Andie Deschapelles

SERP 301

Interviews

12 October 2017

Interview #1 with Sarah Hitchings (general education teacher)

Question 1: Does this student’s placement support visual or hearing needs?

- “Yes, visual mostly. She doesn’t do a lot of writing on her own so when I am

introducing a new writing assignment I know she really relies on my modeling.”

Question 2: Is the student actively participating in the classroom activities rather

than just merely observing?

- “I think she mostly observes but I like to think the way I do things really

encourages her participation so, for example, when they talk to a neighbor.

That’s also another reason that she sits right close to me on the carpet because

I can check in with her group and I can kind of give her a heads up like ‘I might

call on you so be ready to share!’ So yes she participates, but she really needs to

encouragement too. “

Question 3: Have the special educator and the classroom teacher established

learning objectives together?

- “Not in a way that we’ve sat down and talked about it but our district requests

that she’s working on the same things that we are in second grade so its pretty
 parallel, just in a small group and maybe in a different way. But if we’re doing

characters, they’re doing characters, if we’re doing plot, they’re doing plot, it

just may look a little different.”

Question 4: Are informal assessments used to monitor learning for this student?

- “Yes, you know when we sit in small groups I can see where she’s at and can see

what she’s able to do on her own, that’s a really big informal assessment that I

use so I can make sure that she is keeping up with us.”

Question 5: Does the student ask and answer questions?

- “Yes, she definitely looks to others first though. She’s not very confident in this

area, but again if she is kinda set up and encouraged she will but sometimes it

takes a little more nudging.”

Question 6: Do peers understand how this student best communicates?

- “Yeah! That’s one of her strengths is her social-ness! Her friends all know that

she needs support and if she’s still working on something they’ll come over to

her desk and try to help her. And they don’t see her as being “low” at all they

just want to help her and be like ‘hey lets finish this so you can come with us!’”

Question 7: Do the schools administrators facilitate communication and

collaboration between special education staff and regular education staff?

 - “You know I feel like it’s just part of our culture here. I don’t think they do, but

its because they don’t need to. I mean there are emails that go back and forth

with the grade levels and the resource teachers but theres already a strong

communication system between everyone. Our new principal this year tries to

be at all the IEP meetings, so in that way he’s there to make sure that everyone

is working together for the student but other than that its already built in to

what we are already doing.”

Question 8: Does the administration encourage special education teacher to

regularly observe students in the inclusive classroom setting?

- “Not that I am aware of. They are so busy!! I do think they try their best to

though.”

Interview #2 with Alina Gastelum (special education teacher)

Question 1: Does this student’s placement support visual or hearing needs?

- “Yes”

Question 2: Is the student actively participating in the classroom activities rather

than just merely observing?

- “Yes. When she’s in here she is working on the skills that she needs help with, so,

for example, she really needs help with spelling and even writing a complete

sentence so even though everyone is working on the same assignment, when I

 am working with her I am only focused on giving her those focus questions

towards what I know she needs to work on.”

Question 3: Have the special educator and the classroom teacher established

learning objectives together?

- “Yes. So we communicate weekly by email what they are working on in class

and then really I wanna say almost every other day or daily we are talking. Like

I’ll say ‘Hey I noticed she was able to do this or oh my gosh she really needs help

with this.’ It’ll be either way where the teacher will come to me and say ‘Can

you really help her with this? She’s struggling’ or I’ll say ‘Hey, we’re doing this

and this is what’s working, try it in your class’ and sometimes the teacher will

say ‘That doesn’t work, lets think of something else!’ So we are constantly

communicating and I think that’s the biggest key, a good communication

system.”

Question 4: Are informal assessments used to monitor learning for this student?

- “Yes. I do different things like letter formation and everyday when they come in,

before they start writing, I have them their ABC’s capital and lower case, as

much as they can in a minute, and I’m measuring to see their progress on that

everyday, and that’s really informal. Even with math, I’ll have them write all the

numbers they can write to see that they are recalling and they are able to know

how to even form the numbers, that’s a big thing. Just informal tests like that.

Sometimes I’ll pull them to the side and just say ‘Count for me’ and they think
 they are just practicing. I’ll just say ‘Show me what you know, you’re coming

from class and I wanna know what you know and then I can see where I can

help you!’”

Question 5: Does the student ask and answer questions?

- “Yes, always! She’s very helpful. Because of the range that I have, she isn’t my

lowest. So when I have them all in a group sometimes and she’s gaining an

understanding of a skill, I can say ‘Hey can you go help this person?’ because I

really do believe that when kids help each other, that’s when they’re learning

the most, and if you can teach what you just learned, then you are learning it

even better! So I usually pair them up and have them explain things to each

other, and sometimes I have to jump in, but she helps very much. “

Question 6: Do peers understand how this student best communicates?

- “She’s pretty social. I think you can add that people notice that she needs more

help and in the group they are able to give that to her! They don’t shy away

from helping her and make her feel ashamed or anything and she’s always

smiling so she’s very receptive to it.”

Question 7: Do the schools administrators facilitate communication and

collaboration between special education staff and regular education staff?

- “Yeah! And that goes with when we have our staff meetings or when we have

our grade level meetings or even team meetings, that’s when the
 administration is aware that we are communicating. They come to our IEP

meetings so they are noticing how we are communicating with the teachers

and that the teacher is also implementing all of the accommodations and

things like that that we talk about at the meetings.”

Question 8: Does the administration encourage special education teacher to

regularly observe students in the inclusive classroom setting?

- “Oh yeah. I mean granted we don’t have the time to always be in there and

that goes with just communicating with the teacher and when we do have some

of those kids where they’re saying she really needs help I try to change my

planning and peak in their and am able to give the teacher some ideas because

I am getting a totally different experience with the child because it’s in a small

group setting.”

*The child does not use any technology at school so I did not ask any questions from

that section of the checklist.