whole page of the website is dedicated to strictly academic language, while all the other strategies used can be applied to that topic as well.  By addressing the need and importance of academic language acquisition, ELL students will benefit greatly in an English-speaking classroom.

By providing a list of web resources (Appendix Z) I am able to provide other teachers with a cultural understanding of their ELL students.  Most of these resources either address how to teach the students, or provide information that the students can relate to.  A big part of ELL education is making sure that ELL students can relate what is being taught to their culture.  Providing teachers with the tools to help build their students’ background knowledge will also show the students that the teacher has empathy for the student.  Empathy is another big aspect in ELL education because it makes the student feel wanted and welcomed.  Without background knowledge or empathy, an ELL student has no motivation to learn!