CEC+standard++4

=CEC Standard 4=

My thoughts and reflections on standard 4:

I have three and a half years of experience teaching students with severe disabilities, and a breadth of knowledge from course work, experiences, and research on educating individuals within our field. I know the importance of creating preference assessments with all active members of each child’s life to develop an instructional plan. Within an instructional plan, I incorporate the use of applied behavior analysis, systematic instruction, prompting, and differential reinforcement, which are evidence-based practices in our field. The individual instructional plan should begin with the ultimate outcome, quality of life. A quality of life should look for meaningful and functional ways for the child to move towards independence, self-determination, and inclusive settings. When using the child’s strengths and weaknesses paired with his or her reinforcers collected from the preference assessment, I as an educator can help develop a plan which can be active during all settings of the child’s life. I know when the parents and other members outside of school are active participants in making decisions, the instructional plan is more likely to generalize and be maintained. Therefore the child is learning functional skills to become more independent in a variety of settings.


 * Artifacts **

**Task Analysis** ** The attached artifact is an instructional program I developed for a child within my classroom. I also used this same instructional program for the methods course. I used preference assessments with the child and interviews with family members to help target a meaningful leisure skill for the child. Therefore the family was interested in the child learning the skill, and they were willing to reinforce and teach the behavior at home. The skill of rolling a ball was innately reinforcing to the child because he touched and handled balls often, yet he did not yet know how to roll a ball back and forth with another person. I created a task analysis using prompting and differential reinforcement to teach the child how to roll the ball. These are evidence-based practices I used and the results demonstrate its effectiveness. **

** Standard 4 Instructional Strategies (IIC) ** Special educators possess a repertoire of evidence-based instructional strategies to individualize instruction for individuals with exceptional learning needs. Special educators select, adapt, and use these instructional strategies to promote positive learning results in general and special curricula and to modify learning environments appropriately for individuals with exceptional learning needs. They enhance the learning of critical thinking, problem-solving, and performance skills of individuals with exceptional learning needs, and increase their self-awareness, self-management, self-control, self-reliance, and self-esteem. Special educators emphasize the development, maintenance, and generalization of knowledge and skills across environments, settings, and the life span.
 * Knowledge ||
 * ICC4K1 || Evidence-based practices validated for specific characteristics of learners and settings ||
 * IIC4K1 || Specialized materials for individuals with exceptional learning needs ||
 * IIC4K2 || Prevention and intervention strategies for individuals with exceptional learning needs ||
 * IIC4K3 || Strategies for integrating student-initiated learning experiences into ongoing instruction ||
 * IIC4K4 || Resources, and techniques used to transition individuals with exceptional learning needs into and out of school and post-school environments ||
 * Skills ||
 * ICC4S1 || Use strategies to facilitate integration into various settings ||
 * ICC4S2 || Teach individuals to use self-assessment, problem-solving, and other cognitive strategies to meet their needs ||
 * ICC4S3 || Select, adapt, and use instructional strategies and materials according to characteristics of the individual with exceptional learning needs ||
 * ICC4S4 || Use strategies to facilitate maintenance and generalization of skills across learning environments ||
 * ICC4S5 || Use procedures to increase the individual’s self-awareness, self-management, self-control, self-reliance, and self-esteem ||
 * ICC4S6 || Use strategies that promote successful transitions for individuals with exceptional learning needs ||
 * IIC4S1 || Use research-supported instructional strategies and practices ||
 * IIC4S2 || Use appropriate adaptations and assistive technology for all individuals with exceptional learning needs ||
 * IIC4S3 || Use a variety of non-aversive techniques to control targeted behavior and maintain attention of individuals with exceptional learning needs ||
 * IIC4S4 || Identify and teach basic structures and relationships within and across curricula ||
 * IIC4S5 || Use instructional methods to strengthen and compensate for deficits in perception, comprehension, memory, and retrieval ||
 * IIC4S6 || Use responses and errors to guide instructional decisions and provide feedback to learners ||